Friday 10 December
Sieger Koder (Germany 1925-2015). The Jesus Table.
"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” (Matthew 11.19).
(Jesus is seated at the viewer's end of the table. The others are looking at him.)
Spiritual Journey,
by Wendell Berry
And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.
Isaiah 48:17 -19
Thus says the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you for your own good,
who leads you in the way you should go.
O that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your prosperity would have been like a river,
and your success like the waves of the sea;
your offspring would have been like the sand,
and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off
or destroyed from before me.
Psalm 1
Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Matthew 11:16-19
‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”;
the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!”
Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’
Yet once again, I pray;
From my debt of sin set clear,
For I have naught to pay:
Speak, O speak the kind release,
A poor backsliding soul restore;
Love me freely, seal my peace,
And bid me sin no more.
A hardness o'er my heart;
But if thou thy Spirit shed,
The stony shall depart:
Shed thy love, thy tenderness,
And let me feel thy softening power;
Love me freely, seal my peace,
And bid me sin no more.
— Charles Wesley.
Psalm 1. Composition by Dr. David Erb, of New Saint Andrew's College and Christ Church, Moscow, Idaho.
May the Lord, when he comes, find us watching and waiting. Amen.