Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and, found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:7-11
We are accustomed to these words, having heard them multiple times over the years. But read them slowly today. They are stunning! That the Son of God took flesh to restore us to the fullness of grace! All Creation must bow to that Infinite Love.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We let the immense truth of this reading sink into our souls. We rest gratefully in its reality, its daily Presence and invitation to us.
Poetry: On the Mystery of the Incarnation – Denise Levertov
It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart: not to a flower, not to a dolphin, to no innocent form but to this creature vainly sure it and no other is god-like, God (out of compassion for our ugly failure to evolve) entrusts, as guest, as brother, the Word.
Brothers and sisters: If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Philippians 2:1-2
In our readings today, both Paul and Jesus advise believers on how to live in rhythm with the Gospel. When we love, support, invite, forgive, and encourage one another’s faith, we will find true joy.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We ask for the strength and insight to love as Jesus loves. It’s not easy because people can be deadly dull. We can be deadly dull. But if we strengthen our hearts on the heart of the Gospel, we will learn to truly love.
Poetry: from Winnie the Pooh – A.A.Milne
“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh. There was a pause. “Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet. “No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend. “What are you doing?” asked Pooh. “Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either. “But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”
And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”
Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” Matthew 12:38-41
In my old Baltimore Catechism, the Church, or the Communion of Saints, was divided into three levels: the Church Triumphant, The Church Suffering, and the Church Militant.
Those terms, steeped in 19th century culture, have been softened a bit today: The Church Triumphant, the Church Expectant, and the Church Pilgrim
Having just celebrated All Saints (Triumphant) and All Souls (Expectant), today’s readings give us ironclad advice on what is required of us, the Church Pilgrim.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray to hear and respond to today’s readings: JUST LOVE! And that should be taken in two ways: only love, and love justly.
Poetry: Five Dialogues on the Greatest Commandment – Malcolm Guite
The poet and God have a conversation about his readiness to live the Great commandment.
Five Dialogues 1: With All Your Heart With all my heart? You know my heart too well, It’s Yeats’s rag and bone shop. Will it do To start my loving in that little hell, Closed on itself and still excluding you? Could I not offer you some empty room, Some small apartment full of light and air, Some portion of my life, above the gloom, But not this pit of pride, not this despair.
Only your heart will do. Let me begin, To break the ground and plant a seed that grows Up through the closing darkness of your sin Till your unsightly roots brings forth my rose. For I have learned to make the broken true Since my heart too was broken once for you.’
Five Dialogues 2: With All Your Soul With all my soul? I scarcely know my soul. The age I live in doesn’t think it’s there, They cut me up, where you would make me whole, And think your promise only empty air. They say I’m hormones, chemical extremes, Enzymes unwinding blindly, selfish genes, Just empty gestures and repeated memes. With all my soul? I don’t know what that means.
Before the first life stirred my spirit called you, I knew you when I wove you in the dark, I made you more than all the forms that mould you, And kindled in your depth my hidden spark So let them say your soul is empty air, Love with your soul and you will know it’s there.
Five Dialogues 3: With All Your Strength With all my strength? What little strength I have Is shadowed by the instruments of death. I crawl from dawn to dusk towards my grave As frail and fleeting as my every breath, And all the strength of broken humankind Seems only spent on pain and cruelty, To magnify the malice of the mind And crush the poor in deeper poverty.
And that is why you need to love with strength, And offer all that little strength to me, That you might let me mend it, till at length We bear the weight together, set you free, As one who knows how all is borne above, And meets all malice in the strength of Love.
Five Dialogues 4: With All Your Mind With all my mind? With all my open questions? My restless questing after hidden truth? With all my science, all my suppositions? My search for certainty, my lust for proof? With all my mind? its logic and obsession, Its wordless reveries, its language games, Its reason and its deep imagination Its mysteries, its riddles and its dreams?
With all your mind, with every gift I gave you, For every drop of truth is drawn from me. Not that your mind itself will ever save you, But that it lives within my mystery. Ask and be answered, seek and you will find I am the life of every loving mind.
Five Dialogues 5: Your Neighbour as Yourself My neighbour as myself? I cannot learn To love myself at all. I look away, The dark glass only shames me and I burn At what should never see the light of day.
I’ll be the judge of that, for in my light Judgment and healing meet you equally. The self you loathe is precious in my sight And I will have you love it into me. You and your neighbor, both must made whole. Her heart’s as dark and needy as your own, So you must love her in her hidden soul, The very soul she’s trying to disown. Love her as you are loved and you will find Love is your heart, your soul, your strength, your mind.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart about as sparks through stubble; they shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord shall be their King forever. Those who trust in God shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with God in love: because grace and mercy are with God’s holy ones, whose care embraces the Elect. Wisdom 3:7-9
All Souls Day is a glorious feast, and yet it is threaded with a tinge of sadness. We remember those we have loved and lost into the incomprehensible dimensions of eternity, into an infinty of Love.
The gifted Wisdom writer consoles us with the verse we are all so familiar with from many funerals:
The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.
Wisdom 3:1
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We place our trust in God’s promise to hold our beloveds in tenderness until we see them again.
Poetry: from John O’Donohue
Though we need to weep your loss, You dwell in that safe place in our hearts, Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn Brightening over our lives Awakening beneath the dark A further adventure of colour.
The sound of your voice Found for us A new music That brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze Quickened in the joy of its being; You placed smiles like flowers On the altar of the heart. Your mind always sparkled With wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief, Your spirit was live, awake, complete.
We look towards each other no longer From the old distance of our names; Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath, As close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes, We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face, Smiling back at us from within everything To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory, Where we would grow lonely without you. You would want us to find you in presence, Beside us when beauty brightens, When kindness glows And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth, Darkest winter has turned to spring; May this dark grief flower with hope In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us: To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love Until we see your beautiful face again In that land where there is no more separation, Where all tears will be wiped from our mind, And where we will never lose you again.
Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” Revelations 7:14
The Book of Revelation conveys stunning and sometimes confusing images, but the image of the Blessed wrapped in white robes is very clear. These are the ones who haved witnessed, endured, and remained faithful. These are the saints.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: In the presence of the saints, we pray to many of our departed favorite saints, whose lives witnessed something which speaks to our own. We have lived, and are living beside some of them right now. But the purpose of the Book of Revelation is to pose this question to its readers: Are you becoming one of them. Will you wear the white robe of belonging fully to God?
Poetry: God Make Us Saints – Vachel Lindsay
Would I might wake St. Francis in you all, Brother of birds and trees, God’s Troubadour, Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor; Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men, Come, let us chant the canticle again Of mother earth and the enduring sun. God make each soul the lonely leper’s slave; God make us saints, and brave.
Music: When the Saints Go Marching In
For those of my readers not from the Philadelphia area, this is a clip of the Quaker City stringband as they prepare for our famous Mummers Parade on New Year’s Day. You will notice the brooms in some of the dancers hands. These are to sweep out the old year and begin anew.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned. But I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Luke 13:34-35
Scripture often uses the image of wings to convey the sense of divine protection as in Psalm 91:4:
You will cover me with your pinions and hide me in the shadow of your wings.
In today’s reading, Jesus expresses his desire to love and protect us in this way. Yet some, by their life choices, remain unwilling.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We gratefully nestle in God’s grace and protection asking that our lives be transformed in that Holy Shadow.
Poem: Peace – Gerard Manley Hopkins
When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?
O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite, That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo, He comes to brood and sit.
Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’
Our own lives are the narrow gate through which we pass into eternal timelessness. In this passage, Jesus calls us to be strong, keeping our eyes fixed on what may seem distant, but is as close as our next choice.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We pray for the courage, strength, and insight to recognize God’s Presence so that God will fully recognize us.
Poem: The Narrow Way – Anne Brontë
Believe not those who say The upward path is smooth, Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way, And faint before the truth.
It is the only road Unto the realms of joy; But he who seeks that blest abode Must all his powers employ.
Bright hopes and pure delights Upon his course may beam, And there, amid the sternest heights The sweetest flowerets gleam.
On all her breezes borne, Earth yields no scents like those; But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.
Arm—arm thee for the fight! Cast useless loads away; Watch through the darkest hours of night, Toil through the hottest day.
Crush pride into the dust, Or thou must needs be slack; And trample down rebellious lust, Or it will hold thee back.
Seek not thy honor here; Waive pleasure and renown; The world’s dread scoff undaunted bear, And face its deadliest frown.
To labor and to love, To pardon and endure, To lift thy heart to God above, And keep thy conscience pure;
Be this thy constant aim, Thy hope, thy chief delight; What matter who should whisper blame, Or who should scorn or slight?
What matter, if thy God approve, And if, within thy breast, Thou feel the comfort of His love, The earnest of His rest?
Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.” Luke 13:18-19
These poetic words of Jesus paint a picture of heaven filled with humility, hope, vitality, possibility, and Divine hospitality. Our hearts are the gardens where God plants this mystical seed! Amazing!
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We pray to have a holy longing for the heavenly seed God’s offers us. We pray to be loving gardeners of God’s indescribable gifts of faith, hope, and charity.
Poetry: God’s Garden by Dorothy Frances Gurney
The Lord God planted a garden In the first white days of the world, And He set there an angel warden In a garment of light enfurled.
So near to the peace of Heaven, That the hawk might nest with the wren, For there in the cool of the even God walked with the first of men.
And I dream that these garden-closes With their shade and their sun-flecked sod And their lilies and bowers of roses, Were laid by the hand of God.
The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth,– One is nearer God’s heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth.
For He broke it for us in a garden Under the olive-trees Where the angel of strength was the warden And the soul of the world found ease.
Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Ephesians 2:19-20
As we celebrate the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, we reflect on the long history of faith we have inherited. We think not only of those ancient brothers and sisters, but also of the more immediate members of our own families and communties who have formed us in the faith.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy: We give thanks for all those, especially those dear to us, who have transmitted and nurtured faith in our hearts.
Poetry: To Mother – Thomas W. Fessenden
You painted no Madonnas On chapel walls in Rome, But with a touch diviner You lived one in your home. You wrote no lofty poems That critics counted art, But with a nobler vision You lived them in your heart. You carved no shapeless marble To some high-souled design, But with a finer sculpture You shaped this soul of mine. You built no great cathedrals That centuries applaud, But with a grace exquisite Your life cathedraled God. Had I the gift of Raphael, Or Michelangelo, Oh, what a rare Madonna My mother's life would show!
Music: The Church’s One Foundation – written by Samuel John Stone in the 1860’s
Lavish Mercy 