Climbing In Through the Side

A Reflection for 2^nd Sunday of Easter                                    All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC April 3, 2016                                                                        Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Acts 5:27-32                Revelation 1:4-8          John 20:19-31             Psalm 150

Climbing In Through the Side

 

Caravaggio  Incredulity of Thomas

I don't know about you, but I have had those moments when I wish I could have a “do-over” -those moments when the words are out of my mouth but not out of my memory, and  I want time to stop and go back, grab back those words or deeds, and pretend they never left my barely- conscious motivations. The excuse “It seemed like such a good idea at the time!”  just doesn't cut it. Those humiliating moments haunt my life at the “2:00 in the mornings” of my soul, and I want to hide from them. I find the only way to exorcize those moments is to confess them to a loving person as part of my flawed character, and we use them as part of the healing of my sin of pride. It is when I am able to laugh at the foolishness of those moments, when I was pretending to be something I am not. Laughter at our own foibles is the beginning of sane wholeness; denial is the descent into insane fractured living.

Let me tell you of one such moment that I can now laugh at. In seminary my field placement was on the University Chapel staff, helping out with the Liturgy and ministering to undergraduates. The Chapel was the size of a standard cathedral, and the liturgy was always quite grand. As a seminarian, I wanted to show that I was in my element, in case the job of Dean of the Chapel came open when I graduated. I did not want to be a parish priest; I wanted to be part of an academic community, and I had so many ideas about my own dignity.

The chapel was built in a cruciform shape, the shape of a cross. The top of the cross, the liturgical east end, was the high altar against the wall - magnificent!  There was a big brass altar railing to keep the riffraff from getting too close to the holy space. Then there was a long quire area where the choir stalls, the Chapel Staff stalls, and the huge organ consoles were, with a pulpit, high above contradiction,  on one side and a lectern on the other facing the nave, the seating area for the congregation which could accommodate 1250 people. Seating in the quire and chancel could hold 150 people. Then there was the crossing of the nave with transepts in the liturgical north and south ends. The distance from the west wall to the east wall was a little more than 2/3 of a football field. There was a tower that had a carillon whose bells had a combined weight of 23 tons, with the largest bell, the Great Bourbon, weighing 7,500 pounds. The Chapel is called All Saints Chapel, and it was a perfect fit for my ego at the time. 

As the Prayer Book had changed, there was a temporary accommodation for a free standing altar with a wooden platform at the head of the nave with about 4 or 5 levels. On one such occasion I was wearing my new boots, bought with my library work study money, and this was their first day out of the box. I was on duty as a Chalice bearer, one of two people giving out wine, and I was walking up the platform steps to refill my chalice when the tip of my boot caught the edge of the step and I fell down flat behind the altar. The organ was playing and the choir was singing an anthem so no one could hear, but all I could think of was  “Did anyone hear the words that were coming to my mind as I was falling? Did I actually say those words?” With wine dripping off my beard staining the front of my robe, I refilled the now really empty chalice, and wrapping myself in my tattered dignity, resumed the task of giving out of the wine.

It was one of the best things to happen to me, for I started to take myself less seriously. It is now a small source of pleasure that I find so much joy in this All Saints’, which can only seat a seventh as many people as the All Saints Chapel, for this place perfectly emphasizes the community gathering for worship rather than the majesty of a religious institution.

I have a fondness for the Disciple Thomas, who is referred to in today's Gospel reading from John. The name Thomas comes from a word meaning “twin”.  In some ways, Thomas is my spiritual twin. If there is a symbolism in the choice of names, Thomas may have seen himself as the “twin” of Jesus when, earlier in John's Gospel, Thomas made all sorts of ego-boosting statements when Jesus was still alive. He had bragged that he would join Jesus in his death, but he had fled like all of the others. Filled with guilt about his ability to measure up, he let that guilt get in the way by not meeting with the disciples on the first week. He agreed to meet with them the second week but told them that he found the story of Jesus' resurrection hard to swallow. He comes to the meeting, and his challenge is answered by the Resurrected Christ. This Christ does not make fun of him, but lovingly take seriously Thomas' need to come closer to relationship with the source of all life. Thomas, knowing that he is no longer the center of his universe, affirms that the Christ is now his Lord and his God. I like to think that he was called Doubting Thomas in response to his friends laughing with him, not at him, about the time he let himself get in the way of a relationship with a full life.

Thomas' life changes, and there is nothing else in scripture to tell us of his life. But tradition tells us that Thomas went to India where he was martyred in 72 AD. The Mar Toma church in India traces their founding to his ministry in the same way Rome traces its founding to Peter. Thomas was the Doubter, and Peter was the Denier, weak people who find their strength in the loving embrace from their Lord. We are all weak people, and we are all people who find our true strength with the one who allows us to receive his loving embrace. 

Climbing In Through the Side (poem)

Thomas looks back at that moment asking,

“Why only ask to put my hand in his side,

fingers in nail holes; when  need to abide

fully in him, claiming a life I am seeking?

Can I enter fully into his pain and sorrow

for this broken world acknowledging all

instead of hiding outside as on a far atoll

hoping it will all go away some morrow?

But this is the morrow, now is a moment

of decision to wake from a walk sleeping

status-quo to arise to share love keeping

for all of us broken trying for atonement.

Leaving all resentment behind as clutter,

hearing words of peace, in him I do utter.

Easter Rising

A Reflection for Easter Sunday                                   All Saints Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC March 27, 2016                                                           Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 65:17-25    1 Corinthians 15:19-26    Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24    Luke 24:1-12

Eater Rising

One of my favorite lines of poetry is from William Butler Yeats in his poem about the Easter Uprising in Ireland on Easter Monday, the 24^th of March 1916. The uprising ends in the short term tragically for the rebels but it the beginning of a new spirit which ends in the long run in freedom and dignity. There is a refrain “All is changed, changed utterly; a terrible beauty is born.” Even those people who were not “good” people were changed. Yeats writes:’

This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today, Easter Sunday, a prophet from the school of Isaiah is speaking to the exiles who have returned from Babylon. Scholars suggest that the Book of Isaiah is written over the space of a couple hundred years. The founder of that prophetic school works in the 8^th Century BC was hearing the same messages of those contemporary prophets, Amos, Micah and Hosea whose central message was “What does the Lord require of you; to do justice, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Isaiah of Jerusalem continued warning the Northern Kingdom of Judah to not follow the path of the Southern Kingdom of Israel whose greed and corruption exploited the weak and powerless and undermined justice and mercy. That Kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BC and the people went into exile. The Southern Kingdom was able to withstand the Assyrian assault and tried to reform. The prophecies of this founder of the school are contained in chapters 1 through 39 of the Biblical Book of Isaiah.

The school of Isaiah continued to treasure and repeat Isaiah’s visions and warnings as joined with other prophets of that era Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Nahum and Habakkuk. However, the patterns of exploitation and corruption came back until the Babylonians conquered the Northern Kingdom and took its leaders into exile in Babylon in 587 BC.

The School of Isaiah changed tact and tried to minister to those in Babylon by urging them to hold on to hope for a return to the Promised Land where they could try to follow God’s justice, mercy and love. Those love songs of God’s promises of deliverance are found in Chapters 40 to 55 and these messages were supplemented with prophetic visions of Ezekiel. These are the songs that formed the basis of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus came to his people who were under the yoke of Roman oppression and sang to them of a hope of something yet to come where God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Babylon falls in 539 BC, conquered by the Persians and the exiles are allowed to return home. However, the returning exiles keep forgetting that they had been given the stewardship of the promise from God when they were returned to the community and their stewardship was humility with God, justice and mercy for those whom much has been given by God, much is expected.” The school of Isaiah raises up a new generation of prophet to speak to a new situation and these urgings are conveyed in Chapters 56 through 66. This is the time that other prophets Haggai, Zechariah, Obadiah and Malachi were hearing similar messages from God. These love notes from God are a reminder that God is recreating something new. We did not come back in order to do the same old thing over and over again. where the predatory nature of humans, which the poet uses as the imagery of wolf, lion and snake, will no longer take advantage of the weak and innocent, the lamb and child. The Prophet sings: “for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. . . They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.” The past is gone and forgiven and the future is a new beginning. The old past is dead it is time to live fully into God’s peace, God’s Shalom, in the present time. “All is changed, changed utterly; a terrible beauty is born.”

The Psalm for today is a Thanksgiving Psalm and starts off with “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his mercy endures for ever. Let Israel now proclaim, "His mercy endures for ever. . . . .The stone that the builders have rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” God’s mercy is so great that the past, the rejected stone, has been changed by the forgiveness. Forgiveness is not just ignoring the past, overlooking it, but entering into a new depth of relationship. The old past is dead and it is time to live into God’s peace, God’s Shalom, in the present time. “All is changed, changed utterly; a terrible beauty is born.”

Jesus continues this prophetic tradition of stewardship of justice and mercy. Luke remembers Jesus telling a parable which ended with “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” This is the message of the resurrected Christ on which the followers of Jesus bet their lives and they continue the practice of their Rabbi Jesus and preach and live peace in the present time. They proclaim, “All ( did you notice the number of prophets over hundreds of years) the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." The past is dead it is now time to live fully into God’s peace in the present time

In the Gospel story for today the women come to the tomb and find it empty and when they enter in they find two beings in dazzling clothes who ask them: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen.” In essence the women are told; “The old past is dead and it is now time to live into God’s peace, God’s Shalom, in the present time. All is changed,/ Changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” 

 

The disciples however did not initially believe all has changed is possible, especially boundaries between life and death, and Jesus has to do a couple more visitations before they come to understand. Some of you come like those disciples not sure if you believe that a new life is possible where the past is redeemed and the present calls us to live into God’s peace, God’s Shalom. I am encouraged to know that that Peace, that Shalom, that freedom from the past is not based on merit but on God’s abundant Grace. As I look deeply into the dark parts of my soul, I see more than a little of the man Yeats called “drunken vainglorious lout who has done most bitter wrong” and it can be time to resign my part in our casual comedies and live into a new life of God’s Shalom.

Easter Rising  (poem)

Peter had heard many myths of the treasure

is only found in entering the monsters caves.

Fearing deep mysteries of his heart’s waves,

he leaned into the tomb finding no pleasure.

It’s empty as his soul with cloth remnants,

old of a lover whose body has been moved.

Blood stained clothes which only proved

bitter wrongs fury for a thirsty vengeance.

Empty tomb is not proof of any new rising,

having to walk back home to join the others

joining entering caves of hearts of brothers

united in finding some meaning surprising.

It’s the gathering of faithful of two or three

remembering a promise made long before

by the lover saying when what they ask for,

intercession of community’s heart felt pleas.

He vowed he‘d be there in the midst of them

changing with his own sacred breath theirs.

Of his father’s kingdom they are now heirs,

stewards of heaven’s will on earth to come.

Christ is in that space between them arising

bringing treasure of beauty comes to us here

as sisters, brothers share what we hold dear

sends us all out with the spirit’s energizing.

Palm Sunday Poem

 I do not usually Preach on Palm Sunday since the reading of the Passion is preaching enough but this is a poem reflection I wrote for what I would have said:

Palm Sunday (poem)

Holy week begins with a Hosanna; a cry celebrating

Divine help with moving, waving palms and singing

about how grateful we are. Then a moving to hating

cries of “the hell with him!” Outside the wall taking

in line wishes to place him outside of law, “Crucify!”

Becoming not the hero but the scapegoat, a fall guy

for all of our projections, helping anxiety to justify

why a life beyond our wishes has bid us a goodbye.

Still thinking somebody somewhere has got to pay,

the pullers of power's strings teach us how to bray

hatred for the savior who we are allowed to betray

that in an impotence we do deny, cast a vote to stay.

Ignoring of whose we are myriad son and daughter,

with our feet still damp from the foot washing water,

ready to trade our savior’s life for that of a marauder,

we give in, join the march, be witness to a slaughter

Why did he not fight back, return jeer for jeer, hate

for hate? I know how much ego thrill tis to retaliate

and lash back, How difficult revenge is to repudiate,

at the same time the God inside all us to substantiate.

Cheer and jeer, on same day we do both! Why you'd

think souls get a whiplash nailing him to hardwood?

We have cause to tremble, tremble at cross we stood,

five days later, walking a path to day called “Good”

Alice Comes Home

A Reflection for V Lent        All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, N.C.                         March 13, 2016                    Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 43:16-21 Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8 Psalm 126

Alice Comes Home

Several weeks ago when I first started planning the reflection for this Sunday service, I noted the theme of “coming home” in the readings. I chose the song “Softly, Tenderly Jesus is Calling” as one of our hymns for today, and I thought I would use it to underline that we as Christians are always “coming home” in this life. Years ago, I did not like that song - I considered it sloppily sentimental, maudlin, and beneath my precious intellect and sophisticated theology - but during the previous week I heard the song haunting my brain, and I found it coming unconsciously to my lips and I found comfort from it. I asked Steve, our organist, if we could substitute it for our previously-selected first hymn, and he suggested that we sing it for the offertory since Keith, the Lutheran Pastor, was going to be playing at the later Sunday service.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson is a song from the prophet Isaiah to the exiles from Babylon coming home to the land of promise. The Psalm for today is another “Song of Ascent”, a pilgrimage psalm sung by faithful people coming to the Temple to come home to God. The Epistle from Philippians has a theme of finishing the race, “coming home” to God's Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I figured that the Gospel could be spared for this Sunday, except for a line that I had ignored about the perfume being used for the anointing of Jesus' body for burial. He was also “coming home”.

On late Thursday afternoon of last week I realized that there was a synchronistic reason I was given that song as an ear-worm to sing. I had received word that my brother-in-law's sister, who is also an Episcopal Priest, had died that morning. Alice Irene Sadler, known as “Mother Alice” by the people in her home churches, had died in her sleep, and people became concerned when she had not shown up for the morning services. She had never, never, missed a service in her fifteen years of ministry. She had “come home”.

Alice grew up in a religiously active Presbyterian church with weekday family devotions and church attendance twice on Sundays. There was something different about Alice though for when she was eleven years old, her father was volunteer ushering at a Billy Graham Crusade event and while she was supposed to be looked after by her big brother, Jim, she slipped away and joined the crowd during the choir singing of “Just As I Am” and dedicated her life to Jesus. She grew up conventionally but after working as a teacher and later business in the private sector, with a passion for strenuously sailing her boat, even though she was a brittle diabetic, showing up male crew members with her skill, hard work and dedication, she took a break, quit work and sold her beloved boat and waited to see what the Lord was calling her to do. After several volunteer mission trips through her Episcopal Church, she was told through one of those overseas contacts that she should think of becoming ordained.

She was almost a half a century on this earth when she went to seminary. She threw herself into her studies but she had something they can't teach at Seminaries; an openness to God with a passion for being a sacramental presence of God's grace in this broken world as her faith continued to deepen. Her theology was much more conservative than mine, but we avoided clashes because she loved my beloved younger sister and I loved her beloved older brother and we had nieces in common and together officiated at the weddings of each of those nieces. They loved and admired her, for they are good judges of character and know authentic grace when they see her. I was especially thankful for her when she was able to provide pastoral care for a colleague of mine who had moved down to Florida, and she had helped him arrive at a peaceful death. She disagreed with some choices that people made, but she never let disagreements get in the way of love. She had the quality of being at home with people because she cared enough to listen to others and to know herself, so that she was at home with herself and with others.

Despite the fact that the song “Softly and Tenderly” is often used at funerals, “Coming Home” is not an event that happens when we die, but a process that begins when we are fully alive to the presence of Christ in the space between us. In his poem, “Death of a Hired Hand”, Robert Frost writes “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”

Last month I told you all about staying at my daughter's house and re-reading Homer's Odyssey while I was there. The Odyssey is about a homecoming for Odysseus - how does he return and what does home mean? There is an underlying theme as well about how we treat guests, friends, and strangers who come to our home. This is a concept in Greek known as Xenia, how we deal with Xenos, meaning strangers. We recognize that word when we say “Xenophobia”, which means fear of strangers and which we see especially at work with fear mongers during elections. Xenia, the quality of obligations between host and visitor was honored by the Gods in Homer's works. In the Iliad, Paris violates Xenia when he visits Menelaus and seduces his wife Helen. The Trojan War is not just seen as a love affair gone wrong, but on a deeper level, breaking the sacred obligation of how people treat each other. It is not only in Greek poetry, but how we love God by loving our neighbor is at the core of scripture. It is at the core of all major religions that the encounter between a host and guest is triangular with God as the third part, indeed the energy infusing the relationship.

We see this especially in the Gospel lesson for today where Martha and Mary are hosting Jesus. He is a guest and Mary shows him love by anointing his feet. Judas is offended by this act of hospitality, of Xenia. Judas has been with Jesus for three years, and he has yet to accept the love that Jesus has showered on Judas as his guest. Jesus has been softy, tenderly calling him to “come home” with him wherever they will go together. The tragedy of Judas is that he was too busy with his own agendas to live into being a host or guest in this world.

The work that Alice did in the two churches she served was to help furnish a home for those for those who came into her orbit. She understood that she was both host and guest wherever she went. It is what we try to do in this place; we have an obligation of Xenia to visitors, to the homeless, to our neighbors, and to ourselves. I thank God for sharing Alice with me and for her being a host for Jesus in her life. I regret, but also am glad, that she has “come home” for the last time.

“Softly, tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me. . . ye that are weary come home.”

Alice Comes Home (Poem)

Something is wrong.

      The Priest is not here.

          How can the service begin?

Services began 14 billion years ago,

     give or take a couple million,

         with a bang, big, as our home

             began construction and we

                  tardy ones arrived late

                     trying to remove welcome mats.

Services continue when we really say,

   “Come Risen Lord and be our guest

        as the Holy Space between us”,

            anything less is cocktail chatter.

Mother Alice sends her regrets,

     she has a previous invitation

         from an old dear friend

            to come home.

The Pride Filled Brother

A Reflection for IV Lent All Saints’ Church Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC March 6, 2016 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Joshua 5:9-12 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Psalm 32

The Pride Filled Brother

About 10 days ago, the day waves of storms with the tornado warnings came through, and I had a busy day before the weather was to hit. First I had to go to the Wednesday Ecumenical Lenten Program at noon at the Presbyterian Church, then I had a 1:00 appointment to give blood at the Roman Catholic church, then I had a 3:30 meeting with the Hospice Team in Manteo - and I figured that I had just enough time to make a visit at the nursing home on the way so that I could get back in time for our Lenten Program at 6:00. 

There were two blood donation sites that day. The other was at the high school, but the schools were dismissed early because the predicted high winds could be very dangerous for school buses, and the blood donors at the school were sent over to Holy Redeemer. By the time I got there, the wait was going to be much longer. I fill out the ticket for the door prize and I wait and wait. I keep checking the weather and gamble that we can still have the evening program and that I still have plenty of time to do the good deed - and I wait and wait. I stew inside because I have to wait and I AM IMPORTANT—don’t they know I am doing God’s work? I keep thinking I should leave because I am so important doing good deeds. Finally I get seen, and I realize there is no time for the nursing home visit, and I will be very late for the Hospice meeting. I am snarling within because I am not in control. I am doing everything right, but my pride tells me that the world should operate better than this for me. I call a member of the Hospice team and find out the meeting is called off, and I go home in time to pick up Pat for our Lenten program. After the program, I get home and get a call telling me I had won the door prize. I felt so foolish because of my inward bad grace when all I could think about was my own pride. There was a party going on and I was tempted not to attend.

Do you know that there are a bunch of people I don’t like? And that there are even more people I disagree with? That there are a few people who have done bad things to me? So what should I do with those people?

We are in the middle of Lent and the purpose of Lent is to repent. Interesting word, “repent”. In the Greek of the New Testament, the word is “metanoia” which literally means to change your mind, turn around your thinking. It doesn’t have a thing to do with feeling sorry; it just means changing your mind, coming to the conclusion that what one is thinking or doing no longer works the way you imagine. An example might be, “Oh, you know I think I will have some ice cream with my slice of pie.” There is no value judgement in that word in the Greek of the New Testament. 

 

The problem is that when the Greek of the New Testament iwas translated into Latin, they used the word paenitiere which, while it does mean to change your mind, it carries more of an element of regret. It is similar to the word for “creep” as in “creep on the ground” and may have to do with the sense of Roman pride which saw shame in changing one’s mind because it indicated having made a wrong decision. One of Wilson’s pet theories about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (in opposition to Gibbon who believed that it happened because of the loss of Roman civic virtue in outsourcing their military because the Christian pacifism tamped down Roman martial ardor) is that they kept trying to do the same old thing over and over again when it no longer worked. When Christianity moves into languages coming from the Latin roots, the Greek word metanoia is translated in practice as combined with guilt and shame about moral failure.

In the Gospel story for today, Jesus is telling a story in response to grumbling from the Scribes and Pharisees about Jesus hanging around people who have moral failures. Remember, a Parable is a story which is like a joke because it has a twist at the end, and the point is not in the details of the story but the twist. It is often called the “Parable of the Prodigal Son”, and its whole point is to tell people who have moral failures that they can be forgiven; no matter what you have done God loves you. I have preached that sermon a number of times in other churches and venues because of my own moral failures. Others have wanted to call it “The Parable of the Foolish Father’ because the Father gave so much to the useless younger brother, much as God gives us so much. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike; God’s love is not rationed only to the righteous. As Paul writes in 1^st Corinthians, “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” This story is in the Lectionary every three years, and this is the fourth time in my tenure here that I have had an opportunity to preach on it. The last three times I have spoken about the Foolish Father. Today I want to reflect on the Proud Son.

The oldest son was the one who would be the main heir when his father died. You do not ask for your inheritance before your father dies because this is a violation of the Commandment to honor your father and mother. In the act of asking, you would be wishing your father dead. The older brother had never asked for his inheritance, and he was proud because he honored his father. He was right to disapprove of his younger brother’s action before and after the father gave into the younger brother’s unsuitable request. He was right to be displeased about the way his brother squandered the money when the older brother had worked so hard to help his father grow the business. He was right to be angry because, by his brother asking for a cut long before it would be due to him, he was depleting the capital needed to grow a bigger inheritance and thereby the young brother was stealing from him. He was right to be upset because the younger brother’s action brought shame on the household; he was ruining their good name and reputation. No two ways about it - the older son was a good man, and he had every reason to be proud because he had done the right things. If he attended the banquet given for the younger son - paid for out of the older brother’s share, by the way - he would be condoning the younger brother’s behavior and he would lose his own moral authority in the community.

Everything the older brother has done is right, and there is no reason for him to be ashamed, no reason for him to be sorry. Except Jesus suggests that the rules have been redefined; life is not about collecting the most Brownie points for doing all the right things, while congratulating ourselves about “what good boy and girls we are”. Jesus is suggesting that this life is about attending God’s party of celebration about all of God’s children. There is a party going on and we are all invited. If you are good that would be nice, but you are invited anyway. If you have failed that is too bad, but you are invited anyway. It is a little bit like how we use the Iona Community Invitation to Communion:

This is the table, not of the Church, but of God.
It is to be made ready for those who love God
and who want to love God more.

So, come, you who have much faith and you who have little,
you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time,
you who have tried to follow and you who have failed.
Come, not because I invite you: it is God, and it is God’s will
that you who want God should meet God here.

The Pride Filled Brother (poem)

Scolding the church institution pontificates to stay away

And not partake the reward or eat and drink of our own

Damnation for from neighbor love and charity did stray

As sacrifice’s defiled by our presence if God does groan

To see sinner so unworthily come not hearing book’s nay.

Yet, in that sin state, divine medicine I daren’t postpone

For I am all broken trying to make it through this one day.

Sounding not of psalms of victor but of an also ran’s moan

Come not trusting prideful rewards but trying a new way

Walking one step at a time into a prodigal’s graced zone.

I, other brother disguised as pride filled strutting padre

Come stumbles on father’s robe approaching his throne.

There’s a party ongoing with wine and bread celebrating

A renew life; invitations I no longer need to keep waiting.