Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Today’s text

Matthew 22:1-10

Jesus began to speak to them in parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants with the words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding." But they were not interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his servants, maltreated them and killed them. The king was furious. He dispatched his troops, destroyed those murderers and burnt their town. Go to the main crossroads and invite everyone you can find to come to the wedding." So these servants went out onto the roads and collected together everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Reflection

I am interested, Lord. I want to eat the feast. That is why I am here, fingers on the keys, trying to chase down your heart and capture it within the tiny confines of my own.

“Quit trying,” you say. “You need not chase me, for I Who Am run after you. It is my heart within your own heart that moves your fingers to the keys. My Soul within your soul is the surging desire to satisfy the hunger that moves you.

“I am your hunger, and I am the feast that satisfies. I am the desire, and I am food that fills it. I will chase you down every pathway of your busy days until you stop running and eat the feast of eternal goodness amid laughter and tears of discovery, as you recognize how much I have always wanted you.”

You chase us Lord, yet so many go about their business, uninterested in your feast. Why do we turn away? Why do we turn violent, rejecting your invitation?

Perhaps we just don’t believe. Perhaps we can’t imagine that life is more than getting by, amusing ourselves as much as possible, distracting ourselves from awareness that one day we will die.

Perhaps we cannot imagine that every moment and morsel of earth’s bounty is a crumb from an eternal table of divine sharing: You, sharing the life that you simply are.

Perhaps we imagine that all we have and are must be made our own by the force of will and accomplishment, like bread ripped from a crusty loaf. Just so, we get what we can, never asking who baked the loaf in the first place.

Perhaps petty busyness is so much the normal condition of human souls that we cannot see life for the feast it is … and promises.

Perhaps I can and will never understand. But I do understand one thing, dear Friend.

I understand that boundless generosity is your normal condition. You give life and limitless love to me, whether I be good or bad, true or false, success or failure this day.

You want me to taste the feast that is life … and to know this is only the beginning.

Pr. David L. Miller

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Today’s text

Matthew 22:1-4

Jesus began to speak to them in parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been invited, but they would not come. Next he sent some more servants with the words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared, my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding."

Reflection

You want me, Lord. You want all of us at the table, eating and drinking, celebrating the goodness of feeling alive.

Even now, I see myself gathered at the feast amid the commotion of many others. Smiles light every face. Hearts expand with startling joy, exceeding our expectation of what was possible to know and feel.

I raise my glass high to toast the raucous tumult of sheer abandonment.

So what is this, Lord, an image of the future?

I see into that future every time I lift the bread and the cup and speak of the day when we shall eat the meal in the fullness of your presence. I see it with my own eyes, sometimes tripping over myself to get to the table and exclaim the holy words again, hoping that a few others may see it, too.

I want this future now. I want to taste and feel it today amid whatever else may come.

I am hungry for the celebration and the laughter. I want the companionship and the complete and unwarranted acceptance of my and every soul at your table of grace.

I want this awareness to wash over my soul and cleanse me from every discouragement, every sadness, every wound that casts my eyes toward the dust.

I want to feel and be finally and fully alive. This can happen in only one place, and yet in every place: as I find myself at your table of feasting … even if I am driving my car, listening to another soul, working at my desk … or writing these words.

So let the feast of your blessed future begin here and now with me, in the awareness that, today, you want me, you hunger for me, you crave my nearness, my attention, my love, my joy. Today and everyday.

Today, you chase me along the ways of my life, hoping, praying that I may see that the banquet of your nearness is now.

And when I do, I can be joy and love amid the grayness that clouds human souls. And maybe they, too, can join the laughter of tomorrow … today.

Pr. David L. Miller