December 29: The Redeemed of the Lord
♫ Music:
Day 27 - Friday, December 29
Title: The Redeemed of the Lord
Scripture: Isaiah 62:6-12
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have labored; but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.”
Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.
Poetry:
The Guest
by Wendell Berry
Washed into the doorway
by the wake of the traffic,
he wears humanity
like a third-hand shirt
-blackened with enough
of Manhattan’s dirt to sprout
a tree, or poison one.
His empty hand has led him
where he has come to.
Our differences claim us.
He holds out his hand,
in need of all that’s mine.
And so we’re joined, as deep
as son and father. His life
is offered me to choose.
Shall I begin servitude
to him? Let this cup pass.
Who am I? But charity must
suppose, knowing no better,
that this is a man fallen
among thieves, or come
to this strait by no fault
-that our difference
is not a judgment,
though I can can afford to eat
and am made his judge.
I am, I nearly believe,
the Samaritan who fell
into the ambush of his heart
on the way to another place.
My stranger waits, his hand
held out like something to read,
as though its emptiness
is an accomplishment.
I give him a smoke and the price
of a meal, no more.
-not sufficient kindness
or believable sham.
I paid him to remain strange
to my threshold and table,
to permit me to forget him-
knowing I won’t. He’s the guest
of my knowing, though not asked.
WORK, CHARITY, AND LOVING OUR NEIGHBORS
Parenthood has a strange way of reordering your priorities and causing you to reflect in new ways on so many different aspects of life. My son just turned two, and for the past two years I have found myself constantly challenged to consider and reconsider one question over and over again — why do we do the things we do?
As we seek to glorify God in our home, I have found this question to be both centering and clarifying. Consciously or unconsciously, our actions are guided by certain values and priorities. Naming them can be instructive. Intentionally exploring the why has led to many valuable conversations in our family, and it has challenged me to reflect more deeply on the practical relevance of the Gospel to ALL of life.
In one surprising example, toddler tantrums have led me to think more fully about loving my neighbor. When your toddler starts screaming and throwing a fit in public it’s very easy to feel embarrassed or self-conscious as a parent and simply insist on less disruptive behavior. But somewhere along the way it occurred to me that simply asserting my parental authority never gets to the heart of why such public disruptions inappropriate. Instead, we now address such behavior as a matter of respect for others who share the public space — emphasizing that a whole community of people are impacted by the disruption. Recognizing that our actions have consequences for those around us and being loving and respectful to others is one small way we show love to our neighbors.
I know my toddler doesn’t really understand all this (yet), but as I take time to talk it through and encourage him toward more constructive and loving ways of expressing himself, I too have been reconsidering the implications of my own actions and seeking to better model loving my neighbor.
In fact, this constant reframing of my own actions has highlighted the centrality and interconnectedness of the commands to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:37-40, also Luke 10:25-28). The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes this connection concisely in its discussion on charity. “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (para. 1822). Further, “The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, […] It is the source and the goal of [virtuous] Christian practice” (para. 1827).
Thus, true Christian charity flows from love — specifically, love of God and love of neighbor — and this becomes the central practice of the Christian faith.
Such an expansive view of our charitable calling has been reinvigorating. In particular it has led to a fresh appreciation for the value of our work/labor. As Wendell Berry asserts, “This complex charity cannot be fulfilled by smiling in abstract beneficence on our neighbors and on the scenery. It must come to acts […] Real charity calls for the study of agriculture, soil husbandry, engineering, architecture, mining, manufacturing, transportation, the making of monuments and pictures, songs and stories. […] How can you love your neighbor if you don’t know how to build or mend a fence, how to keep your filth out of his water supply and your poison out of his air; […] How can you be a neighbor without applying principle — without bringing virtue to a practical issue?” (from The Gift of Good Land). This has opened my eyes to recognize the myriad ways the Gospel brings relevance to all areas of life and ennobles so much of my ordinary daily experience.
While the potential applications are inspiring and plentiful, learning how to use our skills for the Gospel is a life-long challenge. There is no standard template. Each day, in the particulars of our circumstance, we must continue to reassess the why — and pray for wisdom and clarity. Every day let us strive to better love God and love our neighbor — living a lifetime of inspired charity.
Prayer:
“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.”
(Ps. 90:14-17, NIV)
Jeff Rau
Gallery Director | Public Art Curator
Biola University
About the Artwork:
The Stone Breakers, 1849–50
Gustave Courbet
Oil on canvas
170 × 240 cm
The Stone Breakers was an 1849–50 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was a work of social realism, depicting two peasants, a young man and an old man, breaking rocks to remove stone from a road being built. The artist’s concern for the plight of the poor is evident. Many of Courbet's paintings focus on everyday people and places of mid-nineteenth century French rural life. Courbet painted ordinary people in an attempt to portray the reality of a harsh life by faithfully portraying ordinary people and places, leaving out the glamour that most French painters of that time added to their works. Because of this, Courbet became known as the leader of the Realist Movement. Unfortunately, the painting was destroyed during World War II, along with 154 other paintings, when a transport vehicle moving the pictures to the castle of Königstein, near Dresden, Germany, was bombed by Allied Forces in February 1945.
About the Artist:
Gustave Courbet (1819 –1877) was a French painter who led the Realism Movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting non-idealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale that was traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes, and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. He lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death in 1877.
About the Music:
“We Labor Unto Glory” from the album Work Songs
Lyrics:
My God, my God, where e’er I go — glory.
Where I reap and where I sow — glory.
When my hand it grips the thorn — glory.
In the still and in the storm — glory.
Oh, we labor unto glory,
When heaven and earth are one,
Oh, we labor unto glory,
Until God’s kingdom comes.
The sun it shines and then goes down — glory.
Rain, it pours and beats the ground — glory.
Dust, it blows and ends my days — glory.
Hearts they burn beneath Your gaze — glory.
My heart, my hands, they’re kingdom bound — glory.
Where thorns no longer curse the ground — glory.
Trim the wick and light the flame — glory.
My work, it will not be in vain — glory.
About the Composers/Performers:
In June 2017, a diverse collection of Christian leaders and musicians met in New York City for the inaugural conference of the Porter’s Gate Worship Project. Spanning cultures, denominations, and traditions, the project’s purpose is to engage culture and offer hospitality to the world, particularly through the unifying power of music. For three days, this group of artists, pastors, and scholars - including Josh Garrels, Audrey Assad, David Gungor, Aaron Niequist, Liz Vice, and Stuart Townend - engaged in meaningful conversation about the vocation of hospitality: “bringing work into worship and taking our worship to work.” The group also recorded a live, full-length album entitled Work Songs. The song “We Labor Unto Glory” is a creative collaboration of Craig Harris and Isaac Wardell, and is sung by Liz Vice, Madison Cunningham, and Josh Garrels.
About the Poet:
Wendell Erdman Berry (b. 1934) is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer who was educated at the University of Kentucky, where he became Distinguished Professor of English in 1971. The intensity of his writing's involvement with the human and natural characters of his native locality has gained Berry recognition as one of the leading writers of the twentieth century. A prolific author, he has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is an advocate of Christian pacifism, as shown in his book Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness. He states that the theme in his writing is "that all people in the society should be able to use the gifts that they have, their natural abilities, and they ought to use them responsibly for their benefit as individuals and as a community." Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, an annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace.
About the Devotional Writer:
Jeff Rau (b. 1978) is an artist, curator, and educator based in Long Beach, California. Rau received his BS in Civil Engineering from Valparaiso University, Indiana, in 2000. Soon after moving to Southern California, he left his engineering work to pursue a career in the arts. In 2011, Rau earned a MFA degree in Photography and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from California State University, Fullerton. In his studio practice, Rau employs photography and other documentary media in a conceptual practice of archiving, mapping, and serial performance. A founding member of the curatorial collective Sixpack Projects, he has worked on exhibitions with a number of Southern California institutions.