December 15: The Messiah's Invitation
♫ Music:
Day 17 - Tuesday, December 15
Title: THE MESSIAH’S INVITATION
Scripture: Matthew 11:28-29
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Poetry:
The Struggle Staggers Us
by Margaret Walker
Our birth and death are easy hours like sleep
and food and drink. The struggle staggers us
for bread, for pride, for simple dignity.
And this is more than fighting to exist,
more than revolt and war and human odds.
There is a journey from the Me to You.
There is a journey from the You to Me.
A union of the two strange worlds must be.
Ours is a struggle from a too warm bed,
too cluttered with a patience full of sleep.
Out of this blackness we must struggle forth;
from want of bread, of pride, of dignity.
Struggle between the morning and the night,
this marks our years, this settles, too, our plight.
THE MESSIAH’S INVITATION
“I’m Zoomed out!”
As 2020 mercifully comes to an end, we all feel a deep fatigue or weariness spurred on by social distancing, living on top of each other in tight quarters, home schooling, fogged up glasses caused by masks, and yes, endless Zoom meetings: “Tom, you’re muted.” All of us feel off. Tired.
Here’s a secret: we were weary long before COVID-19.
This universal weariness is powerfully articulated by some of the giants of Christian thought. In his Confessions Augustine writes, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” Blaise Pascal notes that our constant craving is a signal that “we have an idea of happiness but we cannot attain it.” The simplest expression comes from King Solomon who writes that without God everything—wisdom, riches, power, status—is “vanity” or chasing after the wind (Ecc. 1:2).
No one is immune to this pervading sense of disappointment, or fatigue from endless chasing. “There comes a time when one asks,” notes the great atheist thinker Jean-Paul Sartre, “even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, ‘Is that all there is?’” Such feelings are not limited to philosophers. Award-winning novelist John Cheever asserts, “The main emotion of the adult American who has all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.”
“Enough” screams Margaret Adams Parker’s striking painting of people worn down and weary. One woman—with hands open—looks up in desperation. You can almost see her mouthing the words over and over: “Enough, enough, enough.”
It is only against this backdrop do Jesus’s words carry their full import: “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” What type of rest does Jesus offer and how can it help in such turbulent times? One of the key mistakes easy to make in times of social distancing and isolation is to merely pass the time. How can we get our minds off COVID spikes, school openings and closings, periodically barren store shelves, and the rise and fall of the Stock Market? To cope we quickly turn to leisure and amusement so prevalent in our tech savvy world—Facebook, TikTok, Amazon Prime, Hulu, The Mandalorian, and so on. Christian writer Gordon MacDonald offers a somber warning to us as we hunker down and shelter once again, “Since we have not understood that rest is a necessity, we have perverted its meaning, substituting for the rest that God first demonstrated things called leisure or amusement. These do not bring any order at all to the private world. Leisure and amusement may be enjoyable, but they are to the private world of the individual like cotton candy to the digestive system. They provide a momentary lift, but they will not last.” There may not be anything wrong with passing time during lockdown by bingeing on the newest Netflix craze, but after the last episode ends we’ll still feel a tiredness at the soul level. The more we yoke—a wooden harness used on farming animals to keep them in step—ourselves to mere leisure, we’ll be tired and longing for more. “Our hearts are restless,” echoes Augustine. Amusement must be balanced with rest.
Though not opposed to leisure or amusement, Jesus offers “rest for our souls.” This rest doesn’t ban amusement or suddenly make Zoom meetings exhilarating. Yoking yourself to Jesus puts everything in a different context and helps us walk in step with him as we face daily challenges. We find rest as we seek to learn from Jesus in the midst of a pandemic knowing these trying times are being redeemed by God and used to facilitate our discipleship to Jesus. “The great thing,” suggests C.S. Lewis, “if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day.” That perhaps, is the key. To see Zoom meetings, foggy glasses, and social distancing not as interruptions or something we try to push aside with high-tech amusement, but the Master’s lesson plan for this particular day. Such a perspective will give us soul rest long after the pandemic is—thankfully—over.
Prayer
Jesus, what do you have for me this day? How can I view these present struggles not as interruptions, but opportunities to be yoked to you? Help me change my perspective and find rest knowing you are redeeming these times and daily interruptions.
Amen
Tim Muehlhoff
Professor of Communication
Biola University Co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project
About the Artwork:
Enough (Edition of 50)
Margaret Adams Parker
1996
2-color woodcut
16" x 9"
Artist Margaret Adam Parker's 1996 artwork Enough echoes the plea of many of our hearts today. The artist originally created this print in response to the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin, who stated, “Enough of blood and tears. Enough.” Not wanting to limit the artwork to a single individual or event, Parker titled the piece Enough. Today, as we are besieged with a worldwide pandemic and discord in many parts of the world, the urgent cry of her figures for reconciliation, peace, and rest are as relevant today as ever.
https://artandtheology.org/2017/08/03/essay-where-sorrow-and-pain-are-no-more-by-margaret-adams-parker/
About the Artist:
Margaret Adams Parker is a printmaker and sculptor whose works often deal with religious and social justice themes. She has an extensive exhibition record, including 25 solo shows. She taught painting and drawing for 19 years at The Art League School in Alexandria, VA, and has served as adjunct instructor at Virginia Theological Seminary since 1991. Parker writes and lectures frequently, with particular focus on printmaking and its history and the significance of the visual arts in the church. She has contributed essays to Scrolls of Love - Ruth and the Song of Songs and Heaven. A graduate of Wellesley College, Parker holds an MFA from American University in Washington, DC. Parker was awarded a Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship; she has served as a Coolidge Fellow at the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life; she was an Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Art and Religion at Wesley Seminary in Washington D.C.; and she is also a Calvin College Summer Seminars Fellow.
https://margaretadamsparker.com/default.aspx
Music:
“He Shall Feed His Flock” from the album Adventus
Lyrics:
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd
And He shall gather the lambs with his arm
And carry them in his bosom
And gently lead those that are with young
Come unto Him all ye that labour
Come unto Him, ye that are heavy laden
And He will give you rest
Take his yoke upon you and learn of Him
For He is meek and lowly of heart
And ye shall find rest unto your souls
Performers:
The Church of the Beloved started as a group of friends sharing weekly meals and dreaming about ways to do church together. In those early days they read a book together called Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. Ryan Marsh, Beloved’s “architect,” recalls that, “After reading this incredible little book we all agreed that [Church of the Beloved] was to be our name, for this is who we are - 'Church' - called out of our isolation and into community. And we are 'Beloved' - deeply loved by God from all eternity.” The church eventually organized under the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and also founded the Rosewood Community House, a community dedicated to living simply together, growing together in love for God and neighbor through rhythms of prayer, gospel hospitality, and sustainable practices. The church was rich with incredible musicians and it soon became clear that they had much to share. Thanks to several donors, they eventually recorded four albums for free download, the first of which was Hope for a Tree Cut Down. Musicians featured on the album include Paula Best, Jason Best, Tara Ward (Beloved’s worship architect), Lacey Brown, and David Chapaitis. The closing service of Church of the Beloved and the Rosewood Community in Washington was on June 2, 2019.
Composer:
George Frideric Handel, arr. Tara Ward
Singing and songwriting since the age of five, Tara Ward has a deep love for story-telling and writes music that illuminates the human condition. Ward studied vocal performance at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Her first solo album, Credo, was recorded a year after graduation and led to the formation of the band Late Tuesday with fellow collaborators Dana Little, Caitlin Evanson (currently touring with Taylor Swift), and Jocelyn Feil. Late Tuesday quickly became well-known for their tight harmonies and hook-laden melodies, touring and recording until 2007. After moving to Seattle, a conversation with Zadok Wartes (formerly of the band Mercir) started another project called “Urban Hymnal.” Ward, Wartes, and a couple other musicians - tired of the conventional models of “making it” in the music world - vowed to play their concerts in basements, never have an official band photo, and advertise only through word of mouth. Their first concert ended up being in the mammoth St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle to over 400 people. Urban Hymnal became “The Opiate Mass,” a Cathedral-Rock band taking cues from Handel’s Messiah to Explosions in The Sky. Tara led worship at the boldly innovative Church of the Beloved in Edmonds, WA, for over six years. This position allowed her to compose and arrange even more music and act as the producer for the four albums that have come out of that community. Tara also has a private voice studio where her unique blend of experience and compassion garners deep growth in her students.
https://tarawardmusic.com/bio/
http://www.rulex.ru/01180138.htm
About the Poet:
Margaret Walker (1915–1998) was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. Her notable works include the poetry collection entitled For My People (1942), which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and made her the first black woman to receive a national writing prize, and the novel Jubilee (1966), set in the South during the American Civil War. In 1935 Walker received her BA from Northwestern University. She received both her MA and PhD in creative writing from the University of Iowa. Walker became a professor of literature at Jackson State University, a historically black college. Walker founded the Institute for the Study of History, Life, and Culture of Black People (now the Margaret Walker Center) and her personal papers are now stored there. Writer Richard Barksdale says of her work For My People: "The [title] poem was written when "world-wide pain, sorrow, and affliction were tangibly evident, and few could isolate the Black man's dilemma from humanity's dilemma during the depression years or during the war years." He said that the power of resilience presented in the poem is a hope Walker holds out not only to black people, but to all people, to "all the Adams and Eves.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Walker
About the Devotion Author:
Tim Muehlhoff
Professor of Communication
Director of Resources at the Center for Marriage and Relationships
Biola University
Tim Muehlhoff is a professor of communication at Biola University and co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project designed to reintroduce civility into our private and public disagreements. Tim is also an author whose latest books include Defending your Marriage: The Reality of Spiritual Battle and Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing without Dividing the Church both IVP publications.