December 9: Lifted Up or Cast Out
♫ Music:
Day 12 - Thursday, December 9
Title: LIFTED UP OR CAST OUT
Scripture: Luke 1:51-53; Psalm 71:17-19; Psalm 19:7-11; Psalm 49:6-8
“He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.”
O God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works. Now also when I am old and gray headed, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come. Also Your righteousness, O God, is very high, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward.
Those who trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him— for the redemption of their souls is costly.
Poetry:
To the Poor
by Anna Laeticia Barbauld
Child of distress, who meet’st the bitter scorn
Of fellow-men to happier prospects born,
Doomed Art and Nature’s various stores to see
Flow in full cups of joy—and not for thee;
Who seest the rich, to heaven and fate resigned,
Bear thy afflictions with a patient mind;
Whose bursting heart disdains unjust control,
Who feel’st oppression’s iron in thy soul,
Who dragg’st the load of faint and feeble years,
Whose bread is anguish, and whose water tears;
Bear, bear thy wrongs—fulfill thy destined hour,
Bend thy meek neck beneath the foot of Power;
But when thou feel’st the great deliverer nigh,
And thy freed spirit mounting seeks the sky,
Let no vain fears thy parting hour molest,
No whispered terrors shake thy quiet breast:
Think not their threats can work thy future woe,
Nor deem the Lord above like lords below;—
Safe in the bosom of that love repose
By whom the sun gives light, the ocean flows;
Prepare to meet a Father undismayed,
EMMANUEL, GOD POOR WITH US
The Bible’s teaching on the poor is at once quite clear and yet holds different perspectives in unresolved tension. Today’s art pieces illustrate some of these competing messages.
Barbauld’s poem sympathizes with the poor, yet, at first glance, urges them to wait until the next life for their vindication. Janknegt’s illustration of Lazarus and the Rich Man also reinforces this postmortem justice.
But if this is the way God works, someone forgot to tell Mary. In the Magnificat she exults in all God has done for the poor—raising them up above the proud, the mighty, and the rich. This praise is elicited by God’s choosing her— a young, unseen woman—to bear the Messiah who will restore the fortunes of an oppressed Israel. And of course, outlined firmly in the Law and the Prophets and reiterated narratively throughout Israel’s history is God’s concern for the poor in the here and now.
So which is it? Does the suffering of the poor and oppressed in this present age matter to God? And what does all this mean for how God sees the rich? Jesus seems to throw doubt on the rich entering the Kingdom of God (Matt 19:24), yet he was financially supported by women of means (Luke 8:3) and did not condemn the woman who anointed him with costly perfume, saying rather, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7).
We encounter trouble when we try to wrestle the tensions of the biblical narrative into absolute principles. On the one hand, we cannot condemn the rich unequivocally. Nor can we rest in the comfort of wealth in a world awash with poverty. Similarly, we cannot spiritualize poverty and ignore its material manifestation. But neither can we remove the spiritual element and reduce the gospel to a human political agenda. To resolve these tensions, we do better to look to what God himself modeled in Christ.
There is no greater contrast of wealth (abundance, fullness, omnipotence) and poverty (scarcity, deprivation, powerlessness) than that between God and humans. This divide is spiritual yet also material; metaphorical and actual together. Still, “though he was rich, yet for [our] sake he became poor, so that [we] through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). The Incarnation is God becoming poor for us, clothing Godself with the poverty of our humanity.
We see this in the humble circumstances of Jesus’ birth and his homeless adult life (Matt 8:20). His is a holistic, intentional identification with poverty that continues past his life on earth, as he affirms, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me” (Matt 25:40). Janknegt highlights this by painting stigmata on Lazarus’ hands and feet (while, strikingly, the rich man, participating passively in Lazarus’ oppression, wears a cross tie tack on his corpulent stomach).
The breathtaking act of self-emptying, kenotic love (Phil 2:6-8) that is the Incarnation beckons to us as a beautiful, impossible standard in every part of our lives. Does God command us to stand up for the oppressed? Does he ask us to give away our wealth (Matt 19:21)? Does he call us to exchange our impoverished, self-focused lives for the abundant life he offers?
Yes.
“Come, follow me.”
Prayer:
To the Incarnate Christ who became God with us, who exchanged the riches of heaven for the poverty of earth, grant that we may likewise forsake wealth, power, and control for the abundant life that is found with you.
Amen
Devotion Author:
Abby Amstutz
Director of Communications
Development Associates International (DAI)
For more information about the artwork, music, poetry, and devotional writer selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork #1:
Lazarus and the Rich Man
James Janknegt
2011
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 in.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable of Jesus that appears in the Gospel of Luke. In the parable (Luke 16:19–31), Jesus tells his audience—his disciples and some Pharisees—of the relationship, during life and after death, between an unnamed rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus. The small vignettes in the corners of the painting show the afterlife consequences of choices made in the temporal world. Janknegt's use of flat planes, jarring colors, and dramatic lighting transports the viewer to a contemporary scene. By creating his own iconography and symbolism, Janknegt uses the most mundane, trivial, and domestic circumstances to illustrate concepts and narratives of biblical truths.
About the Artist #1:
James B. Janknegt was born in Austin, Texas. He attended art school at the University of Texas in Austin and graduated with a B.F.A. in 1978. Janknegt moved to Iowa City to attend graduate school and upon graduation he moved back to Austin and began exhibiting his work. In 1998, the Janknegts moved from Austin to Elgin, Texas, where they have an ArtFarm. They grow artists, fruits, vegetables, chickens, goats, guinea hens, peacocks, dogs, and ducks. Jim always worked full time to pay the bills and painted in his off hours. He painted billboards, dressed store windows, drove a taxi, sold plumbing and hardware supplies, worked as a graphic artist assistant, ran an offset printing press, was a procurement officer and a building manager, and taught private art lessons. He worked as the building manager for the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin until he retired in 2015. When he is not painting, he enjoys reading, building things, gardening, tending to animals, and camping.
https://www.bcartfarm.com/
About the Artwork #2:
The Rich and the Poor
Fernando Alves
Black and white photograph
2016
This powerful photograph captures the disparity between the rich and those on the margins of society.
About the Artist #2:
Fernando Alvarez is a street photographer. Of his work he says, “The passion moves me, I always try to capture situations, emotions, and immortalize moments out of the ordinary.”
About the Music:
“Fecit Potentiam” from the album Magnificat
Lyrics: Luke 1:51–52 (Vulgate Bible)
Fecit potentiam in brachio suo: dispersit superbos mente cordis sui.
Deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles.
English Translation: Luke 1:51-52 (ESV)
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate
About the Performers:
The Cambridge Singers, City of London Sinfonia, and John Rutter
The Cambridge Singers are a mixed-voice chamber choir, formed in 1981 by their director John Rutter for the express purpose of making recordings. The nucleus of the group was originally provided by former members of the chapel choir of Clare College, Cambridge, where John Rutter was director of music from 1975–79, and was later supplemented by former members of other collegiate choirs. The Cambridge Singers have been involved in the last four Fresh Aire albums of the Mannheim Steamroller band, by composer Chip Davis, but they are primarily a classical choral group. The ensemble have recorded several highly acclaimed Christmas albums, including Christmas Day in the Morning, Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity, Christmas Star, Christmas with the Cambridge Singers, and The Cambridge Singers Christmas Album.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Singers
https://www.singers.com/group/Cambridge-Singers/
City of London Sinfonia (CLS) is an English chamber orchestra based in London, England. The orchestra performs regularly across London in venues from East London clubs to traditional Central London concert halls. CLS is the orchestra-in-residence at the critically acclaimed Opera Holland Park (since 2004) and also holds a residency at St. Paul's Cathedral. CLS performs chamber orchestra and ensemble repertoire from the Baroque period to the present day, and has a programming focus on the human voice. Now under the direction of creative director and leader Alexandra Wood, City of London Sinfonia collaborates with artists including Tony Adigun, Jessica Cottis, Soumik Datta, Brett Dean, Sian Edwards, Sam Lee, and Roderick Williams. They have won various awards, such as the Royal Philharmonic Society's Large Ensemble Award and the Best Opera Recording Grammy for their recording of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. CLS has recorded chamber orchestra and opera repertoires for a number of labels and has worked on a number of choral albums with John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers for Collegium Records.
https://cityoflondonsinfonia.co.uk/about-us/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Sinfonia
About the Composer/Lyricist:
John Rutter (b. 1945) is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. He studied music at Clare College, Cambridge. He first came to notice as a composer during his student years, with much of his early work consisting of church music and other choral pieces, including Christmas carols. In 1981, Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire, particularly under his own label, Collegium Records. From 1975–79 he was the director of music at his alma mater, Clare College, and has directed the college chapel choir in various recordings and broadcasts. Since 1979 he has divided his time between composition and conducting. Today his compositions, including such concert-length works as Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, The Gift of Life, and Visions, are performed around the world. His music has been featured in a number of British royal occasions, including the two most recent royal weddings. Rutter's music is very popular, particularly in the US. In the UK, many hold him in high regard, as illustrated by the following quotation from a review in the London Evening Standard (2005): "For the infectiousness of his melodic invention and consummate craftsmanship, Rutter has few peers.” British broadcaster Sue Lawley referred to Rutter as "the most celebrated and successful composer of carols alive today" and Irish broadcaster Sean Rafferty heralded Rutter as "a creator of not just carols, but wonderfully great things for the human voice.”
https://johnrutter.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rutter
About the Poet:
Anna Laeticia Barbauld (1743–1825) was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when women rarely wrote professionally. She was a noted teacher and an innovative writer of works for children. Her primers for children provided a model for more than a century. Her work promoted the values of the Enlightenment while her poetry made a founding contribution to the development of British Romanticism. Her anthology of eighteenth-century novels helped to establish the canon as it is known today. The publication of Eighteen Hundred and Eleven in 1812, which criticized Britain's participation in the Napoleonic Wars, received negative reviews. After this, she continued to write poetry but not publish in the public sphere. Barbauld's reputation was further damaged when many of the Romantic poets she had inspired in the heyday of the French Revolution turned against her in their later, more conservative years. Barbauld was remembered only as a children's writer in the nineteenth century, and largely forgotten in the twentieth, until the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1980s renewed interest in her works and restored her place in literary history.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/anna-laetitia-barbauld
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Laetitia_Barbauld
About the Devotion Author:
Abby Amstutz
Director of Communications
Development Associates International (DAI)
Abby Amstuz is is a graduate of Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary (Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies). She is currently Director of Communications at DAI, a global leadership organization that equips, trains and mentors least-accessed Christian leaders in over eighty countries. She brings her extensive cross-cultural experience and a passion for the global church to DAI, where she is responsible for helping connect people with a passion for leadership to the work of DAI, whose mission is enhancing the integrity and effectiveness of Christian leaders worldwide so that the church can fulfill its role in extending the kingdom of God.