Humility and Hospitality

August 29
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17
RCL
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14


The Collect

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

even the dogs

have a look at the short story, "The Great Piano Player", by Tom Gordon, hospice chaplain of the Marie Curie Centre in Edinburgh, in the June/July 2008 issue of Coracle, the magazine of the Iona Community,

http://www.iona.org.uk/

and then have a look at Henry Ossawa Tanner's double portrait, The Banjo Lesson,

http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/s06/dooreyc/Images/the%20banjo%20lesson.jpg



and then have a look at the gospel for this Sunday (Matthew 15:21-28)


and then ask,

where is Jesus in the story of the great piano player? is he the mother? the daughter? the old lady? the admiring audience?

and where are you?

and,

where is Jesus in the painting? the child? the old man?

and where are you?


and where is God in the story of the woman who implored Jesus to heal her daughter of a demon?

is he
is he not
standing behind Jesus
with his arms around him

is she not
standing behind Jesus
with her arms around him
teaching him
to play?


and where is Jesus now?

is he not standing behind you
arms around you
his hands guiding your hands
teaching you to play?

and where is the Spirit?

is she not
close by you
closer than your own breath
breathing into you
the joy of music?

+