PSALM OF INVITATION

PSALM OF INVITATION

Do you know the poem of the great George Herbert about being invited to the feast of heaven and feeling completely unworthy of such an invitation, but finally succumbing because of the overwhelming love of God? It begins with the rather difficult line to speak aloud: "Love bade me welcome." And it ends

"You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat."

He also wrote a poem, The Call, that begins,

"Come, my way, my truth, my life:

Such a way, as gives us breath…

Such a life as killeth death."

Some time ago I was listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking about the call of God to us, and he was using some of the words in this psalm. He used them in his sermon at his installation at Canterbury on February 27th. It also reflects some of the thinking of the scholars of the Jesus Seminar in the U.S. about the likelihood of Jesus sitting and eating with people we might not consider worthy!

1. Come, my life, my way, great and gracious:

be with me, God of gentleness, my support and friend.

2. But who am I to speak to you:

the invitation is not mine, it comes from you

3. You are the one who speaks, 'Come to me:

come, my love and friend,' you say to me.

4. I do not deserve such graciousness:

your goodness is already mine, your daily gift.

5. Even when life is dreadful, you won't let me go:

you hold me and surround me, when all seems hopeless.

6. For your invitation to me is not an invasion:

you do not use compulsion, when you invite -

7. you do not require my purity, before I may come:

nor do I have to keep rules, in order to attend,

8. your invitation is disruptive to our communities:

you call those I would not, the outcast and foreign

9. I should prefer to wait at an outer door:

but the cloth is spread for all, dead and alive.

10. Sitting and eating at your table, with others unknown:

your invitation is unacceptable ..., I accept.