Waiting dinners

About two weeks ago I had a Thursday night to myself and so I decided to read some scripture and try and ready myself for Christmas. I read Luke 14 a couple of times because of the upcoming Lazarus dinner with the homeless. I also read Isaiah 25 a couple of times ... I am fascinated with that text and Kenneth Bailey connects it to Luke 14. So here is my results ... my new art form is poetic sketches. Or maybe they are just first drafts ideas to be taken up by someone more sure with the pen and paint than I am.

"Distance is the soul of beauty." (Simone Weil)

I came across this quote a while ago, but thought about it again this advent. It seems to make a lot of sense and be hard to grasp at the same time. It has something to do with desire and the place of desire in life and hope and love. The 12th century monks used to spend a lot of time in the Old Testament and would say that desire was one of the key themes there. It taught them to wait and long for the messiah, for peace, for the promised land. When they finally opened the gospels, the desert bloomed.

But what if waiting creates anxiety of abandonment? What if waiting never feels secure, only painful. Bonhoeffer said that only the uneasy can wait. He said that celebrating advent was only possible to those who are "troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come." It is important to have a troubled soul. It shows you that your eyes work and your heart hasn't been cauterized or dulled or frozen. And so we wait.

In this waiting, I can't help but put together the picture of the future banquet where the Lord will swallow death and wipe away tears as one filled with the kind of people Jesus wanted to invite to his table. This is really the inspiration for my poetic sketch. It speaks of uneasy waiting and returns us to the longing of the early church which cried Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.