“The table is spread….”

I like it when two entirely different people, write in two very different styles, on a similar theme, and from two historically and culturally alien perspectives, enrich our theological understanding, and restore faith in the continuity and congruence of the Christian tradition.

A Seventeenth Century rural parson poet, and a Twentieth Century Swiss Reformed dogmatician, writing on what it is that goes on in the heart of the unworthy guest, just before sitting at the Lord's Table.

"The conversion which the Word of grace ascribes to him consists in the exercise of the freedom which he does not need to assume or give to himself because this is not necessary, since it has been already given in what God has long since done for the world and for his own salutary humbling and therefore for his peace and for that of the whole world.

The Word of grace simply tells him that the table is spread for him and for all, but that a few places – his own included -  are still vacant, and would he be so good as to sit down and fall to, instead of standing about and cleverly or foolishly prattling.  Everything else will then be discovered, or is really discovered already. 

Karl Barth Church Dogmatics,The Doctrine of Reconciliation, IV.3.1, page 247.

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Love (3)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin. 

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lack'd anything. 

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he. 

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on thee. 

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I? 

Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve. 

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? 

My dear, then I will serve. 

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

So I did sit and eat.

George Herbert, The Temple.