Click on the small triangle in the recording section to hear this:
Love bade me "Welcome!", yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything?
"A guest", I answered, "worthy to be here".
Love said, "You shall be he!"
"I, the unkind, the 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 marred 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, 1593-1633
In 1633 a Vicar in a parish near Salisbury died at the age of 39.
George Herbert was one of the greatest of English poets and one of the truest of its pastors.
He hid himself in Bemerton and though he could have been, and was at one time, a member of Parliament and a lecturer,
he chose a quieter simpler life, working as priest in Bemerton, taking services in the tiny little church there,
living in the house opposite, probably twenty feet away across what is now a busy road.
His spirituality is very English, rather puritan, self deprecating and clear.
To understand this poem think of our local church.
Indeed I would go further and say to understand the local church and your part in it think of this poem.
Because church is all about welcoming and being welcomed.
And those two are merged for each one of us.
We need to read this poem twice.
Once in terms of us being the unworthy guest - and then again in terms of us being the voice and hands of God in welcoming others.
So in the first place think of you being welcomed.
Love bade me "Welcome!",
Many of us do not take kindly to being welcomed.
Who are you, we think, to be welcoming me?
Who am I that you should think me worth welcoming?
yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.
All our services, usually at the beginning, have this element of becoming aware of sin when we come into the presence of God.
It takes a great poet to express it in a single line: "Guilty of dust and sin".
I take the dust to mean all that has made us unclean over a lifetime of living in this world,
and the sin to be those more deliberate ways in which we have offended against God and our neighbour.
George Herbert had no false ideas of his own worth, he knew very well where we all start before God.
We all start as strangers to God's love.
But he had a great faith in God - the God of love.
He saw the first enthusiasms of Christianity so easily vanishing in the lack of love into which we so easily fall.
He also knew that we all start as guilty before God, guilty of dust and sin.
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything?
That is one of the tasks that each of us has to fulfil from time to time:
To be quick eyed in love - to see the stumbling hesitation of the diffident shy stranger.
Having plucked up courage to cross the threshold and meet people, many of us run out of social steam and retreat into our own company.
But George Herbert also had a very strong sense of the Christian vocation.
Do not confuse that with the vocation to ordination which may for some of us be a part of the general vocation to which we are all called.
George Herbert knew that each Christian, that you and I are called and chosen, not for our own worth, but solely because God loves us.
And so he sets out that understanding in a little conversation with God;
Do I lack anything? he asks himself - well yes of course - I lack the right to be here talking with God in the first place.
Do I lack anything?
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here
Love said, "You shall be he"
To affirm the stranger who hesitates and isn't sure whether they are worthy or welcome is to do the work of God.
But George Herbert answers back.
People do not just easily accept that they are welcome and worthy.
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee"
The dialogue with God is a central part of George Herbert's understanding and witness to his faith.
It is never an easy path.
He always has to be awkward, because he sees himself as an awkward obstacle to God's love.
How can we look God in the face when we know what we are really like?
But we are taking too much on ourselves.
This is the creator we are talking to:
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
But George is still going to argue.
Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
How can God welcome us?
We have broken his laws and damaged his world and hurt each other.
How can that possibly be put right?
"And know you not" says love, "who bore the blame?"
The central doctrine of Christ's death in order to take on himself the sin of the world is strong in Herbert.
Very Pauline.
And he believes it wholeheartedly.
And we are called to believe it wholeheartedly.
The blame that should have been ours has been lifted by the mysterious working out of the death and resurrection of Christ.
The sins are wiped clean - as if they had never been.
So George pulls himself together and says in all humility:
"My dear, then I will serve"
The parable of the prodigal son comes to mind.
The rebellious son who goes off, rejecting his father and his home and his brother, and then repents and returns,
having spent his share of the money, telling himself that he will become as one of his father's hired servants.
But the Father welcomes him with the best clothes and food.
"You must sit down", says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
Which is why of course our Communion is central to church life.
Yes, the serving matters.
But the central action is to sit and eat.
Time for the serving once that has been established.
There is that motive in all of us which tells us that to be worthwhile we must be up and doing something.
It is the characteristic English heresy.
In the first place: sit and eat.
Receive the love before you pass it on.
Accept the welcome.
Argue it out with God if you must - but come to it in the end.
Sit and eat.
You are the honoured guest.
And our communion models that: Having used so many words it comes in the end to accepting and eating.
Draw near with faith,
receive the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for you. Amen.
John Eade
OTHER POEMS IN THIS SERIES:
Poems for Eastertide
'Love bade me welcome' by George Herbert
'Prayer: the Church's banquet' by George Herbert
These are hosted on my website thames.me.uk - "Where Thames smooth waters glide"
which is mainly given to a guide to the River Thames -
complete with its prints and pictures and history and poetry and water levels and weather and news and events.
It will take weeks to go through the 600 or so pages - but some of us do have the time nowadays!
Keep well!
John Eade