What is there in my heart that you should sue
so fiercely for its love? What kind of care
brings you as though a stranger to my door
through the long night and in the icy dew

seeking the heart that will not harbour you,
that keeps itself religiously secure?
At this dark solstice filled with frost and fire
your passion’s ancient wounds must bleed anew.

So many nights the angel of my house
has fed such urgent comfort through a dream,
whispered “your lord is coming, he is close”

that I have drowsed half-faithful for a time
bathed in pure tones of promise and remorse:
“tomorrow I shall wake to welcome him.”

The most precious goods are not to be sought out, but to be waited for (expectantly). For we cannot find them in our own power, and if we give ourselves to searching for them, we find false goods in their place that we cannot discern as falsities.  …
And we should put in plain light—in bright light—the analogy between the attitude of the intelligence in each of these exercises and the situation of the soul where, with lamps well stocked with oil, we wait for the Bridegroom with confidence and desire.

In order to get to the original story:
a) Take off the beginning and the end (vs. 1 & 13)
b) Remove “foolish” & “wise” adjectives
c) vs. 9 – “There might not be enough.”
d) Amazing that the five were able to gather oil at midnight.
e) Compare vs. 12 with “I know my own and my own know me.” (John 10:14)
f) Could this parable really be interpreted to mean: “Blessed are the stingy for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

—» This is a parable of reversal. It is about economics and about division within a community.

[Me: Compare vs. 12 with “He came to his own and his own did not accept him.” (John 1:11) —» Prophetic parable]

When he comes he will call them all to account to find whether they have used the powers entrusted to them to do the work in accordance with his will. When he returns he will hold a festive communal table … uniting all those who were determined and able to administer the earth as he wanted it done and to permeate it with his spirit.

All men are alike—true in that the difference between those who received many talents and those who received few is presently erased without mercy. But untrue when it is a question of how they employ them: then, there still stands the frontier between life and death, as it has been drawn for all eternity. In the last analysis, however, true there also, because we are, all of us, at all times confronted with the possibility of taking the step across that frontier—in either direction.

The servant in the gospel who hid his talent in the earth was wise and farsighted. Yet his master rejected him. Imagine a different scenario where a servant comes and says, “Lord, I wanted so much to gain something from the talent you entrusted me, so I took a risk – I suppose too much of a risk, because I have gained nothing and lost my one talent.” Now, which servant will find forgiveness?

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Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice—restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly. (p. 134)

For those who believe in God, it means, this birth, that God himself is never safe from us, and maybe that is the dark side of Christmas, the terror of the silence. He comes in such a way that we can always turn him down, as we could crack the baby’s skull like an eggshell or nail him up when he gets too big for that. God comes to us in the hungry man we do not have to feed, comes to us in the lonely man we do not have to comfort, comes to us in all the desperate human need of people everywhere that we are always free to turn our backs upon.

The Image of God, the presence of God, in each woman and man—a thrilling thought. The Other comes alive in the other. …

The Christ of Christians tells us that when we feed the hungry and welcome the stranger, when we clothe the naked and visit the sick and shackled, we do it to him.

I bring an unaccustomed wine
To lips long parching, next to mine,
And summon them to drink.

Crackling with fever, they essay;
I turn my brimming eyes away,
And come next hour to look.

The hands still hug the tardy glass;
The lips I would have cooled, alas!
Are so superfluous cold,

I would as soon attempt to warm
The bosoms where the frost has lain
Ages beneath the mould.

Some other thirsty there may be
To whom this would have pointed me
Had it remained to speak.

And so I always bear the cup
If haply, mine may be the drop
Some pilgrim thirst to slake,–

If, haply, any say to me,
“Unto the little, unto me,”
When I at last awake.

He took his soldier’s cloak
And cut it in two equal parts
With a single stroke.
…
Then casually before
The table stood the beggar as
If he had used the door.

And God will divide the sheep from the goats,
The one on the right, the other on the left.
And to them on the right God’s a-going to say:
Enter into my kingdom.
Up and down the golden street,
Feasting on the milk and honey
Singing new songs of Zion,
Chattering with the angels
All around the Great White Throne.

… she might have been a nun. … But Fenistina was never ambitious, just good.

“Back from the City”

After three days and nights of rich food
and late talk in overheated rooms,
of walks between mounds of garbage
and human forms bedded down for the night
under rags, I come back to my dooryard,
to my own wooden step.

The last red leaves fall to the ground
and frost has blackened the herbs and asters
that grew beside the porch. The air
is still and cool, and the withered grass
lies flat in the field. A nuthatch spirals
down the rough trunk of the tree.

At the Cloisters I indulged in piety
while gazing at a painted lindenwood Pietá—
Mary holding her pierced and desiccated son
across her knees; but when a man stepped close
under the tasseled awning of the hotel,
asking for “a quarter for someone
down on his luck,” I quickly turned my back.

Now I hear tiny bits of bark and moss
break off under the bird’s beak and claw,
and fall onto already-fallen leaves.
“Do you love me?” said Christ to his disciple.
“Lord, you know
that I love you.”
“Then feed my sheep.”

“Apple Dropping into Deep Early Snow,” p. 65

A jay settled on a branch, making it sway.
The one shriveled fruit that remained
gave way to the deepening drift below.
I happened to see it the moment it fell.

Dusk is eager and comes early. A car
creeps over the hill. Still in the dark I try
to tell if I am numbered with the damned,
who cry, outraged, LORD, WHEN DID WE SEE YOU?

… the story that all life on earth is truly, breathtakingly, concretely connected right now, and that what we do to the mice of the field and the birds of the forest, we also ultimately do to ourselves and our families right now. … I do not believe we can hide from this story much longer. It is among the great stories of our time.

Have you ever seen the old graveyard up there in Stockbridge? In one corner is the family’s burial place; it’s called Sedgwic Pie. … In the center Judge Theodore Sedgwic, the first of the Stockbridge Sedgwicks …is buried under his tombstone a high-rising obelisk, and his wife, Pamela, is beside him … [All around them] are more modest stones but in layers from generation unto generation are all buried with their heads facing out and their feet pointing toward their ancestor.. The legend is that on Judgment Day, when they arise and face the Judge, they will have to see no one but Sedgwicks.

According to this story the coming World Judge is already present in the world, hidden in the hungry, the thirsty, the alien, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. And through Jesus this fact becomes open and revealed. One can know it.

When I was hungry, you gave me to eat,
When I was thirsty, you gave me to drink,

Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers,
that you do unto me.
Now enter the house of my Father.

When I was homeless, you opened your doors,
When I was naked, you gave me your coat,

When I was weary, you helped me to find rest,
When I was anxious, you calmed all my fears,

When I was little, you taught me to read,
When I was lonely, you gave me your love,

When in a prison, you came to my cell,
When on a sick bed, you cared for my needs,

In a strange country, you make me at home,
Seeking employment, you found me a job,

Hurt in a battle, you bound up my wounds,
Searching for kindness, you held out your hand,

When I was Negro, or Chinese, or White,
Mocked and insulted you carried my cross,

When I was aged, you bothered to smile,
When I was restless, you listened and cared,

You saw me covered with spittle and blood,
You knew my features, though grimy with sweat,

When I was laughed at, you stood my my side,
When I was happy, you shared in my joy.

“Hell is other people” is one of Sartre’s best-known lines. But we might also find in others a glimpse of heaven, and I believe that this is what the judgment story in Matthew 25 is all about.

Our lives as we live them seem like lives that anticipate questions that never will be asked. It seems as if we are getting ourselves ready for the question “How much did you earn during your lifetime?” or “How many friends did you make?” or “How much progress did you make in your career?” or “How much influence did you have on people?” or “How many conversions did you make?”

Were any of these to be the question Christ will ask when he comes again in glory, many of us could approach the judgment day with great confidence. But nobody is going to hear any of these questions. The question we all are going to face is the question we are least prepared for. It is: “What have you done for the least of mine?” As long as there are strangers; hungry, naked, and sick people; prisoners, refugees, and slaves; people who are handicapped physically, mentally, or emotionally; people without work, a home, or a piece of land, there will be that haunting question from the throne of judgment: “What have you done for the least of mine?”

Rudderless, rootless, bedeviled and lost,
ragged, imprisoned and old,
Waste-folk upon the poor scrap-pile are tossed,
strangers shut out in the cold.
“These are my sisters and brothers, friends;
and they own a place in Love’s ring.
You who have reached out to them a kind hand,
you have reached out to your King.”

“I,55,” p. 87

The poets have scattered you.
A storm ripped through their stammering.
I want to gather you up again
in a vessel that makes you glad

I wander in your winds
and bring back everything I find.

The blind man needed you as a cup.
The servant concealed you.
The homeless one held you out as I passed.

You see, I like to look for things.

“III,18,” p. 141

You are the poor one, you the destitute.
You are the stone that has no resting place.
You are the diseased one
whom we fear to touch.
Only the wind is yours.

You are poor like the spring rain
that gently caresses the city;
like wishes muttered in a prison cell, without a world to hold them;
and like the invalid, turning in his bed to ease the pain.
Like flowers along the tracks, shuddering
as the train roars by, and like the hand
that covers our face when we cry—that poor

Yours is the suffering of birds on freezing nights,
of dogs who go hungry for days.
Yours the long sad waiting of animals
who are locked up and forgotten.

You are the beggar who averts his face,
the homeless person who has given up asking;
you howl in the storm.

[Jesus] warned his followers in the strongest possible words that those who do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the prisoners will experience eternal damnation (Mt. 25:31-46).

“I’d rather know,” they say
“I’d rather slime along than be heroic.”

My pride would be to find out; I’d
bow to see, play the fool,
ask, beg, retreat like a wave—

Buddhas …
my smile
keeps finding them

… where the afflicted are loved for themselves, God is present.
God is not present, even when invoked, where the afflicted are simply an occasion for doing good, …
… This is not the moment to turn our thoughts to God. … There are moments when thinking about God separates us from Him.
…
Christ will not thank those who give bread to the afflicted and hungry for the love of God. They have already had their reward in this thought alone. Christ thanks those who did not know to whom they gave to eat.

“And forgiveness? Who forgives me for what I have done?” “The dead man whom you bury, the sick man whom you succor, the old man whom you support, the homeless one whose loneliness you share.”

One of the striking features of Jesus’ parable of the final judgment is the unself-consciousness of both those who are to be rewarded and those who are to be punished. “When did we see you?” they both ask. The righteous expect no special treatment; they served the needs of anyone who came their way. The unrighteous plead that they would have helped if only they had known that they were serving Jesus.

The problem faced by the desert monastics was how to maintain this unself-consciousness when they already saw Christ in each person they met. How could they keep self-interest and reward from being their primary motivation for doing good? The solution, they discovered, was to be honest about the self-interest that taints even the most altruistic behavior, then throw themselves on the mercy and grace of God. Once again the answer is humility.

Here am I, where underneath the bridges of our cities homeless people sleep.
Here am I, where in decaying houses little children shiver, crying at the cold.
Where are you?

Here am I, with people in the line-up, anxious for a hand-out, aching for a job.
Here am I, where pensioners and strikers sing and march together, wanting something new.
Where are you?

Here am I, where two or three are gathered, ready to be altered sharing wine and bread.
Here am I, where those who hear the preaching change there way of living, find the way to life.
Where are you?

I saw a drawing the other day
done by a second grader,
splashed in crayon
with a multitude of colors
which poured with careless joy
over lines and boundaries,
not yet inhibited by adult rules
that so often cramp the creative spirit.

It was a drawing of a little child
pointing to a crucifix
hanging on a boundless wall
and underneath were the words
scrawled in a rainbow of colors
and in an architectural carnival of sizes
“Jesus, I love you.”

I pondered the picture for quite some time
and wondered about the way we educate
our children.

Certainly the drawing had all the validity
of any belief we cherish and espouse.

And yet I wondered if the teaching
that had motivated the drawing
did not in some way remove
Christ
into the past as a solitary historical figure.

We continually sing our belief,
“He is alove!”
But, I wondered, have we internalized
this belief — is he really alive for us
Head and Body?
Is he alive for us in those he identifies with
in any need, small or great?

Perhaps the little second grader
could also have been encouraged
to draw a picture of another child
heartbroken and crying
and the original child in the drawing
pointing to the crying child and saying,
“Jesus, I love you.”

Or maybe a drawing of one of those
vague groups of indistinguishable people,
tattered and forlorn,
and the little child in the drawing
pointing at them and saying,
“Jesus, I love you.”

I wondered, too, what we adults mean
when we pray, “Jesus, I love you.”

You see, Christ, after all, is ever bound to us
as Head is to the Body
and when we pray to him
it’s never in isolation
but all members are present
and our love should overflow
the lines and boundaries
of all human restrictions

… every moment I sat with my sick child I sat with Him …

But to fetch drinks for these kids on demand, without resentment, the Lord also had to show me.

And then there’s a towel-robed, soaking wet nine-year-old waiting in his room for clothes that are still in the dryer …

… Little Mermaid lunchbox is at home on the kitchen counter …

… and a boy with red and green hair and two nose rings at the front door to visit my daughter … and my grounded teenage daughter who needs someone to play Pinocle with …

All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ for he himself will say: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” … Proper honor must be shown to all. … Once a guest has been announced the superior and the brothers are to meet him with all the courtesy of love. … All humility should be shown in addressing a guest on arrival and departure. By a bow of the head or by a complete prostration of the body, Christ is to be adored because he is indeed welcomed in them. … Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims because in them most particularly is Christ received.

At the heart of the insecurity of the poor is a presence of Jesus.