Rags to Riches

"Seigneur, je ne suis pas saint. Je suis misérable." Lord, I'm not holy. I'm wretched. So began the prayer of an elder before communion. He turned to us and said, "Brothers and sisters, if you wait until you're holy before eating this bread and drinking this wine, you'll never come."

The week prior in French class, we listened to a poem called "La Grasse Matinée" by Jacques Prevert. You could probably care less about a poem in a foreign language, but stick with me. It's a poem narrated by a starving man in the city, the kind of homeless beggar that everyone sees and no one sees. We feel and hear his stomach growling as though it was our own. We see him standing in front of a grocery store window full of every type of food imaginable, all within arm's reach and yet out of reach with endless barricades between. And all of it only makes the hunger worse. We stand with him outside a café and smell the coffee, the croissants, the beef dishes, the wine, all of which only smell stronger because of the hunger. We're driven to anger with him in the face of this injustice between the haves and have-nots, this stark juxtaposition, the same world and worlds apart, and all of a sudden,

a murder. An esteemed man killed, pockets cleaned out, 2 francs for a coffee, 70 cents for buttered crackers, and 25 cents for tip. A life exchanged for breakfast.

That afternoon, I happened to be leading a little Bible study in class on Psalm 113. And as I walked to school that afternoon to share, it hit me, a smile and a chill, as I saw both "La Grasse Matinée" and Psalm 113 in a new light.

The Psalm says,
"Il arrache à la poussière l'homme misérable,
il relève l'indigent et le tire de la boue
pour le faire asseoir parmi les notables,
les notables de son peuple."

He pulls from the dust the wretched man,
he takes the pauper and pulls him from the mud,
to make him sit among the noteworthy citizens of his society.

Psalm 113 uses the same stark juxtaposition Prevert does. Homeless beggars in the dust and mud compared to princes in their power and popularity. But the conclusions couldn't be any more different. Whereas in our broken world this irreconcilable division ends in murder, in God's kingdom, the vagabond is invited to the café table, seated next to the man who is esteemed in his neighborhood, and they drink their café-crème and eat their butter croissants together as equals.

Again there is a murder involved, in which the only truly estimable man willingly lays down his life for the have-nots, and this time once for all, providing for much more than one small breakfast for one hungry man. This time, a life exchanged for an eternal feast.

"Come, he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price!"

And it's this image that came to mind again that Sunday morning during communion, when we misérables were invited to eat and drink at the table again, seated with a Prince.