You Are Worthy

Growing up in the Anglican tradition, and having served as Chapel Warden at Bedford School, with its Liturgical foundations and a chorus of 700 boys’ voices filling the stunning Bodleyan chapel, I remember fondly this beautiful Prayer of Humble Access, which we would pray before communion each week:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

The prayer draws on the humility shown in two gospel accounts: One is Matthew 8:8: “The centurion replied, Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” The other is found in Mark 7:28. It is a reply from a woman in speaking to Jesus regarding her unworthiness, who said, “but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

As I spend time in the Lord’s presence this week, I, too, am humbled by His amazing love: how can it be that Jesus died for me?   ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me’…   

Here in the quietness and the stillness of a dry and parched desert landscape, where seemingly nothing grows, God speaks through and to His nature:  in the dawn chorus of birdsong… in the babbling of the wadi stream… here in Riyadh the desert teams with life even where there appears to be nothing.   

And there lies the mystery: nothing we can do deserves His grace and mercy… yet He delights in giving it to us freely, unconditionally, surprisingly, despite our dryness, our frailties and our weaknesses… just as He breathed life into dry bones in Ezekiel, just as He brings life in the desert, so He brings life to us… not because we deserve it, but simply because He loves us unconditionally and delights in giving life where we least expect it.

Whilst we deserve nothing more than to pick up crumbs under His table, Jesus invites us to sit alongside Him at the table in an honoured place… ‘He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies’ (Psalm 23)… like the birds surrounding me this morning, He provides for our every need… like the stream in the wadi He brings life where there is no meaning.  And whilst He asks for nothing in return, let us bring our humility, gratitude and obedience… in the presence of such love and mercy, how can we possibly not respond?

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.  (Psalm 19) Amen