Scribes and Pharisees

Haiku for servants

Scribes and Pharisees:

religious establishment,

power and bluster.

Religious heavies

still imagine that they rule,

brandishing their keys.

Creating burdens

is the thing they excel at;

they will weigh you down.

Telling the people

that they are not good enough

to make it with God.

Look how good we are!

Try your best to be like us;

we’re exemplary.

Measure our fringes,

see our wide phylacteries;

don’t we look the part!

Do not play their game.

Be humble, self-effacing,

a servant of all.

You are my students.

Don’t call yourself a teacher;

you have one teacher.

They still know better

than the rest of us; they still

tell us how to live.

© Ken Rookes 2017