What shall I tell them?

Haiku for a calling

Fugitive Moses

finds himself in Midian;

marries, settles down.

Tending Jethro’s sheep

in the wilderness, comes to

Horeb, God’s mountain.

An angel from God

appears in a firey bush.

The bush is unburned.

Moses stops to look.

Well who wouldn’t? Quite a sight;

what is going on?

The Lord speaks to him.

Moses, take off your sandals;

this is holy ground.

It is I, the God

of your fathers: Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob.

I have heard the cries

of my people in Egypt;

I know their anguish.

I am sending you.

You will deliver them, take

them to a new land.

Must be a mistake,

God; you surely can’t mean me!

I will be with you.

When you bring them out

of Egypt you will worship

here, on this mountain.

What shall I tell them

when they ask, What is God’s name?

I am who I am.

Go to your people,

those Israelites in bondage;

say, I AM sent me!

© Ken Rookes 2023

Difficult teaching

Haiku for the troubled

Come, eat my flesh! The

literally-minded folk

take extreme offence.

What is his meaning,

this claim to be bread for all;

the bread who gives life?

The words that I speak

brings life to your spirit; yet

not all will believe.

Even disciples

are troubled. This difficult

teaching troubles them.

Some of them decamped.

He asks the twelve, Do you wish

to turn back also?

Simon Peter speaks:

To whom can we go? Your words

alone lead to life.

We have known you, Lord;

We see your words are true, that

you are sent from God.

© Ken Rookes 2021

Bread that fills the soul

Haiku of life

He said, I am bread;

bread that fills the soul. Don’t thirst

or hunger, come!

The leaders complain:

How can he say these things, I

am bread from heaven?

God is doing this,

drawing folk to hear my words;

they shall know God’s life.

Open your eyes, ears,

to learn God’s truth, to receive

God’s life eternal.

Wilderness manna

from God fed hungry people;

but later they died.

Heaven’s living bread

gives eternal life. I am

the bread from heaven.

I am bread. I give

my body; a gift of life

for all humankind.

© Ken Rookes 2021

 

Bread that is true

Haiku for hungry people

The persistent crowds

seek Jesus, boarding their boats

to sail after him.

You’re looking for me

because I fed you with loaves;

but you’re still hungry.

Bread for the belly

lasts but hours. Seek God’s bread,

feeding the spirit.

The bread that is true,

far better than Moses gave,

comes from the Father.

Sir, give us this bread

always; each, every day

feed us with your life.

I am bread for life,

says the Johannine Jesus;

come, believe in me.

Trust the things I say,

do the things I’m telling you:

so fulfil God’s work.

You, who are hungry,

and you who thirst for fullness,

hear my words and live.

 

© Ken Rookes 2021

 

© Ken Rookes 2021

Make haste to be kind

"In the early Christian communities to whom Matthew and Paul wrote, there was a strong sense that the Kingdom of God was coming soon. The familiar blessing paraphrased from the Swiss philosopher and poet Henri Frédéric Amiel synthesizes Jesus’ admonition and Paul’s advice: Life is short and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel this journey with us, so be quick to love and make haste to be kind.

Jesus, in revealing that the messianic era is imminent, also explains how the disciples are to live in the intervening time: They are to live with the paradox of faith. One of the great paradoxes of Christianity is that the Messiah must suffer and die before he is raised to eternal life. This paradox makes a concrete statement of the Christological idea that Jesus is the embodiment of both the reality of the divine and the reality of this world. Jesus even issues his instructions to the disciples in the form of a paradox: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

We are to live the way of the great “I Am” and the glorious “I shall be.” We are to live a life of reverent prayer and a life of faithful action. We are to live as if we have not much time and as if we have all the time in the world.

German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from prison, as he faced suffering with great faith:

“What remains for us is only the very narrow path, sometimes barely discernible, of taking each day as if it were the last and yet living it faithfully and responsibly as if there were yet to be a great future.”

This is the divine way. It is also the human way. This is the mystery and the paradox of faith."

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/stw/2014/08/18/12-pentecost-proper-17-a-2014/

Shepherds and doors

 

So many doors,
colours, sizes, shapes;
some swing from the left,
others from the right,
some slide.
Inwards opening,
outwards swinging;
so many choices.
Which doors are for me?
Will it be the journey within,
beyond,
or both?

The fourth gospel
designates the Good Shepherd as the gate,
a door through which
his sheep might enter into life.
When I passed through that door,
many years ago,
I was told by some earnest sisters and brothers
that there were certain doors
to be avoided for fear of one’s eternal life.
These well-meaning friends insisted
that those who travel through such doors
will be lost.

So many doors,
so many dangers.
I went through one anyway.
Had to;
too many questions,
too many doubts.
And maybe,
just perhaps,
notwithstanding all the warnings,
it was the Shepherd
who was waiting at the other side.

© Ken Rookes 2014

But among you are some who do not believe

He was being kind.

Even among those who so eagerly sing

his songs, wear

his shining silver jewellery, don

his tee-shirts, and who grumble

self-righteously that the fabric of society

has been irreparably torn;

there are many of us

who will not allow ourselves to believe.

We do not eat the body;

the blood we do not drink.

The precisely cubed crumb of bread,

the broken wafer,

the fragment torn from a loaf;

the silver chalice,

the cup of wine,

the tiny glass of grape juice,

hygienically prepared, red and sweet;

these safe things we will consume

in neat and reassuring patterns.

We fear the bread that is his words,

irregular, wild and costly;

having nibbled at the edge

we shall leave it our plates.

The cup of his outpouring;

we sipped cautiously, tasted its bitter draught

and determinedly placed it to one side.

His difficult words invite us to dine upon him,

to take life deep within our own;

and allow his being to be woven into ours.

Thus we receive his generous life,

crimson with sorrow, love and weeping.

Take courage; eat and drink, he whispers

once more.

© Ken Rookes 2012

Reflecting upon the Bread of Life

Image by Ken Rookes

The good shepherd

Gospel writer John

loved a good agricultural metaphor;

(were there many other kinds

in a pre-industrial age?)

Jesus, lover of people,

welcomer of ratbags

and friend of troubled souls;

likens himself to a shepherd

who cares only for the welfare of his sheep.

Animal rights proponents would love him

because he reckons the life of the human shepherd

to be more expendable

than those of his ovine flock.

But we all know that it’s not about sheep.

It is about people,

individuals like you and me,

who, we are assured,

are loved and valued,

watched over and cared for

by the one he calls Father.

Furthermore, the metaphor implies,

we are all part of something bigger,

joined into one huge flock

of disparate humankind;

each member of which

is also loved and respected,

cared for and wept over

by that same Father;

and expected to do the same

© 2012 Ken Rookes