Are you a king?

 

Haiku of enquiry

Pilate and Jesus.

Pilate’s got the upper hand,

has the final say.

Your own countrymen

handed you in, accuse you

of a kingly claim.

Tell: Are you a king?

What is it that you’ve done? Why

do they hate you so?

It’s not from this world,

my kingdom. Not power, wealth

or earthly glory.

All earthly kingdoms

fade away, turn to dust. My

kingdom never ends.

So you are a king!

said Pilate, little knowing

the truth of his words.

Jesus, born a king.

to bear witness to the truth

For this he was born.

What is truth? Pilate

asks, scoffing at the notion;

like many today.

A needle within

the haystack of straw and lies;

truth is elusive

Listen to his words;

become children of the truth.

Do you hear his voice?

 

Pilate’s not impressed.

Like many men of power,

truth is a nuisance.

 

© Ken Rookes 2021

Silence

Haiku for washing one’s hands

He gave no answer

when the governor asked him

about the charges.

They called for his death;

Pilate knew his innocence.

Let’s not make trouble.

The sorrow, the pain,

the cruelty; sacrificed

for expedience.

We still silence them;

prophets with their awkward words.

They keep coming back.

Who do we call for;

taking man or giving man?

Choose between the two.

Are you still there God?

Why have you abandoned me?

Nothing but silence.

Will Elijah come?

Will anyone rescue him?

But nobody comes.

His voice cries again.

Anguished and forsaken

the king breathes his last.

© Ken Rookes 2020

So you are a king?

Haiku for a trial

The procurator

knew what the job demanded;

kept the lid on things.

Pontius Pilate

found the case most perplexing;

called him in again.

Let’s not mess around:

Are you the king of the Jews?

How will he reply?

Jesus answered him.

What do they say about me,

what makes you ask this?

Hey, I’m not a Jew!

Your own people turned on you;

what is it you’ve done?

It’s not from this world,

my kingdom. No, otherwise

we would be fighting.

My kingdom is found

in another realm, where peace,

love and justice rule.

So you are a king?

Pilate keeps on questioning,

cannot understand.

All earthly kingdoms

self-destruct, bring only pain

and futility.

This worldly kingdom,

wherein we dwell, is rooted

in greed, wealth and fear.

For this I have come,

to speak truth. Listen to me;

let me be your king.

© Ken Rookes 2018

So you are a king? A group of Haiku.

Nazareth's native

handed over for judgement:

an unlikely king.

The foreign ruler,

intrigued, probes with his questions,

but gets no answers.

He asks, Are you king?

The charge is laid against you;

what, then, have you done?

Where is your kingdom?

You won't find it around here.

Then again; perhaps.

Try looking harder,

opening your heart, your mind;

God's reign has come near

For this I was born,

for truth I came among you;

listen to my voice.

So you are a king?

The question hangs in the air;

each one must answer.

© Ken.Rookes 2015

 and a short subsequent poem that takes us a couple of verses  beyond the RCL reading.

If he fell over it

For two thousand years

Pilate has been asking:

What is truth?

Like most people of wealth and power

he wouldn't recognise truth if he fell over it,

or if it stood before him.

© Ken.Rookes 2015

A question of identity

It is a question of identity.
If you are . . .
Is this not . . ?
Who is this . . ?
Who do you say . . ?
So, at the end, when he is paraded
for judgement, before the governor,
the tetrarch, and then the governor once more;
the questions continue.
Who are you, carpenter;
are you a king?
Will you perform for us a sign,
a something that will set our minds at rest;
or speak for us a word that will seize us,
a truth that will change our living?
No answer is given;
only silence.
The words have long been spoken,
scattered alongside the road, in villages,
kitchens and lake shores.
Some were heeded,
some discarded;
there will be no more.
One final message remains to be uttered.
It is not new, but a repetition
of the oft-spoken word
by which the man has shaped his living
and wrought his identity.
It will not be voiced by lips and tongue,
but by his body, suspended
and reaching out.

© Ken Rookes 2013

What is truth?

Acrylic painting
Ken Rookes 2012

A particular truth

 (Buechner, 1977)

 "A particular truth can be stated in words-that life is better than death and love than hate, that there is a god or Is not, that light travels faster than sound and cancer can sometimes be cured if you discover it in time. But truth itself is another matter, the truth that Pilate asked for, tired and bored and depressed by his long day. Truth itself cannot be stated. Truth simply Is, and is what Is, the good with the bad, the joy with the despair, the presence and absence of God, the swollen eye, the bird pecking the cobbles for crumbs. Before it is a word, the gospel that is truth is silence, a pregnant silence in its ninth month, and in answer to Pilate's question, Jesus keeps silent, and even with his hands tied behind him manages somehow to hold silence out like a terrible gift."

Truth; does it still exist?

What, indeed, is this stuff;

the subject of the pilatean enquiry

nearly two millennia ago?

A large group of self-appointed custodians

recently forfeited any claim

to represent truth,

having betrayed their Master

by placing the needs of reputation

ahead of the fruits of compassion and justice

of which he was wont to speak.

They were not the first.

There are others, so caught up

with notions of what is and is not correct,

that they become blind to what might be true.

We squeeze it, push it,

poke and prod it into strangely shaped vessels

that can never properly contain it,

and then express our surprise when it bursts out,

spilling its disquieting trouble

over those standing too near.

We search anxiously for something convenient

with which to wipe it away.

Like the Roman governor

we don’t really expect an answer to our question.

The prisoner’s silence serves us well;

we welcome the stillness,

pretending that it is the same as peace.

But our evasions remain incomplete,

and in the determined hush

the remembering persists.

We recall his teachings, his defiant words

that tell of hearing and seeing and reaching.

Other tales intrude too,

including his own troubled story,

about to be made complete

with betrayal, bleeding and weeping.

The stories stealthily invade our silence;

to weave around and through a living parable

catching us up into his unavoidable truth

with all its disturbing expectations.

© Ken Rookes 2012

 A bit of a work in progress. Might revisit later in the week.

Voices

Voices,

shrill, desperate and frightened,

accumulate in layers

across the courtyard

and force their way in

through windows and open doors.

They bounce along corridors of marble

and echo blurringly from stone tiles

and vaulted ceilings,

to disturb the earnest enquiries

of the Roman administrator

as he presses the prisoner

for an answer he can use.

The man refuses to be constrained by his bonds

and speaks calmly of truth,

too easily it seems to his interrogator,

who demands a definition

for the well worn word..

The man accused of kingly conspiracy

remains silent, knowing that his truth

is difficult to hear.

It is a place where evil and cruelty

meet their limits;

where death is no longer feared,

and where hope,

no matter how low its wick burns,

will never be extinguished.

This disturbing truth will be reached

through a mix of painful love,

generous suffering, and much bleeding;

little wonder his clamouring protagonists

find it so unpalatable.

In the end

the Governor finds it all too difficult

and surrenders the man

to the voices.

© 2012 Ken Rookes