Promise

 

Haiku for upsetting

News of excitement!

A pregnancy of promise:

confiding cousins!

Luke holds nothing back!

In Elizabeth’s old womb

the child is leaping!

Prophet-like, Mary

announces the radical

program from above.

His way is mercy,

this God who finally comes

among God’s people.

They will be brought low,

the powerful and mighty;

their time is over.

They will be raised up,

the poor and the lowly ones,

their moment has come.

The hungry are filled,

the rich sent away empty;

the great levelling.

The conservatives

tremble; this is not the faith

they were counting on.

© Ken Rookes 2021

The Baptiser warns

 Haiku of preparation

The Baptiser warns

the crowds who come to hear him.

It is time, repent!

This brood of vipers

come out of fear, to escape

the coming judgement.

Produce in your hearts

and in your deeds, fruits worthy

of your repentance.

Don’t trust in your race

or that you are one of God’s

privileged people.

Share your possessions,

be honest, deal fairly, don’t

abuse your power.

They asked John, Are you

the one who God is sending?

I am not the one.

Not I, but one comes

who will set your souls on fire.

This is my good news.

© Ken Rookes 2021

Prepare

 

haiku of announcement

Located in time

and in space, the arrival

of Baptiser John.

The wilderness voice

of God echoes through John’s head,

compels him to speak.

Turn away from sin!

When they come for his message:

John baptises them

Isaiah wrote it:

A voice shouts in the wild place,

preparing the way.

Earthworks metaphor,

a track is cleared for the one

who brings salvation.

Valleys will be filled

and mountains will be levelled,

the rough ways made smooth.

A big metaphor

for a cosmic happening:

the promised one comes!

© Ken Rookes 2021

The good news begins

 

Haiku of commencement

The good news begins

as Jesus, also called Christ,

is waiting offstage.

Voice in wilderness.

Baptiser John, the wild man,

makes the announcement.

The Lord comes! Prepare

to receive him; be ready

to hear his message.

The crowd flocks to John

to hear his repentance call,

to be forgiven.

He is a wild man,

this baptiser; dressed roughly,

living on insects.

Easy to ignore

the impolite, to discard

their uncultured words.

Coming after me

is one far greater; he will

baptise with Spirit.

© Ken Rookes 2020

To Bethlehem we come

The course of the Advent and its violet road-map

was determined two millennia ago.

We who claim our places among his disciples

walk the Coming-Season’s famous annual path to Bethlehem.

Was he even born there?

Perhaps / probably not:

it doesn’t matter.

We tread our Advent road toward Bethlehem

to meet with shepherds and other disrerputable people

to sing the songs of the coming of our friend and mentor.

We travel, recalling those irresistible demands of the ancient bureaucracy

to be counted, numbering ourselves

among those blessed to share in his suffering.

We bypass Jerusalem,

knowing that there are many places where truth is hidden,

that deeper truth awaits its revelation,

and that our ultimate destination will, one day,

include that great and troubled city.

Our journeying eyes search out inns and stables,

knowing that God and Spirit and other mysteries

will be found in the most unlikely places.

The city of David calls to us with the power of its history,

but we come, knowing that the new story being birthed

will be a far deeper drama

of love, generosity and sacrifice.

To Bethlehem we make our Advent journey,

with gratitude, wonder, and trepidation.

© Ken Rookes 2018

John the baptiser

Original painting by Rev Dr Wes Cambell
used with permission

Census

haiku for losing control

As the story goes

Augustus and his minions

decreed the counting.

A census gives us

the needed information

to order our world.

Numbering people,

keeping control and power,

imposing taxes.

The count brings the man,

along with his pregnant bride

south to Bethlehem.

But in this baby

God upends all creation;

here is the promise.

Humble mum and dad,

common tradesman and his wife;

folk the same as us.

Find them a stable,

a shelter for giving birth.

How appropriate.

No fancy cradle;

he can sleep in a feed trough,

there among the straw.

Invite some shepherds,

poor and lowly witnesses;

they’ll proclaim his birth.

Something about God

spurning grandeur and power;

these are good stories.

© Ken Rookes 2017.

Annunciation

Haiku of wonder

In these ancient tales

unexpected pregnancies

convey the wonder.

God, they assure us,

is at last doing something

to sort the world out.

An agéd woman

has managed to conceive, now

it’s her cousin’s turn.

The angel’s busy

conveying surprising news.

The girl is nonplussed.

Do not be afraid!

Easy to say, Gabriel;

it isn’t your womb!

You will bear a son.

You’ll call him Jesus. He will

do amazing things!

That, we know is true.

We will follow his story;

we will follow him.

Her fears overcome,

the girl agrees, allowing

events to proceed.

Only Luke gives us

these strange announcement stories,

stretching the waiting.

We’re left to ponder:

is wonder the same as truth;

and does it matter?

© Ken Rookes 2017.

Prepare the way

Haiku of expectation

The brutal powers

wink smugly, worship Mammon,

plan their victory.

John the baptiser

stands tall and immovable,

prophet for us all.

Hear the earth weeping,

as she waits for her offspring

to remember love.

Something might happen

if we want it hard enough.

Make yourself ready.

The messenger comes

sent to speak God’s awkward truth,

to prepare the way.

One is soon to come.

He brings a word of hope, life,

not to mention love.

Far greater than I;

in him the heavens draw near

with the Spirit’s kiss.

We need more prophets;

women unafraid of truth,

men who make a stand.

They won’t be silenced.

Like the master they follow

they’re driven by love.

Make the pathways straight

for the one who brings true life,

who makes all things new.

© Ken Rookes 2017.

Again the question

Haiku for reading the signs

Apocalyptic

imagery to puzzle

and to disconcert.

In those days, he said,

even the skies will rebel:

the sun, moon and stars.

The end times have come,

not because heaven says so;

the planet is lost.

Look at the fig tree,

or at the barrier reef;

the extreme weather.

We ask the questions:

Where is God in all of this;

what are we to do?

When the master comes

the servants are expected

to have done their jobs.

Keep alert! Wake up!

The hour, the day is coming;

perhaps it is here.

Again the question:

What does he expect of you,

who carry his name?

© Ken Rookes 2017.

Haiku for Advent

Christian faith is an
unexpected weed growing
in a polite field.


© Ken Rookes 2016

Prepare a path

Haiku of readiness

The Baptiser came;

a voice, calling, defiant.

Preparing a path.

In the wilderness;

broken stones and tangled weeds

of human despair.

Through the wilderness

one is coming to bring hope;

a way must be found.

It is drawing near,

this strange kingdom of light, life

and revolution.

Make yourselves ready,

bring forth the repentance fruits;

grace and compassion.

Through the scrub he comes

with his words of love and life;

most unexpected.

© Ken Rookes 2016

The people were filled with expectation

Our expectations are not high.

Should a prophet like John appear in our midst

to tell us how we should modify our lifestyles

so that the whole planet and all its people might benefit;

we would not listen.

We would dismiss him,

deny any truth in her message

and surround ourselves with clever people

to comfort and reassure us.

We would prefer, rather, that some Father Christmas fix-it-God

should descend from the heavens

with his big red bag of gifts for humankind

and sort everything out,

(world peace, climate change, terrorism, the poor,

domestic violence and such);

but most of us don't really expect that to happen.

In the end we find ourselves reluctantly admitting

that the prophet might have been right,

and that change

and fruitfulness

and real hope

might have something to do with the serious work

of repentance.

But, then again . . .

© Ken Rookes 2015

The word of God came to John

There must have been a number of them,

words, that is,
that drifted through the ether

to lodge themselves in the cranium of the prophet.

Repent, for one, springs quickly to mind.

It is an unfriendly word,

strident and uncompromising,

articulating its 'holier than thou' attitude

of judgement. Perhaps necessary;

all the same.

Prepare is friendlier;

along with the request

that we actually do something.

Prepare tantalises with its sense of expectation.

Something big is about to happen;

something wondrous and unprecedented.

Borrowing some more words

from the processes of creation

the prophet gets down to business.

The mountains will be razed, he tells us,

and the valleys filled!

Geologically improbable,

at least on the time scale

to which the prophet is working.

How many hundred million years would we need?

Get excited!

the prophet's hyperbole declares;

the Lord, (whoever he or she might be), is coming!

You may be present when she comes,

you may witness his arrival;

you may not,

but the hope embodied in this advent event

will be there for all humankind to see.

So get yourself ready.

Now!

© Ken Rookes 2015

the beauty and terror of this world

Barbara Kingsolver has a new book of essays called "Small Wonder," and it is a poetic proclamation of the power of hope. It is also a stinging criticism against a self-centered society. Taking a sharp look at the wars, the natural disasters, the political violence of the 21st century, she writes a modern translation of Luke's little apocalypse. By the end of the book, we know more than we need to know about the wastefulness of our beef consumption, the natural disasters caused by genetic crop engineering, the distortion of patriotism that blind flag-waving can produce, the barbarity of war and capital punishment. But she ends with soaring words of hope--a call to self-discipline and compassion and tolerance and moral living--a vision that matches the energy of Jesus' words to us today.

Rather than feeling hopeless, like a screen door banging in a hurricane, Kingsolver suggests that we should be the ones to bang and bang on the door of hope and refuse to let anyone suggest that no one is home. She writes, "What I can find is this and so it has to be: conquering my own despair by doing what little I can. Stealing thunder, tucking it in my pocket to save for the long drought. Dreaming in the color green, tasting the end of anger." She concludes: "Small changes, small wonders. These are the currency of my endurance and my life. It is a workable economy."

Today we Christians around the world light the first candle in a four-week journey through the darkness of Advent. Rather than hiding inside the secular sentimentality of a Christmas cocoon, we are called to open our eyes to see the chaos of the cosmos. We are called to recognize with a God's-eye view both the beauty and the terror of this world. And then with eyes looking up, we are called to wait for God's promise to be fulfilled, rejoicing in the small wonders and the simple graces of these danger-filled days.

http://day1.org/488-a_gods_eye_view

Shine

If Jesus had been strolling around

southern Australia today,

rather than Palestine in the first-century,

he'd have dropped his fig-tree metaphor

and gone with the Jacaranda.

“Look at the Jacaranda,” he'd say.

“When it puts forth its purple-Advent flowers,

to compete luminescently

with the sky and to carpet the earth below

in a circle of blue;

can summer be far behind?

No; nor God's kingdom.”

Hail to you, wondrous tree of purple;

botanical immigrant,

transplanted two hundred years ago

from another new world.

Your dazzling hue has ensured your welcome.

Like the land's many human inhabitants

you regard yourself as a true-born native,

among the greens, reds and yellows

of indigenous eucalypts and wattles.

Hail, Jacaranda!

The arboretum's John the Prophet,

landscape herald of one who is coming

and of the remarkable kingdom

of hope and justice.

(For which, we still yearn.)

For a month you shine, harbinger

of the extraordinary,

until your flowers fall and fade,

your leaves of green resume their rightful place,

and we are returned to our ordinary lives.

There our achings are embraced,

tasks and challenges are taken up,

and we get on with it.

© Ken Rookes 2015

Nativity

Brian Kershisnik

Among you stands one

When your eyes are opened,

you will see him,

no longer hidden,

but unveiled, revealed

as the one sent from above.

You may remember this day

and my words.            No,

I am not he.

Who is he, what does he look like?

I cannot answer;

I simply know that he is coming,

perhaps even come,

among us; here, today.

What will he say to us,

what will he ask of us?

More questions.

Ready yourselves to make him welcome;

nothing will remain the same.

Do not fear his changes,

embrace them with courage;

the magnificent journey awaits us all.

It will be no easy passage.

Accept the risk, start now,

and join me in the water.

© Ken Rookes 2014

The sun will be darkned

In ancient writings

the sun, moon and stars

combine to herald the coming

of the new age.

The laws of physics are cast aside

as the sun draws its blinds,

the moon withholds its light from the earth,

and the stars are swept into glowing heaps,

having fallen from the sky.

Outrageous metaphors,

emblazoned in the heavens

to signal cosmic events

and to fanfare the advent of the Son of Man;

whatever that means.

Something to do with Jesus,

and what he came to do,

and be. Something to do with

defiant love, reckless compassion,

and a quixotic commitment to justice, peace

and hope.

It could happen.

© Ken Rookes 2014