Do you really need to ask?

Haiku of essentials.

They were arguing

as do the theologians

of all descriptions.

The greatest command;

do you really need to ask?

You know what it is.

It is always love.

The only thing that matters.

All else is detail.

When they practise love,

the ones who pretend wisdom;

then all is made new.

So many liars,

claiming to be the greatest,

but lacking in love.

The PM, scoffing

at ‘unfunded empathy.’

Does love need funding?

The modern-day scribes

still crave places of honour;

and forget to love.

Generous loving;

never in fashion. Today

it’s all about me.

Even the widows

are more generous with love

than those who are rich.

© Ken Rookes 2020

From the Narrative Lectionary for the fourth Sunday in Lent

The politics of resentment.

Haiku of generosity

A new parable

to illustrate the kingdom,

turning things on end.

Vineyard labourers

hired in groups through the day;

get the harvest in.

Some worked twelve hours,

some laboured for only one.

Pay them what is fair.

The last are paid first.

They get a full day’s wages.

A happy surprise!

The twelve-hour workers

rub hands in expectation;

but get basic wage.

The grumble is great.

Quit whingeing says the vintner;

it’s what we agreed.

If I deal freely

with my money, that’s my choice;

why should you complain?

Others might get more

than they deserve, that’s all right.

Be happy for them.

This story disturbs,

offends our sense of justice.

Best to ignore it.

(We all take offence

when those who don’t deserve it

receive more than us.)

© Ken Rookes 2017

Haiku of humility and hospitality

Places of honour

are kept for the distinguished;

take the humble chair.

Maybe you'll be asked

to come to a higher seat;

but then, maybe not.

Better to be known

for grace and humility,

and to be content.

Hospitality

when you expect a return

does not count for much.

When giving banquets

invite the poor, the needy;

they can't return it.

Generosity

when it cannot be repaid

is tested and true.

Jesus lived it well;

his life, generous with love

and humility.

© Ken Rookes 2016

How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

The wealthy,

while offering ‘in principle’ support

for the concept of kingdom of God,

find the idea that God might want to direct

the ways that money is used

or disposed of,

somewhat disturbing.

Riches are from God, they assert;

our prosperity is proof enough

that we are virtuous and good.

The Lord would not have so blessed us

if it were otherwise.

With wealth comes responsibility;

we understand that,

and we take our obligations seriously.

Assistance must be provided

for widows and orphans;

the scriptures are strong on that point.

But the poor, as a category,

includes a range of people:

wastrels, profligates, intemperates and such,

not all of them deserving of our largesse.

When it comes to generosity,

it's best to err on caution’s side.

A charitable trust, perhaps;

with appropriate tax benefits.

© Ken Rookes 2015

Queue jumpers

Jesus, spinner of many improbable

and awkward yarns,

once told a story about vineyard workers.

The workforce grew steadily

as more pickers were recruited

at various points throughout the day.
In the end, the undeserving latecomers

are treated with generosity,

while the twelve-hour labourers

merely get what is fair.

The indignation engendered

by the travelling teacher man

sees his polite audience shaking their heads

in disbelief.

And with the way he put his tale together,

the heat-of-the-day workers,

can’t even complain that the lucky ones

are queue-jumpers.

We, who are theologically informed,

understand that this story is all about divine grace,

improbable and outrageous.

Two millennia on

such generosity still offends.

Unless, of course, it is extended to ourselves.

We, as everyone can see,

are deserving.

© Ken Rookes 2014

Being generous is the key

In the three readings, Leviticus, Corinthians and Matthew, we are being encouraged to be generous in ways we may not have thought about. We limit the concept of generosity when we think of it only as the physical act of giving. It is also an attitude of mind and spirit; part of a loving nature, such as when we give someone the benefit of the doubt, when we give our time, talents and energy, and when we “fore”-give.

Generosity is an attribute of God and is listed as a fruit of the Spirit [Galatians 5:22]. Paul reminded the folk in Corinth that God’s Spirit lives in us. So we are able to be generous as a result. “For all things are yours…-- all belong to you”     [1 Corinthians 3:21,22] and in the story of the two sons [Luke 15:31] the Father told the older son, “All that I have is yours.” You can’t be given more than that!

The common theme through our readings for today is God’s call for us to be generous in our attitudes. God doesn’t call us to be what God is not. It is not just about being generous with our physical belongings and our wealth. It is about being generous in every aspect of our lives; generosity of spirit, generosity in forgiveness, in giving of our time and skills and of the gifts we have received.

The ways in which we can behave with a generous attitude include treating people with disabilities with respect. It is interesting that three thousand years ago people were being urged not to treat deaf people as though they unintelligent. It is a problem they still have today. Often we are unsympathetic and impatient with people with this disability. It takes a generous attitude to listen patiently and to speak clearly when communicating with them.

A generous spirit allows us to not be judgemental and to forgive more easily. Having worked as a Prison Chaplain, I know that there is not much generosity shown towards criminals. As a society, we judge them harshly and call for longer sentences rather than work to eliminate the circumstances that lead to criminality.

From Matthew, turning the other cheek, giving your cloak as well as your coat, going the extra mile, giving to beggars and lending to borrowers are all generous acts.

When God gave us freewill, God must have known that we would make a mess of things, that we would choose unwisely and selfishly and so God generously planned before to give us the freedom to make new starts. This is ‘fore-give-ness’, the gift enables us to get on with life without the burden of guilt.

Many of our prayers lack an understanding of, or trust in God’s generosity. We may plead over and over for God to give us something when we could have a generous attitude to God and trust that God will not withhold any good thing from us if it is within God’s ability to give it. God constantly shows a generous attitude towards us. Let’s take hold of the promise from Paul [1 Cor.3:21b-23]. “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.” Because of God’s generosity, we have abundantly more than we could ask for or even think of.

As we love because God first loved us, so may we be generous in all aspects of life.

(REv Julianne Parker)

But I say to you

 

Master rhetorician,
Jesus from Nazareth,
knew the primacy of the law
in the minds of the people
who ran religion in his country.
He felt the weight of the
shadow cast across a millennium by Moses,
knowing how his words had sought
to guide the nation
and to inform the lives of its citizens.
It was part of the deal with the Almighty,
constructing limits to bad behaviour,
and establishing righteousness and justice
as the preferred shapes of national life.
“You have heard it said,’
he was wont to say,
cleverly grounding his teachings in the law,
“But I say to you;”
cunningly suggesting that there might be
a worthwhile idea/thought/action
that takes us beyond law.
He was also wont
to name that possible something
as generosity, forgiveness,
and love.

© Ken Rookes 2014

You are salt

 

The salt gives of itself,
accepting its modest part,
and knowing that its culinary duty
is not to dominate,
but to enhance.
Its freedom is generous,
it is there for the other;
profligate as it imparts its saltiness.

The master gathers his followers;
calls them salt,
at large upon earth.
The disciple pours out self recklessly,
to enhance the justice,
to build the peace;
knowing that hope is an elusive costly thing,
and that the apparently foolish vision
of a world seasoned and shaped by love,
was never imagined.

© Ken Rookes 2014

a ticket to heaven

The generosity Jesus urges is not an accumulative good-deed-doing, banked earnings to buy you a ticket to heaven, but a rush of self-forgetting, a joyfully celebrative generosity that empties its purse without worries of a harsh future.
http://biteintheapple.com/treasure-in-heaven/

The surprising quality of generosity

There is a principle at the centre of creation,
written for all time in the dust
from which the universe was fabricated
and glowing with a lustre born
of hope’s never flagging defiance.
Given the formal name of ‘Grace,’
it is also known as ‘Generosity,’
and sometimes, ‘Kindness.’
The concept of this reckless munificence
frightens many, especially politicians,
eager to capture the votes of the mean-spirited,
and preferring the long-established reliability
of tax-cuts and border security
ahead of the uncertainty of noble compassion.
It would never do if those who are unworthy
were to receive something
to which they are not entitled.
Even those who have been touched
by this grace, given substance
in one who held back nothing,
struggle with generosity;
fearing to let go our truckloads of accrued stuff
in the delusion that it is of lasting importance.
The woman of Zarephath had nothing,
save her precious son, but acceded
to the prophet’s request to share their last meal.
This she did, according to the ancient story,
every day; discovering, in turn,
that the surprising quality of generosity abides,
glowing quietly with defiance.


© Ken Rookes

Commandment

 

A new telling

from the lips of one

who is himself a new telling.
A word, a message unexpected,
a love-letter declaration of commitment
and embrace from above.
A new telling by which the man calls his friends
to generosity and joyous sacrifice.
“You’ve heard it said,” he sometimes taught,
“But now I’m telling you. . .
Now I’m telling you
that if you’re going to stay my friends
then you will have to look a bit ridiculous,
you have to love,
you have to give.”
A new telling,
to up-end creation
re-fashion human relationships
and make the powers shudder.
A new telling; unexpected and difficult,
but then, he’s not asking you to do anything
that he wouldn’t do himself.
To make the point even more inescapable,
the teller stretches out his arms,
writes the word on the parchment of his skin,
and underlines it with his blood.
 

© Ken Rookes

Good news for the poor

I am not poor. I have food enough
to satisfy any momentary hunger;
and clothes sufficient to cover my nakedness,
even, when occasion requires,
to allow me to look stylish.
I have a dwelling, mostly paid for,
modest by the standards of my community,
but providing generous
shelter, privacy and comfort.
I have ready access
to the energy resources of my planet
allowing me to travel, to be entertained,
and to keep me warm, or cool,
according to my needs.
I visit the doctor when I am ill,
and can purchase medicines
at an affordable price.
And with the money that I have left over
I have access to learning, information and art,
along with the time to indulge these things.
Good news for the poor, I imagine,
would see dignity preserved,
hunger assuaged,
health care provided,
and the deliverance of a tolerable standard
of shelter, education and security.
Good news for the poor, I imagine,
would see those of us who are rich
being persuaded to share
recklessly and hopefully
of our abundance.

Ken Rookes

Back then

Dates and times are vague

in the story of Ruth;

in the days that the judges ruled

there was a famine in the land.

That is all we are told, but it is enough.

How old were Mahlon and Chilion

when they took local Moabite girls,

Orpah and Ruth, to be their brides?

Old enough to take on the responsibilities

of wife and family. And how old

were the girls? The usual age;

pubescent, most likely.

And how old would they have been

when they were widowed?

Ten years older, we are told,

but that may be an exaggeration

since neither of them had yet produced a child.

So it is, at least according to the story,

that thrice-bereft Naomi packs up her tragedy

and returns with her young daughter-in-law

to her home town and country.

There she must trust; both in God

and in the generosity of her wider family.

Ruth, a young woman who is presumably

not yet past her mid-twenties,

will, for all time, become the standard

for loyalty and devotion;

not bad for a foreign widow.

© Ken Rookes

Only one thing

Too much smug,

ticket-to-heaven thinking,

(I nearly called it theology),

in the fundamentalist roots

that many of us share. But,

says gospel-writer John

and those who appropriated his name

in later letters, there is only one thing

by which we are made friends

of Jesus.

If the proof is in the eating,

then the fruits are surely

in the doing, the listening,

and the obeying of the commandment.

The agápē word was spoken often

and enacted on more than one occasion

by the man who embodies

self-giving, generosity and compassion.

This utterance at the centre

of his living,

and translated into our language,

has become so tired

that I am reluctant to employ it.

Made a cliché,

the word spills effortlessly

from undiscerning lips,

and only occasionally finds expression

through committed hands

and outraged hearts.

But, it seems to me,

this one thing alone causes God,

(however she is conceived),

to smile;

only one thing.

© Ken Rookes 2012

All things in common

Forget the wonders and signs;

they’re always dodgey and ambiguous,

they prove nothing.

The story is still amazing,

but with qualifications;

all these Christians,

as they eventually came to be called,

cashing in their retirement investments

and giving the proceeds away,

keeping things in common,

sharing as any had need.

The “Jerusalem experiment,” so-called;

it couldn’t last.

This failed attempt at socialist spirituality

proves, according to some,

that all socialism is a failure.

But it wasn’t the love and the sharing

that didn’t work, it was the theology.

It’s easy to give your stuff away

when you are convinced that Jesus

is about to re-enter the earthly sphere

to set up the kingdom

that he failed to establish the first time.

Perhaps tomorrow, next week;

certainly by next year!

As I drive north through Epsom

a presumptuous billboard

confidently assures me

that Jesus’ second coming

is as certain as his first.

But I am a theological sceptic

as well as a socialist,

and remain unconvinced;

wondering if, maybe, the purpose of story

is to challenge me to be faithful and generous,

even if Jesus never returns.

© 2011 Ken Rookes