For this you have been called

Haiku responding to 1 Pt 2:19-25

Being God aware,

you do well to endure pain,

unjust suffering.

If you endure when

you suffer for doing right,

God approves of you.

We're called to follow

Christ who also suffered; He

is your example.

Jesus did not sin,

he spoke truth; he was abused

but returned it not.

Christ trusted in God,

knowing that God is a judge

who is always just.

He carried our sins

in his body, opening

our way to healing.

Like sheep we had strayed,

now the shepherd welcomes us

back, and guards our souls.

© Ken Rookes 2026

Lifted

Haiku of the light

In the wilderness

Moses elevates the snake;

bronze for healing.

Look upon the snake,

he told them. You who are ill

will not die, but live.

Look upon the Christ

when he is lifted, John says;

you, too, will find life.

When he is lifted,

when the cross is made his home,

we will see his truth.

He will shine as light,

challenging earth’s dark sadness,

that which is evil.

Seek out the light

and dwell in him; find his truth,

life without limits.

In your wilderness

raise your eyes; you will see him,

chasing your darkness.

© Ken Rookes 2021

At Capernaum

 

Haiku for making a start

Jesus hung out with

Simon, Andrew, James and John;

his first disciples.

The Capernaum

sermon completed, Jesus

entered Simon’s house.

His mother-in-law

being crook, Simon informed

Jesus, who healed her.

Quick recovery;

being a woman she got

straight back to serving.

With dusk the Sabbath

ended; the townsfolk came out

seeking to be healed.

Before dawn he left

to find a deserted place,

so that he might pray.

They went and found him.

Ev’ryone’s looking for you,

wants your healing touch!

There are other towns

where my message is needed;

I must go there, too.

© Ken Rookes 2021

Not on the Sabbath

Haiku of freedom

Jesus was teaching

in one of the synagogues,

it was the Sabbath.

She came to see him,

the woman; she hadn’t stood

straight for eighteen years.

As we might expect

Jesus spoke words of freedom;

touched and made her whole.

Standing straight, praising,

and giving glory to God,

the woman rejoiced.

The law is broken!

They protest: Six days for work,

don’t use the Sabbath!

You are hypocrites!

he answers. On the Sabbath

we do what we must.

It’s not the Sabbath

that stops you rejoicing, but

your hatred for me.

Get hung up on law,

ignore what God is doing;

how sad you all are!

© Ken Rookes 2019

Gerasene contry

Haiku for crazy people

Gerasene country:

among the tombs and the swine,

the broken man roams.

Naked to the world,

cut off from society

he is in torment.

With shackles and chains

they have tried to restrain him.

The man is too strong.

When Jesus arrives

Legion comes to confront him,

bringing his demons.

Whether it’s demons,

mental illness, brain damage;

he still needs healing.

The swine dash headlong

into the lake, carrying

dark spirits with them.

The towns-people came

and found the man clothed and sane,

sitting with Jesus.

Please leave us Jesus,

it’s all too much, we’re frightened!

So he departed.

Let me come with you,

the man begged. No, said Jesus,

Go, declare God’s deeds.

So the man went home

restored; to live, to love, and

to tell his story.

© Ken Rookes 2019

The Sabbath cornfields

Haiku for lawbreakers

The Sabbath cornfields

see his disciples breaking

the Sabbath work laws.

Plucking heads of grain:

harvesting, threshing, working!

All against the law.

The Sabbath, he said,

was given for humankind

not the opposite.

Jesus sits loosely

with the letter of the law;

he is ruled by love.

In the synagogue

the man with a withered hand:

will Jesus heal him?

Shall Sabbath prevail

and circumvent the healing?

No. He will choose love.

What does the law say,

on the Sabbath, to do good,

or should we do harm?

They will not answer.

Their hearts are hard, unable

to find compassion.

The mean and heartless

do not like being exposed.

The plotting begins.

© Ken Rookes 2018

gerasene demoniac

My name is Legion

Legion were my hauntings,

and numerous the years of their torments.

Great was my nakedness,

and multiple the chains and shackles

that lay rusting among the weeds,

failed and broken.

Vast was my hopelessness,

deep my despair,

and terrible the fear

evoked by my unholy presence.

Many were my dwellings

among the tombs outside the city.

Considering myself dead,

I was at home there;

and at the same time, lost.

Manifold were the blessings

from the hand of the Galilean;

who arrived, uninvited,

at this desolate place,

to speak his words of healing,

hope,

liberty and life.

They sent him away;

I would have gone with him.

“Return to your people,”

he told me. “Be a living declaration

of the wonders of God.”

I did as he said.

My heart,

however,

followed him to Jerusalem.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Now that day was a Sabbath

A haiku sequence

In Jerusalem

by the Sheep Gate; see, a pool

with five porticoes.

Beth-Zatha by name.

There the invalids gather,

waiting for a sign.

When the angel stirs

the water, the race begins;

to claim the healing.

This man cannot walk;

he will never enter first.

He lies there, hoping.

It was a Sabbath

when Jesus came to that place;

breaking all the rules.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Our ideas about God are like this

"...Our ideas about God are like this. To engage to the best possible extent with God, it is necessary for us to try new and different understandings that lead to new and different relationships with the Divine. Many Christians were not introduced to a variety of images and understandings early in their lives and so will only accept what they were fed as pre-school children.

Well, the truth is, whether we recognise it or not, to be fully engaged with God, others and ourselves, depends on us being willing to try out for ourselves how good the Lord is. We simply can’t rely on what others tell us to come to life in all its fullness. If we are willing to dare to grow in our understandings, God will introduce us to new things. Sometimes this may happen slowly, like an acquired taste. Sometimes it will be something we like and instantly respond to and then wonder why we never tried this before.

Job was forced by the circumstances surrounding the loss of all his family except his wife, and the loss of all his belongings to take a look at how he saw God. In the reading we heard, Job is acknowledging that God is far greater than he had understood prior to his losses. He said that before, he was relying on what he had heard about God but now he could see with his own eyes whom God is. He had found out something new about the greatness of God.

Many of us go our whole lives relying on we have heard from others about the Divine One. It sometimes doesn’t even occur to us that we can ask for an encounter with a member of the Holy Trinity, that we can experience God with us. Of course, that makes it sound a whole lot simpler than it is, but God is not inclined to intrude into our lives unless invited even though, paradoxically God is always present.

The blind man in today’s Gospel reading dared to find out for himself how compassionate Jesus was. Jesus not only healed him but also praised him for his faith. Each time Jesus praises someone for their faith, they have dared to step out, to do something others weren’t game to do, to try, to test, Jesus’ willingness to help. They were in effect, willing to “taste,” to see if Jesus would and could help them. ..."

Rev Julianne Parker

(for full sermon see sermons page)

The beggar of Jericho

In Jericho's streets

a loud, annoying man, blind and embarrassing,

glimpses hope for the first time

and shouts excitedly above the noise of the crowd.

The reason for his agitated cries:

one Jesus of Nazareth, aka, Son of David;

who is implored to be merciful

and to use his influence with the Divinity

to heal the man's vision-less eyes.

He ignores all attempts to silence him

and calls even louder.

The itinerant teacher takes notice,

and invites him to come.

The man has faith, he declares,

and credits this worthy attribute

with the impending recovery of his sight.

He now sees things clearly, for the first time;

not just the physical world

of sunlight, shadows, refractions,

wavelengths and lumens.

His Jerichoean darkness cast aside

as was his cloak minutes earlier,

he chooses to journey on an uncertain route,

but one saturated with light and purpose.

Embracing the travelling man as master, friend and guide,

he follows him glowingly down the road.

© Ken Rookes 2015

Don't tell anyone

Keep it to yourself, this encounter;

this meeting with a miracle.
He who unstopped your ears
and loosed your tongue,
now directs you to tell no one.
 
Right!
Hey there, friend!
How come you can now hear and speak
when you couldn’t yesterday?
What do you mean, you can’t tell me?
 
It was never going to happen.
You’ll just have to make the best of it, Jesus.
The excited crowds, the adulation,
expectations and demands;
they come with the job.
 
The job also seems to generate
a growing pack of fierce opponents,
baying from fear,
and anxious;
lest their comfortable world be inverted.
 
Your adversaries are right to be concerned.
Should they dare to listen, it might be
that these, too, will be required to consider
the demands of love;
and do something about them.
 
Don’t tell anyone.
 

 

© Ken Rookes 2015.

Love consists in this

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

More than mere miracle stories

"...If we remain at the level of the sheer miracle, we can become preoccupied with questions like: why is this useful ability not more widely available? how might it have happened? did it really happen? is it a legendary story designed to echo the feats of Elijah and Elisha? All questions have their place. But the sacredness of this text lies less in what history it might purport to tell and more in what it celebrates. It celebrates that the human yearning for new life, set out in dreams and visions for the climax of history, can find its fulfilment in being connected to Jesus. It celebrates that the reality of women in community, the suffering and deprivation, the promise of emerging womanhood and all which that entails, belongs firmly within the embrace of the gospel. It does not need male mediation. Sometimes that is its greatest threat. It is still probably a male story and still reflects dominant cultural assumptions about appropriate behaviour (5:33). But it is a moment of light and hope and, like the celebration of Gentile and Jew which it completes with 5:1-20, it celebrates inclusion of women and men and has something healing to say to both."
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost5.html

A woman and a girl

A woman and a girl

For the woman,

twelve years of suffering,
the physical distress of her bleeding
matched only by its consequent social exclusion.
(She is ritually unclean, and will remain so
while ever her haemorrhage goes unchecked).
For the girl, according to the fears of her father,
twelve years of living are about to be concluded,
just when her life should be beginning.


Except that the girl doesn’t die;
the woman, too, is healed by the teacher..
Connected only by a narrative
and the same span of years,
each is restored, in her own way,
to life, family and community.
This, according to gospel writer, Mark,
is what Jesus, the one sent from above,
does.

© Ken Rookes 2015

walking and leaping

"Recently I heard part of a radio broadcast in which they were talking about an extended version of the placebo effect. Researchers pondering on differing outcomes for people diagnosed with similar illnesses found that when medical workers believed that recovery was likely and gave people optimistic diagnosis, they were more likely to recover than when they were pessimistic about the outcome for the individual.

The reading from Acts we have just heard follows on from the story of Peter healing a lame man. Many of us heard the story as children and remember singing about the man who went “walking and leaping and praising God.” Was it something like this version of the placebo effect that had happened for the man who Peter had healed? Was Peter the first to have faith that together with Jesus Christ he could encourage the man sufficiently for him to be able to walk? We do not know how this healing occurred only that it did. This is indeed good. It is another way in which people are healed. Many major advances have been made in health sciences by people who were disturbed about early deaths or suffering, pondered the situation and were enlightened.

Sometime it is passages from the Bible which disturb us. Then it is particularly good for us to ponder the passages prayerfully. It may take weeks, months or even years to come to an understanding of what God is saying, or not saying through these particular words. Meditation, contemplation and pondering are about waiting patiently for answers. It isn’t always easy to be patient when we are disturbed by something. We want answers immediately but we may not be ready for the answers.

It is arrogant of us to ever assume that we know what particular passages of Scripture mean without pondering all possible implications and may well lead to us sinning. It is up to each of us to ask questions such as who wrote this, to whom, in what circumstances and why? We can also ask, do the words mean the same today, what were the cultural understandings at that time, how did they see God and Jesus?

We have been gifted with the ability to contemplate and meditate, to think and to feel and to ponder. We have the privilege of being called “children of God”. Let these things be a blessing to us, to our relationship with and worship of God and to our relationship with others."

REv Julianne Parker

(for full sermon see sermons page)

Demonic powers

"The unclean or demonic powers are primarily encountered in the places of religious teaching and worship, and it is the teachings of Jesus that expose them and cause them to rise up in frenzied opposition to him. And this points us further into just what it was that Jesus was teaching and challenging. This contrast between the clean or holy and the unclean or demonic is at the heart of what religious teachings and institutions claim for themselves. They are the places that determine and regulate who and what is considered holy and who and what is considered unclean, unacceptable, defiled and to be rejected. But when Jesus begins cleansing the “holy” places, you can quickly see that he is declaring that these “holy” places have in fact become havens for the demonic. All the way through the history of religions, including Christianity, our supposedly “holy” systems have mutated into forceful systems of control. They claim control of people’s fates, they prescribe rules, they limit freedom, they judge who is clean and unclean and who can come in and belong and who can’t. They confine and stifle and squash and oppose. And Jesus doesn’t just speak against them. His critique of these stifling holiness systems is balanced by bold actions of liberation and renewal in God's name. He makes it abundantly clear in word and deed that God’s love and mercy and joyous welcome will not be bound and regulated by our demonic systems."

Nathan Nettleton from http://www.laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html

spittites and non-spittites

     It has been suggested that the origins of denominations occurred when the healed blind men met each other. At first they were all excited about the miracle of sight that Jesus had given them, but as they talked about how Jesus had healed them, they began to discover some significant differences. For some, the healing came with simply a touch from Jesus (Mt 9:29; 20:34). Another proudly boasted that he had enough faith so that Jesus didn't have to touch him to perform the miracle (Mk 10:52). Another meekly exclaimed that Jesus not only touched him twice, but also "spit on his eyes" in order for him to see clearly (Mk 8:23). The final one really felt embarrassed to admit that even though a touch wasn't part of his healing, Jesus' "spit" wasn't enough. Jesus had mixed his saliva with dirt and put the mud on his eyes and then told him to go and wash in some pool of water (Jn 9:6-7). Since each one thought his healing was normal and better than the others, they divided into spittites and non-spittites; muddites and non-muddites; touchites and non-touchites. Denominationalism was born.

Brian Stoffregen

They drove him out

 

They drove him out of the Temple;
the unnamed man, who,
according to John, had been born blind.
Now, with the wondrous gift of sight,
he could not be less concerned;
he has no desire to ever go back,
and he won’t.
The Temple no longer has what he needs;
he will manage without it. In turn,
the Temple will have to get on without him;
and all the others, who,
over the millennia,
have been dismissed from its hallowed courts.
The Temple has been adept
at expelling embarrassments;
those who no longer recite the creeds,
who ask their awkward questions
and dare to give shape to their doubts.
Preferring the elusive uncertainty of truth,
whatever its unexpected contours,
they despise the Temple’s promise
of security and comfort.
They would rather die outside the walls
than live the delusions within.
Do your worst, Temple;
drive them all out.
Nobody cares
anymore.

© Ken Rookes 2014

seeing and not seeing

A man who had been held in solitary confinement for 29 years spoke of how his eyes had adjusted to looking no further than the length of his cell. When he was released, it took many months for his eyes to begin to see further than a few metres.

Chris had been out with his mates for a drive. He commented later how they had teased him because he was continually drawing their attention to things he saw along the way. “I thought everybody noticed things, but they don’t.” he said, disappointed for his friends that they missed so much.

In the story from John 9, we have a number of different forms of seeing and not seeing. Jesus saw a man who was unable to see, because he had been born blind. The disciples, with their question about who had sinned had a blinkered view of the causes of blindness. The Pharisees, with biased religious views, were upset that the man had been given his sight on a Sabbath day. They were blind to the ways of God. The neighbours didn’t know if they could trust what they were now seeing because he looked quite different to them as a sighted person.

We are probably not physically blind, but many of us have had our sight restricted by walls built to protect our religious views. We may find it hard to see beyond the boundaries of our Biblical understandings. No  one may have pointed other insights out to us or encouraged us to look further.

Brother Pinto says that if the way we see God now is the same as the way we saw God five years ago then our vision is severely limited and we haven’t been hearing God’s offer to open our eyes to the possibilities that are available to us. The good news in this is that God is willing to open our eyes, heal our blindness and help us to adjust to new visions of ourselves, others and God. May you be blessed with a clearer vision of God, others and yourself and many new insights.

(Rev Julianne Parker) (for full sermon see sermon page above)