What should we do?

What should we do?

After this, a group of politicians brought a family before Jesus to accuse them.

“We caught these foreigners crossing our borders without permission,” their leader said. “How should we deal with them?”

“What do your laws say?” he asked them.

“Our laws permit us to send them far away, where they can be locked up among barbed wire, mosquitoes and despair,” said the leader.

“What have you to say for yourselves?” Jesus asked the family.

The man stepped forward. “Our land was filled with fear and fighting,” he said.

His wife stood at his side, as the children clung to her. “We gathered what we could and fled. We came here hoping to find a place of refuge; where our children could be safe and grow and thrive.”

“There!” exclaimed a woman. “You have heard it from their own lips, they deserve to be sent away. What do you say?”

Jesus crouched, and drew with his finger in the dust. Then he stood, looked about him and spoke. “Let the one who has never feared an election defeat be the one who turns the key.”

The crowd became enraged. They seized him and handled him roughly.

Their leader spoke. “You are nothing but a bleeding-heart lefty!” he said. “What would you know?”

Then they cast him headlong into a ditch; and dragged the family away.

Some other people saw what happened, and wept for shame. They went looking for Jesus. He was sitting on the side of the ditch, wiping the blood from his face.

“This is all wrong,” they said. “What should we do?”

Jesus stood up. Looking into their eyes he embraced each one, and said, simply, “Everything. We must do everything that we can.”

© Ken Rookes 2016.

Peace, be still!

When the boat is getting swamped

and the wind and the rain
beat against our faces and drive into our eyes;
when the news bulletins are full of fear and pain,
our leaders point their fingers
and no one takes responsibility;
when women are beaten,
children deal (or don’t) with trauma
and men set their brains aside
for the sake of chemical pleasure;
when the poor are undeserving,
the wealthy are withholding
and compassion is declared a luxury
we cannot afford;
when the weak and the vulnerable go unprotected,
their oppressors go unpunished
and we are no longer outraged by injustice;
then, Jesus,
speak again those words
you spoke to your distraught disciples,
to the out-of-control elements,
and to a planet curtained with tears:
Peace, be still!

 

© Ken Rookes 2015

Vineyard violence

He told many stories.

One centred on a vineyard

where opportunistic tenants flout the law;

employing violence

to intimidate their way to wealth.

Nothing new, here.

That tradition goes back to Ahab,

and far beyond; the ruthless grabs

for property and power.

They continue, gathering pace.

In our time the violence

may be more subtle; it is no less real

or cruel. It springs from corporations,

boardrooms, banks, and speculators;

as commodities, goods and services                                                                                                                

are traded and sold,

along with the poor.

Land is snatched,

forests are stripped and burned,

and people are moved on,

along with other inconvenient life-forms.

The earth is gouged and torn,

while mines and factories pour their despoliation

into clouds, rivers and oceans.

The storyteller told his tale

as an allegory of the fruits of generosity and love

expected from those who find themselves

in the divine kingdom.

Its catalogue of ascendingly violent acts

was, of course, made up;

a literary device designed to engender outrage

among his hearers.

The violence that attends our planet

and its peoples, however,

is bleedingly real.

There are, at story’s end,

two assurances: that the cruel and brutal

will receive justice,

and that those who are otherwise unworthy

will be graciously included.

We can only hope

that these promises might be true.

© Ken Rookes 2014

a story of exploitation

The party appears typical for the time. The women are in an adjoining room. This is a men’s party. That is why Salome must go there to consult her mother. Dancing girls were often prostitutes. The promise to give away half his kingdom is the stuff of legendary stories of this kind (see Esther 5:3,6; 7:2). It also serves to expose fickleness. It is a terrible story, not just for its gory ending, but also for the machinations of power and the structures of injustice it displays. It is a sad irony that preachers have sometimes focussed on women’s wiles as its ‘message’. It should rather be seen as a story of exploitation - of women, of citizens and slaves; and as a story about silencing the cry for justice. Notice that Herod feared and is fascinated by John. John is not the last prophet whom leaders have reduced to an item of intellectual fascination, nor the last preacher. Ideas are fun.
This bizarre story, lifted from the ‘popular press of the day’ or its Galilean equivalent, casts a shadow over what is to come. Fickle, exploitative political powers will perform another convenient execution, reflecting arbitrary individual choice and reflecting structures of injustice. Mark’s readers may have made the connection between themselves and Herod’s wondering: can it be that someone so callously executed comes to life again? Is the risen Jesus to be seen where such powers are confronted anew, whether within us as individuals or among us in our society? Or does the entertainment drown out the voices?

http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost7.html

Close the blinds, Dear!

A Venetian was selling some blinds;
“They are marvellous things!” said he.
“Just put them inside of your mind;
you’ll be surprised at what you can’t see.

“We supplied a fine set to the PM,
the Premier and Treasurer too.
Here are testimonials from them,
telling what they have screened from their view.

“My eyes used to give me such trouble
with the news and the current affairs,
My blinds did their trick at the double
while I reclined in my favourite chair.

“My beautiful blinds are impressive;
I can see no-one homeless or strange,
none weeping, nor persons depressive;
and they come in a full colour range.

“There are no better blinds in the country;
we are giving them out at half price!
They come with a ten-year guarantee
that they’ll keep your life pleasantly nice.”

© 2009 Ken Rookes