Outrageous

Haiku of revolutionary blessings

They are outrageous,

these beatitude sayings;

will you believe them?

What is he thinking?

How do such wild thoughts arise?

Impossible hopes!

Things turn upside down:

the poor, the mournful, the meek,

they will know blessing.

The merciful ones;

to them will mercy be shown.

Let us show mercy.

The ones who build peace,

are the ones God loves the most:

they are God’s children.

Those whose hearts are pure,

open, giving, believing;

God’s face shines on them.

When they revile you

as a disciple, Rejoice!

Your reward is great.

© Ken Rookes 2020

Song of Mary

Song of justice, song of peace,

song of struggle, song that pleads,

song to stir the anxious breast,

song that brings the weary, rest.

Song that speaks into the pain

song to bring us back again.

Song upon the lips of Mary,

song to make the rich folk wary.

Song of revolution shout,

song to throw the despots out.

Song of promise for the poor,

song that opens up the door.

Song to ring across the nations,

song of reconciliation.

Song of blessing from above,

song of unexpected love.

Song for widow, orphan, stranger;

song to celebrate the anger.

Song of laughter, song of tears,

song that challenges the fears.

Song of trouble, song of strife

song of hope and truth and life.

Song that overturns the wrong,

sing with Mary, join the song.

© Ken Rookes 2019

Fire on Earth

Haiku of urgency

He brought division,

surprised us all; we wanted

polite religion.

His words were crazy,

wild, disturbing our comfort,

not respectable.

Co-opting his words,

we made of them a program

of pious order.

If you want polite,

respectable and ordered,

you’d better leave now.

Your world is dying

and all you sing is pretty.

Don’t give me pretty.

Your world is dying,

open your eyes, can’t you see?

Time to do something.

Don’t give me love songs,

give me love’s revolution;

let me take the pain.

© Ken Rookes 2019

Blessings, surprising and unexpected

Haiku for a revolution

The place was level,

a good site for straight talking.

Useful metaphor.

They sensed his power

to bring freedom and healing,

not to mention hope.

He pronounced blessings

surprising, unexpected,

to those without hope.

The poor are promised

entry into God’s kingdom :

what more could they ask?

Those who are hungry

will be filled, the ones who weep

will have cause to laugh.

Are all these blessings

to be made real in this life?

And why shouldn’t they??

Along with blessings,

a series of woes are dealt

to those who have, now.

More flammable words

of gospel revolution

to upend the world.

Words to discomfort

the rich and the powerful,

but they don’t listen.

Here too, a blessing

for those who would follow him:

you will be reviled.

© Ken Rookes 2019

The great song of announcing

Haiku that lead to fulfilment.

Mary went in haste

to visit Elizabeth

at home in the hills

Two women embrace,

both pregnant, feeling wonder

and knowing the joy.

They cry and they sing

their songs of expectation;

the world is pregnant.

The young woman’s song

filled with its socialist themes

won’t win many friends.

The proud are scattered;

powerful kings and rulers

brought down from their thrones.

And yet the lowly,

cast aside, will be lifted

and the hungry filled.

And what of the rich?

They have had it all; send them

away wih nothing.

A promise of hope

for the people who struggle:

The new realm comes!

All old promises

will achieve their fulfilment

in the One who comes.

© Ken Rookes 2018

Magnificat: a haiku sequence.

Haiku for a revolution

A young teenager,

so the ancient story says,

offered up a song.

The girl is with child;

this is a thing of wonder,

of hope and of joy.

Nobody special,

she is God's lowly servant;

humble, accepting.

Magnifying God,

she sang with praise, rejoicing

at God's strange favour.

Mercy unconfined,

across the generations,

for those who trust God.

God's strength surprises

to scatter the great and proud

in their vanity.

From their noble thrones

the powerful are brought down.

Let the day come close.

The poor, down-trodden;

these will be elevated

to God's chosen place.

The hungry will eat,

they will dine upon good food;

the rich will miss out.

From this young girl's lips

came words of revolution.

Most disconcerting.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Ready for the revolution

"Thus Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism is no simple act of personal piety. On the contrary, Jesus discerns that John’s baptism and fiery preaching constitute a revolutionary declaration about a new world order where God will set right all that the establishment (in Jerusalem and Rome) has put awry. Jesus says, "Through this baptism, I ‘take up arms with you, John, an (l join this revolution whereby God’s justice will be manifest in the world." By submitting to John’s baptism. Jesus declares, "I am ready for the revolution!"

Other textual clues indicate the political and religious radicalism of John and Jesus. John’s baptismal activity occurs in the wilderness. In the first century CE., the word "wilderness" held a subversive significance. In social protest movements around Judea, agitators led their followers into the wilderness. Thus, John’s choice of the wilderness and Jesus’ willingness to join him there carried a subversive symbolism, especially given the popularity of John’s movement. People joined through repentance and baptism, and declared that God’s true power would emerge on the margins of the society.

Still another indicator of the revolutionary commitment of John and Jesus is the centrality of repentance in their proclamation. Excessive, sentimental use has blunted the sharp edge of the word "repentance," which involves more than an admission of wrong. The Creek word metanoia connotes a change of mind-set. To repent is to adopt a new mind-set that causes one to turn around. It is an apocalyptic act, creating a new way of envisioning and thinking about the world. Only those with new mind-sets will be fit for the new kingdom.

Furthermore, the means by which John and Jesus meet their deaths should convince even the most hardened skeptics of the revolutionary nature of their ministries."

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2252

Today this scripture has been fulfilled . . .

Today this scripture has been fulfilled . . .

Part one.

Big call;

in front of his home crowd, too.

The mood appears to have been generous;

initially.

A more modest, “begins to be fulfilled,”

might have been more judicious;

but then, unlike the majority of his followers,

Jesus was never particularly cautious.

In most centuries

he would have been locked up

as a troublemaker, or a communist.

In 21^st century Australia,

his middle-eastern appearance,

along with his gang of similarly disreputable types,

would have generated

a substantial ASIO file by now.

Not to mention his wild talk

of freedom for the oppressed

and good news for the poor;

a call to revolution if ever we heard one.

And then, as if that isn’t enough,

he goes and brings God into it!

Big call!

Who does he think he is?

Part two.

The teacher couldn’t leave well enough alone.

The crowd  were impressed;

initially

His incendiary manifesto

slipped through, apparently unnoticed.

It’s what happens in every generation;

so many miss the disturbing implications

of such radical and loosely labelled “good news.”

For the poor, – only if the rich

can embrace the liberty of letting go;

for the oppressed, – only if the powerful

decide that they can do without their privileges;

for the captives, – only if the fearful choose

to risk their hearts, take on compassion,

and trust in the healing qualities

of grace and freedom.

And for the blind, – only if the unseeing ones

can be persuaded to open their eyes

to see for themselves

the gathering wonder and shining hope.

But no; he won’t allow them to stay

in the comfort of their unlistening.

Before they can begin to get

even the smallest corner

of their collective crania around it all,

he provokes his native crowd

with the “no acceptance

in the prophet’s hometown,” line.

Clever!

Who does he think he is?

© Ken Rookes 2013

Yes, two for the price of one, folks!

The gospel readings for Epiphany 3 and 4 overlap, so I thought I'd treat them as a pair. 

Part one Epiphany 3, (Jan. 27), Part two Epiphany 4 (Feb. 3)

Revolution

You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world.

Revolution #1, John Lennon, 1968.

The revolution failed in 1968.

The students of Prague, Chicago, West Berlin,

Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and other such places,

yearning, as they were, for a more just and true society,

gave it a fair shake,

but they were up against an indescribable behemoth.

In Luke’s gospel, the child-woman Mary

was the unlikely harbinger of a revolution

in which the powerful

were to be brought down from their thrones

and the lowly lifted up: Vive la revolution!
It was left to her son
and his assorted crew of fishermen and stirrers 
to make the running, to protest the injustice

of power, greed and wealth,

among other things, in his own day.

His revolution failed, too,

but it gave rise to a movement that never quite died.

These insurgents achieved the occasional small victory,

but have not yet realised their lofty goals,

even after two millennia.

The demons continue mighty, powerful and fierce;

having added to their toolbox

of cunning and treacherous devices,

these fearsome powers go undetected and unnamed.

Still there remain a defiant few

who have not bent the knee before the gods

of capital, greed and comfort;

a vestigial company, marked by love,

that sees beyond the shining lights

and the glistening lies.

They form a tenacious remnant,

and hold tightly to outrageous dreams,

determined to maintain their revolutionary fervour.

They refuse to surrender to despair;

they will not abandon hope.

© Ken Rookes 2012

There was a man sent from God

Can’t allow too much expectation
or ferment among the people!
Things may get out of hand,
as any number of Arab nation leaders,
living, dead or vanquished, might testify
in this tumultuous year.
Best to keep the lid on it.


It was no different in Palestine
a couple of millennia earlier.
A wild and half-crazy man
set up camp by a watercourse
and began to affect the prophet
with his excited and revolutionary utterances;
“Repent!” he shouted.
Quickened by the traces of hope
they heard in his voice,
crowds flocked to listen.
Perhaps the shadows in their souls,
might become faded, at least a little,
in the words, the water and the sun.


And so, according to the fourth gospel-writer,
priests and Levites are sent from the city
to interrogate the Baptiser.
“Who,” they demand, “do you think you are?”
After replying with an unsatisfying trio of
“I am not-s,” he is pressed
to identify himself as a voice,
a harbinger of turbulent times.
He speaks of another;
through whom the true revolution
will find its inception;
one who, like it or not,
is surely coming.



© 2011 Ken Rookes

Magnificat

The song could be sung boisterously

and in harmony, were they so inclined,

by Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh

and any other revolutionary leader;

telling, as it does, of capital’s masters

getting their come-uppance

and despotic rulers being called to account;

whilst the poor and the humble

are gently elevated to their place of reward.

But hundreds of years before they could ever

form their á capella chorus, the song

is placed by gospel-writer Luke

on the lips of the girl-woman

from Nazareth, as she deals hopefully

with the prospect of impending motherhood.

Was Mary a revolutionary?

Did she have any idea of the unsettling

implications of her unplanned-for pregnancy?

Could she have ever guessed the trembling

that would be induced by these

troublesome words, as, freed from

popular sentimental accretions,

they reverberate through the centuries

to unease those who worship power,

wealth and comfort?

Probably not;

she seemed to leave the politics to her son.

But here it is: a graffiti spray song

of promise to confront respectable walls;

an outrageous cry in the dark

to call forth the glimpsed but ever distant dawn,

for which we are still waiting.

© Ken Rookes