A story most strange

A story most strange

Haiku that challenge our notions of God.

A story most strange;

a father is told to kill

his beloved son.

It was just a test.

We know that. Did Abraham

pass, or did he fail?

Should he have stood firm

and refused God’s mad request?

I hope I would have.

Where is the lamb, Dad?

We have the wood and the fire,

but where is the lamb?

It’s a grim picture;

father poised with knife in hand,

ready for murder.

Just kidding, says God.

Hmm. That’s a relief. Hey God;

strange sense of humour!

How could Abraham

not know the voice that says kill,

can not be from God?

The point of the tale:

God, (unlike others), rejects

human sacrifice.

© Ken Rookes 2023

What God wants

Haiku

The list of blessings.

is long, matched only by that

of Israel’s failings.

God calls the mountains

to hear the case that is made

against the people.

Tell: what have I done,

asks God, that you should weary

of my loving care?

Always I acted

to save and deliver you;

and this is your thanks?

Forget burnt off’rings,

calves and rams by the thousand;

these won’t make it right.

Sacrifice won’t work,

even giving your firstborn

can’t take sin away

You know what God wants.

Justice, kindness; that’s it! And

walk humbly with God.

© Ken Rookes 2023

God's disappointment

Haiku of dodgy religion

Isaiah’s vision

reveals God’s disappointment,

his people’s failure.

Rams, lambs goats and bulls,

sacrificed to appease God,

won't save your bacon.

With hands dripping blood

you come to God, expecting

that God will hear you?

Your good religion

means nothing while injustice

and evil abound.

I take no pleasure
in offerings, festivals;
bring me a clean heart.

Cease your wicked ways,

cleanse yourselves of all evil,

do good, seek justice.

Its never too late,

the invitation is there;

come to me, says God.

Your sins are scarlet,

they shall be like snow; crimson,

they'll become like wool..

I would not judge you;

be willing, obedient,

and all will be well.

© Ken Rookes 2022 

Do this thing

At the centre of the story

is love. Nothing else.

A commandment,

said to be new.
Do this thing.
Right there at its core;
always has been, will be.
There, from its beginning,
and when it comes to its brutal end.
Which, at this point in the story, is not far off;
but perhaps it’s not really the end.
This love finds its greatest expression,
we are told, in sacrifice;
in spending oneself for others,
for those embraced as friends.


Love the same way the master does;
a rule for disciples
and all who come after.
Be courageous; do this thing,
and turn it into the fruit that endures.

© Ken Rookes 2015

They shall be like snow

In times beyond remembering,

when stories were told and not written,

the gods were believed to hold in their collective hands

the keys to the future: the rains, fertility,

harvest and so forth.

And so, in order to keep the gods happy

and pleasantly disposed towards humankind,

holy places were marked out with stones,

altars were erected, idols sculpted, festivals declared,

solemn assemblies called, animals sacrificed,

dances cavorted, entreaties wailed and offerings made.

No evidence can be found as to the effectiveness

of all this religious activity,

but the practitioners were no doubt convinced,

that, had their pious processes remained undone,

life would have been more of a struggle than it was.

The Yahweh-God of the Hebrews, however,

wryly observing that religious devotion

could be a convenient cloak for less than pious attitudes; 

radically declared that she/he

was not much interested in such adorations.

This strange God preferred to be pleasantly surprised

by a people’s concerns for justice,

goodness, generosity and compassion.

“When this happens,” this straight-talking God declares,

“White shining divine grace shall abound in human affairs,

to overcome all the sins and the fear,

and, in the midst of the darkness,

bringing hope.”

• © Ken Rookes 

Love's courage

They are heroes,
the men, the women,
and all the children, too;
who stand up to the bullies.
Like Jesus, who refused to be intimidated
by Herod’s threats;
or Rosa Parks, defying centuries
of white superiority;
or Malala, Pakistan’s daughter,
standing her ground to confront Taliban misogyny.

There is a choice set before each of us,
the poet said: love and fear.*

Bullies are cowards, we are told,
and will flee in the face of resolute opposition.
But with the support of institutional wealth,
power, soldiers and guns,
the bullies may be blind to the scrawled messages
on their crumbling walls, and don’t always go quietly.
The raw ferocity of fear can be a terrible thing,
the consequences; dreadful.

Our heroes,
and many more whose stories we may never hear,
knew what was right.
Driven by a vision of all that might be,
they found the courage to live towards it.
Setting their sights upon the hoped-for goal,
refusing the temptations to avert their gaze
towards something simpler and less demanding,
they tread determinedly towards their Jerusalem..

*Michael Leunig



© Ken Rookes 2013

Carravagio, sacrifice of isaac

a difficult story

but where is the lamb. . .?

The child asks the question

for which his father has no answer,

save that his strange and fearsome God

will provide. And in the end, we,

along with the unquestioningly faithful man,

discover a hapless ram caught by its horns

in a thicket; providentially available

to be offered up in place of the child.

We all heave a sigh of relief,

assured that this terrifying deity

has a heart and is still worth worshipping;

only testing.

It was never God’s intention

that the boy should be killed;

only testing.

It was never God’s intention

that a rampant humanity

should dominate and abuse;

only testing.

It was never God’s intention

that humankind, elevated to the position

of planetary supremo

should mortgage our children’s future;

only testing.

It was never God’s intention

that the obscenely wealthy

should buy and sell the poor;

only testing.

It was never God’s intention

that the anxious and the fearful

should trample on the rights of the foreigner,

and that the plight of the vulnerable

and the stateless should be so carelessly disregarded.

Only testing.

© Ken Rookes 2011