Fruits of iniquity

Haiku of shame

Amos; more judgement.

The fruits of iniquity

reveal rottenness.

Contemporary.

The rich trample the needy,

the poor are ruined.

Fundamentalists

who say they love the scriptures

ignore these verses.

Wait ‘til Sunday’s past

to get back to the business

of cheating the poor.

Buying the needy

for the price of sandals, and

the poor for silver.

Justify your greed;

decry the poor as lazy,

unblessed, unworthy.

Convince the needy

that you know what’s best for them;

they might vote for you!

The sky will be dark;

your songs will become laments

of bitter sorrow

A famine descends,

not of bread or of water,

but of hearing God.

It is upon us,

this famine of God’s good word.

Just a few will hear.

© Ken Rookes 2022

The Word is one of us

Haiku of wonder

In the beginning.

Great opening to a book

exploring myst’ry.

How did it begin?

Big bang; the divine Logos,

sparking in the dark?

John writes of the Word;

one with God, present; cosmic

primogenitor.

Verses of wonder:

through him came life, bringing light

for all humankind.

The defiant light

shines through the gloom. The darkness

cannot put it out.

Throughout history

the Word comes, speaking God’s life.

Not many listen.

More wonder! The Word

becomes human; one of us,

sharing in our life.

Grace and truth have come

to us in Jesus, God’s Son.

Jesus makes God known

© Ken Rookes 2021

The Word

 

Haiku of the Light.

In the beginning.

John carries us back in time:

God and the Big Bang.

Pushing back beyond

Miriam, Sarah and Eve

to Creation One.

An over-all plan

from the beginning of time:

hope for humankind.

He said, Let Light shine!

And life, light for all people

breaks through the darkness.

John came voicing hope,

to announce the one true light.

He was not the light.

The Light-Hope-Logos,

seed found at creation’s core,

becomes one of us.

Those who receive him,

who take his word deep within,

are made God’s children.

The law has limits.

Jesus brings grace, truth and love;

life comes from these things.

Many speak of God.

Only Jesus, called God’s Son,

truly makes God known.

© Ken Rookes 2020

He was in the world

Haiku of the Word

He was in the world;

he whose heartbeat resonates

with earth’s deep rhythms.

They did not know him;

his own people, not seeing

nor receiving him.

They are crying out,

yearning, aching. They will not

come, they will not hear.

He is in the world

at one with God, and with us;

listen to his words.

What will his words be?

Words that challenge and disturb,

turning upside down.

Some were listening,

taking his words deep within,

God’s faithful children.

And the Word became.

one of us, with flesh and blood,

with pain and dying.

Here, then, is wonder;

here is grace and here is truth,

for each one of us.

© Ken Rookes 2019

Becoming flesh

Haiku of wonder

In the beginning.

What a great opening line;

so much could follow.

Logos, more than word;

impossible mystery,

the essence of God.

There at creation,

alongside and one with God,

through whom all things come.

The six days give way

to the big bang universe;

was the Logos there?

Logos, source of life,

light challenging the darkness,

never submitting.

The true light arrives

to enlighten humankind;

may that day come soon!

Somehow mystery

takes flesh, coming among us;

living and dying.

Can you see where he

does touch earth with grace and hope;

will you receive him?

You who receive him

are his sisters and brothers;

children of God’s will.

© Ken Rookes 2019

He was in the beginning

Haiku of the coming

In the beginning.

They are indivisible,

the Logos and God.

Into the nothing

the Logos-God mystery

find their voice and speak.

The word, now spoken,

all creation comes to be.

Here is wonderment.

The Logos brings life;

life and light for humankind,

defeating darkness.

Logos, always there

in the world he created,

passes through, unseen.

Among his people

he finds no welcome nor home.

The loss is their own.

Yet some received him,

believed, and living by faith,

were made God's children.

To be born of God,

transcending earthly limits;

this, then, is glory.

The Logos took flesh,

our flesh, and lived among us;

full of grace and truth.

© Ken Rookes 2016

And the word became flesh and lived among us

The Logos-word came,

so the story goes,

sharing light and truth and wonder

with us earth-folk;

receiving, in return,

the planet's dust and strife,

along with our tears, regrets and weariness.

Hardly a balanced transaction.

© Ken Rookes 2015

With the coming of Word

With the coming of Word

at the beginning of the second act,

Grace and Truth

stride purposefully to centre stage

to take up their allotted positions.

Law, having featured so strongly in act one,

is, according to the script,

directed to move upstage

and to quietly exit to the right.

Law moves with deliberate steps,

then pauses,

relishing the lingering spotlight,

which, for loyalty or fear, perhaps both,

seems reluctant to trust

the new leads to carry the show.

Law’s assured and comfortable lines

seduce and enthral,

delivered with the much-practised ease

of one who has held the proscenium for centuries.

The spectators are less than convinced

by the unfamiliar and surprising utterances

of Grace and Truth.

The play pauses awkwardly,

perplexing the audience;

some begin to leave.

© Ken Rookes

If they do not listen

 

If they do not listen,
if the warnings go unheeded
the war will not be ended,
the climate goes on changing,
the poor will always languish,
the wealthy will never let go,
the raucous will not be silent,
kings will still raise armies,
and cheats will keep up their long established practice
by moving their headquarters off-shore.
Miners will make their holes ever larger,
generals will keep sending soldiers to their death,
politicians will compromise for the sake of cheap opinion,
the rich will pay less taxes,
the beggars will not go away.
Desperate people will travel once more on boats,
bullies will have their way,
children will be hurt again,
and mothers will weep
while fathers are immobilised by guilt.
If they do not listen,
love will fall into ruin,
truth will be vanquished,
and the memory of hope is lost.

© Ken Rookes 2013

A question of identity

It is a question of identity.
If you are . . .
Is this not . . ?
Who is this . . ?
Who do you say . . ?
So, at the end, when he is paraded
for judgement, before the governor,
the tetrarch, and then the governor once more;
the questions continue.
Who are you, carpenter;
are you a king?
Will you perform for us a sign,
a something that will set our minds at rest;
or speak for us a word that will seize us,
a truth that will change our living?
No answer is given;
only silence.
The words have long been spoken,
scattered alongside the road, in villages,
kitchens and lake shores.
Some were heeded,
some discarded;
there will be no more.
One final message remains to be uttered.
It is not new, but a repetition
of the oft-spoken word
by which the man has shaped his living
and wrought his identity.
It will not be voiced by lips and tongue,
but by his body, suspended
and reaching out.

© Ken Rookes 2013

Those who love me will keep my word

Before everything else he was a teacher,
bearing a word that came
from somewhere unexpected;
where the divine light is piercing and bright
and causes good people to blink
and to avert their eyes.
The word sparked disturbingly,
wildly illuminating the polite mores
of an increasingly rude world,
whose own most treasured words
had grown ugly and self-centred.
In the hands of the Teacher the word
glowed true and confident, and his friends,
in time, did learn to look upon it.
But now that the Teacher has left them
their only thought is to find for it
a worthy and acceptable repository.
They manage to procure a suitable plinth,
where they install securely the wondrous word
and draw curtains of safety around it.
Then, plating him with silver,
they proceed to burnish the teacher’s memory,
pledging their undying devotion,
and honouring him as their Lord;
making sure, as they do so,
that the safety curtains remain reliably in place.