This Sunday special

Who do you say that I am?

You are the Messiah,

the one sent from God;

who shows us

what it is like when God’s spirit

bubbles from within.

You are the one in harmony

with all creation;

who might just persuade

the lion and the lamb

to lie down together.

You are the one whose words

challenge and delight,

skipping childlike in the rain;

who changes enemies into friends,

tears into laughter,

anger into hope,

fear into freedom.

You are the one who calls

liberty out of bondage,

light out of darkness,

life out of death.

You are love;

the one in whom we live and move

and have our being.

You are the Messiah,

child of the God

whose life is everywhere.

© Ken Rookes

Soundings

1.

The train from Oxford is quiet.

Perhaps we are all reflecting

upon the importance of learning

and enquiry

to a civilised nation.

2.

Until it arrives at Slough,

where the doors are opened

to a chattering invasion of voices;

closely followed by their owners.

Like a class of pupils

set free from their constraints,

the commuter crowd continued

their unrelenting chatter

all the way to Paddington.

3.

The regular confusion of light conversation,

mobile phones and undulating train noises

accompany the final leg of our day trip.

Walking from the Highbury Station

we stop to eat at a convenient pub.

Here, a new set of erratic conversations

from the Friday night mob

are augmented by the driving bass rhythms

of recorded rock and roll music.

The food was good.

4.

Turning into the polite street

wherein we are being accommodated,

the throaty roar of an outrageous motorcycle

reminds us of home:

Bendigo, hoon capital of Victoria.

5.

Three am.

The night’s summer stillness is swept aside

by a dreadful wailing.

Rising, and moving to the window

Jane observes a man with a dog.

The man is kicking the animal

and stomping on its neck.

The despairing cry slowly recedes

as the man drags the wretched

object of his betraying

to the end of the street, and around the corner.

Jane punches the three nines into her phone,

and speaks to the authorities;

whilst I am left to wonder

about the things that make

for a civilised nation.



© Ken Rookes 2011
I wrote this in London during my recent leave. It seems to have some relevance to the current events in that troubled nation.

Sometimes you have to answer back to God.

Sometimes

you have to answer back to God.

Many consider it poor form,

say that we have no right

to question the Divine opinion.

We are mere worms, they say;

who are we to presume to know better

than the Omniscient One

whose ways are mysterious?

Better to put the doubts aside

and accept the Almighty’s

strange wisdom. Remember Job

and his unsuccessful contention?

Yes, but I am reckless enough

to doubt, curious enough

to question, and rude enough

to answer back.

There is much in this world

with which I disagree,

and God, they tell me,

is supposed to be in charge.

It seems to me that faith

requires me to keep asking;

a pesky dog yapping at God’s heels:

like the woman in the story

who would not let go until Jesus

changed his mind

and healed a gentile daughter.

© Ken Rookes

Cur Deus Homo*

Seeking respite from the crowds,

the God-man heads north on a holiday

to gentile-land, Tyre to be precise.

He covers his tracks well,

the paparazzi will not find him.

But the do-not-disturb sign

is treated with nonchalant indifference,

by a foreign woman

who apparently fears neither God

nor man.

Her daughter is crook,

with a demon, to be specific.

She asks the God-man

to drive the demon out,

to set her daughter free.

He refuses, saying

that gentile-dogs can go beg

whilst Israel's children first be fed.

But the woman is rude,

she doesn't know the rules, and answers back.

The God-man accepts

the shame of being wrong.

He lets the woman have the last word,

and does the right thing,

in the end.

*Cur Deus Homo was the title of a famous essay

by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109).

In English it means "Why God became a man."

© Ken Rookes

Flash-Coat Joseph

He said, "I am your brother, Joseph,

whom you sold into Egypt." Gen. 45:4

Joseph with the flash coat:

it was not your arrogant dreams of

sibling superiority that showed us

that you were a man of God.

Nor the miracle of survival

that saw you arrive, bloodied but intact,

in far-off Egypt where your dreams

would finally come true.

It was not this that stamped you as one

who knew the generous God of your

fathers; nor even your explanation

of the Pharaoh's dreams, by which

the nation was spared great suffering,

and your own family was fed.

Sure, these things showed

that Yahweh was with you;

but we knew that your heart

was with Yahweh

when you forgave

your brothers.

© Ken Rookes

Walking on water

Elijah

God is in the silence

"Message? God wasn't in the sound bites. God was in the silence bites. The word for which Elijah was listening wasn't in the sound bites of earthquake, wind, and fire. God's word came to him in the silence bite that followed. Since we're so long familiar with the King James version of Scripture, the translation of the Hebrew phrase as a still small voice has become treasured language in terms of how we understand God speaking to us, but the original Hebrew says sheer silence, utter silence. Could it be that silence, sheer silence, is very often the necessary prerequisite for hearing the still, small voice of God? Sound bites serve to get our attention. Politicians and advertisers and, admittedly, sometimes even we preachers, capitalize on that and use sound bites. And they may get our attention, but we pay attention in the silence bites. The noise of earthquake, wind, and fire got Elijah's attention so that he was prepared to pay attention in the silence.

As the poet John Ciardi has said, "We are what we do with our attention." We are what we do with our attention. Silence is pregnant with the presence of God. Pay attention."

fromhttp://day1.org/459-silence_bites

The Sounds of silence

I think that Paul Simon's words apply to the experience of Elijah in the lectionary reading from 1 kings. The 'still small voice' is more properly translated as a gentle sound or a whisper or even the sound of silence.


"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

Walking on water

Touching wetly

The voice echoes in my head: Come!

Come to where living defies limitations;

to this improbable arena where the divine

work of yearning and weeping awaits.

My feet touch wetly this strange and yielding

interface between faith and fear. Look,

I am walking upon the waters!

The Master’s expectations have driven me

from my cautious comfort

to this challenging place

of expensive love and grace

where human fruitfulness

begins to mirror divine purpose.

Ah, that I could stay boldly

here, among the faithful and the reckless;

but my fears betray my feet,

and baptism’s drowning adjusts its metaphor

as waves of anxious uncertainty

reach up to swallow my bravado.

Returned with diminished dignity

to the sympathetic glances of my companions

in our boat of refuge, I soddenly shiver

and resolutely regather my courage;

knowing that when the voice calls again

I shall once more step most foolishly onto the sea.

Ken Rookes