Lord Jesus,
who on the eve of your death,
prayed that all your disciples might be one ....,
make us feel intense sorrow
over the infidelity of our disunity.
Give us the honesty to recognise,
and the courage to reject,
whatever indifference towards one another,
or mutual distrust, or even enmity,
lie hidden within us.
Enable all of us us to meet one another in you.
And let your prayer for the unity of Christians
be ever in our hearts and on our lips,
unity such as you desire it and by
the means that you will.
Make us find the way
that leads to unity in you,
who are perfect charity,
through being obedient to the spirit of love and truth.
Amen.
Cornerstone community, Belfast,
Northern Ireland.
Loddon Mallee UCA Presbytery Blog
Monday, May 14, 2012
Not belonging
The one we follow
steps away from the constraints
of earthly contentment and desire
to listen more closely to the words of grace,
love and delight that whisper insistently
in the calling that shapes him.
With freed arms he offers
his liberating embrace
to the ones he calls friends.
They are to walk his own awkward,
earth-traced trails, and many more;
experiencing the challenge of the landscape,
feeling the sadness of its breaking,
and uncovering hopeful nuggets
and other surprising life-gems
hidden beneath layers of dust.
Born of that same dust,
they see beyond their parentage,
knowing that they are neither
children nor slaves,
but sisters and brothers of one,
who, for something more beautiful,
refused his world’s comfortable
and seductive encumbrances.
Belonging most completely,
yet not tethered by that belonging,
they refuse the gravity pull
of everything that would rob them
of the true freedom and joy
that is their inheritance.
Climbing love’s thermal currents,
recklessly they soar, rising and diving;
passionate,
with determined wings.
Some poems are works in progress. I post them anyway in the hope that others might find them helpful. I think this is OK, but I may revisit.
© Ken Rookes 2012
steps away from the constraints
of earthly contentment and desire
to listen more closely to the words of grace,
love and delight that whisper insistently
in the calling that shapes him.
With freed arms he offers
his liberating embrace
to the ones he calls friends.
They are to walk his own awkward,
earth-traced trails, and many more;
experiencing the challenge of the landscape,
feeling the sadness of its breaking,
and uncovering hopeful nuggets
and other surprising life-gems
hidden beneath layers of dust.
Born of that same dust,
they see beyond their parentage,
knowing that they are neither
children nor slaves,
but sisters and brothers of one,
who, for something more beautiful,
refused his world’s comfortable
and seductive encumbrances.
Belonging most completely,
yet not tethered by that belonging,
they refuse the gravity pull
of everything that would rob them
of the true freedom and joy
that is their inheritance.
Climbing love’s thermal currents,
recklessly they soar, rising and diving;
passionate,
with determined wings.
Some poems are works in progress. I post them anyway in the hope that others might find them helpful. I think this is OK, but I may revisit.
© Ken Rookes 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Love is not burdensome??
Love is not burdensome? What does John know that we don’t? Maybe this: we tend to treat love as a kind of goal-oriented affection. We love so that something will happen to somebody. I am not sure where that understanding comes from, but I am quite convinced that it’s true. And it is wrong. We do not love as a means to bring about some holy end. We love because God first loved us. Loving is the highest form of abiding, of being present for another. In Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh says, "If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs of the person we love. This is the ground of real love." Understanding happens when we are present to the other, when we abide with her or him as Christ abides with us. Not a burden, but a presence. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you." What more can we ask for than an abiding awareness of the presence of Christ in our lives, and a growing capacity to abide with others?
I have called you friends
It is worth noticing how John pictures what happens when this love is fulfilled. 15:11 speaks of joy. It affirms human joy as the fruit of divine intention. Occasionally we need a reminder about this. The goal is not a purity which is spotless and stark, morbid and serious, but joy which fulfils itself in love.
Notice also how 15:15 addresses the issue of status. It abandons the imagery of servitude in favour of friendship. While the language of serving and servitude has dominated Christian tradition, this little correction deserves more reflection. Could we say: God does not want slaves; God wants companions? It creates a different model of spirituality. Of course friendship also means letting the other be and acknowledging that otherness in its integrity and sacredness. Certainly there is no thought of ‘pocketing’ God or Jesus in a way which reduces either - a kind of power-play which makes them manageable (pocket-able and in my control). Some people either want to dominate or be dominated. The model here is different. It does not compromise the integrity or holiness of the other, but affirms companionship in such holiness.
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkEaster6.htm
Love anything and your heart will be broken.
"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place where you can be perfectly safe from all the perturbations of love is Hell."
C.S Lewis
Monday, May 7, 2012
Only one thing
Too much smug,
ticket-to-heaven thinking,
(I nearly called it theology),
in the fundamentalist roots
that many of us share. But,
says gospel-writer John
and those who appropriated his name
in later letters, there is only one thing
by which we are made friends
of Jesus.
If the proof is in the eating,
then the fruits are surely
in the doing, the listening,
and the obeying of the commandment.
The agápē
word was spoken often
and enacted on more than one occasion
by the man who embodies
self-giving, generosity and compassion.
This utterance at the centre
of his living,
and translated into our language,
has become so tired
that I am reluctant to employ it.
Made a cliché,
the word spills effortlessly
from undiscerning lips,
and only occasionally finds expression
through committed hands
and outraged hearts.
But, it seems to me,
this one thing alone causes God,
(however she is conceived),
to smile;
only one thing.
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