Sonnets for Ministers

Reluctant Prophet

Epiphany 3; Jonah 3

Then Jonah heard the word a second time:

he’d been regurgitated on the land.

His choice to flee had left him slick with slime,

for Nineveh was not the call he’d planned.

His journey to the depths had changed his mind:

he preached a storm to Nineveh despised,

and they repented. God of love was kind,

but brimstone and destruction Jonah prized.

This preacher did not want the wicked saved:

these foes should have to suffer as he’d said.

To see his prophecy come true he craved:

the city overthrown, its people dead.

Beneath his wilting bush, the sun’s light burned

like God’s transforming love for those returned.

	Barbara Messner 18/01/2024



Sower’s Blues

Wednesday 24 January mid-week Holy Communion Mark 4:1-20

Here now the sower has a huge machine

that trundles to and fro into the night.

Sometimes the weary farmer finds, unseen,

the seed ran out, no way to put it right

but sow the field again. I think I see

a sprouting metaphor, but weed or wheat

is hard to tell until I let it be.

Here ministers look back and feel defeat.

They’ve worked exhausted, let their stocks run out.

Is something planted or the field still bare?

What yield might come from all they’ve gone without?

No midnight stint will plant a harvest there.

It’s vain to aim to reap a hundredfold

with words depleted, warmth of call grown cold.

	Barbara Messner 18/01/24