Barb, poet priest

Standing in the Breach

Standing in the Breach
Pentecost 20; Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:24; Matthew 22:1-14
Have you ever come down from the mountain
with wise precepts revealed by the Spirit,
strongly worded and carved on stone tablets,
and you know you must show them to others?

Then they slip from your grasp and are shattered
as you see the gold idol and revels.
Can you speak when it’s clear these won’t listen,
both their gold and their gratitude squandered?

Is it part of your calling to argue
against wrathful and harsh retribution?
Will you stand in the breach pleading mercy,
faithful forbears and covenant promise?

Have you ever gone out with a message
calling people to come to the banquet?
They make light of it, say they’re too busy
mistreat messengers, courting destruction.

Are you sent to the streets then to gather
good and bad to be guests at the banquet?
Wedding robes are free gifts, but if someone
does not wear one, he’s thrown into darkness.

In our world there are idols and revels,
and wise ethical principles shattered.
There’s disdain for the Son’s wedding banquet,
and refusing will have repercussions.

From the cross he said, “Father, forgive them
for they do not know what they are doing?”
Incarnation is willing to suffer
harm we do to the Earth and each other.

See, our God who is love is not vengeful.
The creation is loved into being
and made new in Christ’s dying and rising.
His commandment is “Love one another!”
Barbara Messner 8/10/2026

The Stars Still Sing

The Stars Still Sing
Pentecost 19; revised as a reflection on Psalm 19:1-6
The stars still sing, but who can hear the music?
The clouds still dance, but who can feel the beat?
The Earth still speaks, if we can learn to listen.
The Spirit leads, if we can trust our feet.

Switch off the city lights and let the stars be bright.
Who knows how well we might be rested on such nights?
Switch off the cars and stay quite still beneath the sky!
Stars can entrance the eye with depths beyond the day.

The stars still sing in resonating swilence.
The clouds still dance in sun and wind and heat.
The Earth still speaks, so learn from those who listen.
The Spirit leads if insight guides our feet.

Walk out beyond your walls and dare to lift your face.
Stand there outside your place and hear the word that calls.
Sap rises, seed pods swell, roots tunnel in the ground,
Earth rolls upon its round and tides toll like a bell.

The stars still sing, in waves that cross the darkness.
The clouds still dance as air and water meet.
The Earth still speaks its agony and beauty.
The Spirit leads, as heart and soul move feet.

Our days are carried on as fullness ebbs and flows.
Harvest time comes and goes as constellations turn.
Purpose has shaped the stars: that word can still be ours.
Spirit can wield its powers despite our mental bars.

The stars still sing their constellations’ stories.
The clouds still dance, sunlit like glory’s seat.
The Earth still speaks, our bodies know that language.
The Spirit leads, puts wings upon our feet.
Barbara Messner revised 29/09/2026

Making Space for the God of the Cosmos

(I’ve had a delightfully hectic week with a sister and nephew from Queensland so I’m posting this poem from ten years ago. The water-damaged church building which had housed the St. Michael and All Angels congregation at Bridgewater has just been sold for renovation, but the congregation hire a hall on Sunday mornings and are as active and articulate as always, bless them.)

For the patronal festival and Cosmos Sunday in the Season of Creation 2016 at St. Michael and All Angels, Bridgewater SA
What does it take to see the stars?
Our gaze is settled on the ground.
Those minute pinpoints in the night
are blazing suns immensely far
beyond us, yet our city lights
have dimmed them, and we’re less aware.

When we were young, we’d go outside
to gaze beyond ourselves in awe,
and search to find the Southern Cross
as though to anchor us in space
amidst that wheeling panoply
of alien suns and worlds and lives.

Now though the internet provides
an image of a nebula
like angels spreading out their wings,
somehow we can’t accept there might
be angels like a radiant cloud
of awesome energy and light.

In earlier times, the heavens were ours,
a roof for Earth, and further on
and up, we’d place the realm of God
to which we might aspire through Christ,
when earthly life was laid aside
and angels brought us gently home.

But in this cosmos we are small,
and up and down are all around,
and God’s creating so immense
in light and energy and fire
that somehow interact to spark
the miracles of diverse life.

Where then are we, but specks of dust
upon a small and fragile rock
that whirls around a minor sun?
Is heaven all around us now,
and God both present and beyond,
more awesome than we ever dreamed?

On every world where beings live
the God of being surely is,
and comes as Christ to share that life,
that death, and hope of life beyond.
Do they like us refuse to look
beyond the limits of their space?

Are we the blindest of the blind,
who gaze on screens and call that life,
domesticating mystery
until we think we’re only dust?
Do angels try to draw our eyes
out to the many worlds beyond

where light flows on at constant speed,
and gravity will always draw
all bodies to relationship,
and mass to energy transforms?
Are these all forms of truth and love
and Spirit, energy from God?

The resurrected Christ it seems
still bore the stamp of earthly life
beyond the limits of space/time.
His flesh and spirit shifted place
with both still present but transformed,
ascending into cosmic Christ.

When Michael threw the fallen ones
upon the earth, our souls were drawn
to idolize the physical.
So angel messengers descend
and lift our spirits. Then God’s Word
will find a space in us for birth.
Barbara Messner September 2016

The Last Will Be First

The Last Will Be First
Pentecost 17; Matthew 20:1-16
The parables portray a grace-filled world
where straying sheep are found, not left to die,
where precious seed is with abandon hurled
on good ground and where stones and weeds might lie.
In graced economies, the last are hired,
for one hour’s work receive a whole day’s pay.
Those who came first, observing what transpired,
expecting more, are paid just for the day.
Such pay is generous to meet the need
of those not chosen, left until the last.
The owner pays them first so they can feed
their families, who otherwise must fast.
The first complain, “Not fair!”, but is it fair
that some have more and never think to share?
Barbara Messner 16/09/2026

Dilemmas of Forgiveness

Dilemmas of Forgiveness
Pentecost 16; Matthew 18:21-35
If someone sins against us,
Jesus said we should forgive
not seven times but seventy-seven,
but how do we forgive those who harm
or kill one dearly loved, and can we forgive
ourselves those tragic errors
we fervently and futilely wish undone?

Did his followers manage to forgive
the soldiers who nailed him to the cross,
the imperial governor, religious establishment
and shouting crowds who condemned him,
or one of their own who betrayed him?
Yet Jesus prayed: “Father forgive them
for they do not know what they are doing.”

Judas could not forgive himself
though he threw back the silver
and tried to undo the apparent betrayal
intended perhaps to precipitate revolution.
Did Jesus, descending to the dead,
seek him out and forgive him?

What of Peter who denied knowing Jesus
in fear for his own life, and who wept
bitterly in remorse as the cock crowed?
Did he swim naked seeking forgiveness?
Did three avowals of love cancel
those three craven negations?
Did his commissioning as pastor
convince him of absolution,
or was his upside-down crucifixion
his final instalment of humbled courage
in repayment for that shamed weakness?

Forgiveness is no superficial bandaid.
Though we say the words and hear them
and know them to be healing,
ongoing inner vigilance is needed
lest dormant infection flare up and spread,
tainting our best intentions.
Barbara Messner 9/09/2026

Do Not Despise These Little Ones

Do Not Despise These Little Ones
Pentecost 15; Matthew 18:10-20
If churches think that numbers show success,
he says he’s there with only two or three;
Christ’s presence may be lost amidst a crowd
where few can see who anyone might be.

If angels of the little ones see God
and adults need to look with childlike eyes,
why say: “Grow up! Don’t dream! Achieve!”
when children have a knowing that is wise?

Our Earth cannot sustain our lust for growth;
the blandishments of more leave us with less.
If first is last and last is first, what lies
promote this headlong scramble for success?

In flocks of thousands, who knows one has strayed?
A shepherd living with the sheep would know
if one of those, each known by name, is lost,
and more than that, where such a one might be.

To seek the one when ninety-nine are left
shows trust in how the flock will hold its ground,
and care for one another as they graze,
and share the joy when one they miss is found.

As wise and patient care restores a stray,
so conflict that is honestly addressed
in person, or with one or two who hear,
may, in Christ’s presence, be resolved and blessed.
Barbara Messner 2/09/2026

Show Me the Blaze that Won’t Consume

Show Me the Blaze that Won’t Consume
Pentecost 14; Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:21-28
I’ve tended flocks I was assigned
by patriarchs and hierarchs.
I spent some years in wilderness
and moved beyond and came at times
in sight of heights and spirit fire,
and still I cry, “Show me the blaze
that won’t consume and leave me ash.
I’ll walk barefoot to such a flame.”

Now people cry in misery,
abused in modern Pharoahs’ lands.
Your name’s misused or seldom heard:
they worship just their own “I am!”
The God of being has no place:
this is not new, for Jesus told
how he would suffer and be killed
at hands of elders, priests and scribes.

Does he repay what has been done?
He said, “Forgive for they don’t know!”
I follow him but still I ask,
“What must be lost and what be saved?”
If in the Christ I find myself,
how can I speak of needed loss
when I too cling to what I’ve gained?
Barbara Messner 27/08/2026

A Searching Question

A Searching Question
Pentecost 13; Matthew 16:13-20
I hoped to change opinions
when I have said and written
some fervent words and sermons
in answer to his question:
“But who do you say I am?”

What people say about him
so often seems distorted,
and other people suffer
through prejudice and judgement.
Such harm is not from Jesus.

His misused name made victims:
lost cultures, language, children;
crusades, witch hunts and burnings;
bombs in abortion clinics -
allegedly for Jesus.

Though Peter dared to name him
“Messiah”, he was mistaken
in seeing a new David
empowered to save the nation,
not Suffering Servant dying.

Do “Lord” and “King” mislead us,
for those so named in history
were mostly far from Christ-like?
Men even used his maleness
to dominate the women.

No wonder Jesus told them,
“Don’t talk of the Messiah!”
Too often titled leaders
are glorified abusers
with idols in their image.

If what you think of Jesus
excludes or harms another,
examine how you see him
in light of his commandments:
love God and love your neighbour!

Love prompts us to seek answers
to Jesus’ searching question.
If God is love, then Jesus
embodies all that’s loving
and those who love are godly.

How live that love in practice?
An open mind for wisdom,
respect for diverse being,
compassion for the suffering,
humility to listen.
Barbara Messner 19/08/2026
“But God loves things by becoming them.
God loves things by uniting with them, not by excluding them.” Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, (Convergent Books 2021) p. 16

Walking on Water

Walking on Water
Pentecost 11; Matthew 14:22-36
You come to me when strength begins to fail
and waves of chaos loom above my head.
All night the gale has toyed with skill and sail;
my hope is now too shredded to be said.
At dawn you walk on water, coming near:
it seems you move above and in and through
as though at one with forces that I fear.
I long to rise and walk on water too.
I manage several steps before the sight
of depths below distracts my eyes from you.
You reach a hand to save me from my fright,
and on my craft, you settle in as crew.
I’m calm enough at last to find the shore.
The sea’s the same; I’m different from before.
	Barbara Messner 5/08/2026