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
You Search Me Out
You search me out (Lyrics, suggested tune Irish, God moves in a mysterious way, but can be sung to Crimond or Amazing grace)
Epiphany 2; Psalm 139:1-5,12-18; John 1: 43-51
1.You search me out and know my soul,
know when I sit or stand,
and if I fall, no longer whole,
your love will understand.
2.You watch my path and where I rest,
walk with me on my ways.
You give my life its fire and zest,
show meaning in my days.
3.So when my heart says, "Come and see!"
there Christ and I will meet.
I trust he'll see the whole of me,
with doubts, but no deceit.
4.Then if a word is on my tongue
to mock or to complain,
transform it so your praise is sung,
and love is my refrain.
Barbara Messner 10/01/2024
The Journey of the Wise
The Journey of the Wise
Epiphany; Matthew 2:1-12
There was a time when kings and queens were wise
and wisdom writings seen as Sacred Word;
then Wisdom Woman, God in female guise,
spoke at the crossroads and was widely heard.
Young Solomon had prayed for wisdom's sight;
a wisdom school was fostered at his court,
and foreign leaders came to share the light -
the Queen of Sheba found more than she sought.
But in the time of Jesus, might was right,
and power was all that Rome and Herod saw.
The wisdom schools retreated out of sight,
and pious people idolized the law.
Astrology and divination seemed
akin to sorcery, estranged from God,
and magi, led by stars and portents, deemed
as suspect, foreign, more than merely odd.
They turned from star to palace on their way,
so kings they may have been; and they were heard
by Herod, who compared what they would say
to what chief priests and scribes found in the Word.
They carried gifts of Wisdom from afar,
while Herod plotted murderous attack;
they saw and worshiped underneath the star,
and led by dreams, made hidden journeys back.
Now in our time, it seems that Wisdom's lost:
the cunning and self-serving rise to power;
intuitive discernment has been tossed
upon the scrap heaps where the wise grow sour.
Here smartness of technology is king,
and rubbish rises round our deafened ears,
and though at midnight angels swoop and sing,
we have not heard nor seen them now for years.
The Spirit fire still speaks to those grown bold,
who walk the ways of Wisdom with a star,
and humbly kneel despite the straw and cold.
They know that God is with us where we are,
and though they yet must face a weary day,
at risk from the duplicity of power,
somehow their stories show a star-lit way,
and gifts of Wisdom needed in this hour.
Barbara Messner 01/01/2021
Song for Simeon and Anna
Song for Simeon and Anna
(to tune Ebenezer by Thomas John Williams,
Together in Song 232 or 373)
Christmas 1; Luke 2:22-40
1. Spirit, come to some like Simeon,
Anna, old but strong in prayer.
We too need this Christ child’s presence!
Let us hold good news to share!
See, a baby shows God’s likeness,
dreams of prophets brought to life:
both a light to every nation,
and a victim of our strife.
2. He was destined for the falling
and the rising of the powers;
sign opposed so thoughts of many
were revealed in those dark hours.
Mary heard that love brings grieving:
sword would pierce her own soul too.
We face wounds in loving Jesus,
finding we are old and few.
3. So find comfort in this story:
two old people, wise, devout,
heard the call to meet this baby,
then in joy they were sent out.
One found peace to face his passing,
one found strength to praise and speak:
she was free now, age and gender
had no power to make her weak.
4. So for Anna and for Simeon
we give thanks now. They inspire
hope that we find gifts in ageing:
wisdom, courage, Spirit fire,
words of insight, hope and meaning,
peace to face our parting breath.
Love will hold us through the darkness;
God with us in life and death.
Barbara Messner26/12/2023
2 Sonnets
Who is Mary?
Advent 4 Luke 1:26-38
Not blue and white, immaculate and fair?
The Mary I imagine and admire
is dark, with untamed eyes that probe and flare:
a woman fit to mate with Spirit fire.
The label “Virgin” now precedes her name,
as though to guarantee unworldly worth,
yet earthy common sense has made her game
to challenge as unlikely virgin birth.
No awe of angels holds her question back;
no meekness keeps her from an honest doubt.
If she agrees, she knows she’ll face attack,
and words that shame, or stones may drive her out.
So understand how brave is her reply:
“I’ll serve as you have said. Yes! Here am I!”
Barbara Messner 15/12/2020
Nativity
To Mary bearing down on love,
pain comes through saying: “Here am I.”
Bring down to earth the God above?
Plain sense and comfort question why.
Birth pangs are hers, but also his,
pushed out into a world like this,
where God with us must learn to cry.
Yet that first cry we hear as gift
more precious than the gold of kings,
and his last cry can bridge the rift
more surely than all angels’ wings,
for he is us, our pain is his,
and joy finds voice in cries like this.
“We are new born!” our being sings.
Barbara Messner December 2019
Who are you? What do you say about yourself?
Who are you? What do you say about yourself?
for Advent 3, John 1:6-8, 19-28
I’m not the Messiah, although sometimes
I wish I could save the church I love –
the world as a whole is out of my league.
I’m not a prophet, although sometimes
the words I write seem given to share,
and so I rejoice to see them received.
I’m not the Baptist, although sometimes
I baptize a child. Few adults seek
that rite with me: I’m not the Messiah.
So what do I say about myself?
I know I’m a priest, a woman and priest,
although some still say I may not be both.
I’m a poet at heart although in this age
I know that’s a role not worthy of note
in the halls of fame or the heights of power.
My voice must seem small in the wilderness,
where the valleys are deep and the rough is not smooth;
yet I cry, “Oh, make straight the way of the Lord!”
Like John, I am called to witness to light
and so I write words that might touch a few.
A few is enough: I’m not the Messiah.
Barbara Messner 9 December 2020
Advent Song
Waiting, not knowing
(Lyrics of Advent song)
Waiting, not knowing: Lord, here we are again!
Waiting, not knowing, can send this world insane.
Give me the wisdom to trust and not complain.
Some say that waiting on you is greatest gain.
Open that space of emptiness
in which I wait on you.
Freed of anxiety and stress,
I let my thoughts be few.
There I find calm and spaciousness:
I’m neither big nor small.
There I can sense your graciousness:
I let defences fall.
Waiting, not knowing: why do I need to know?
Waiting, not knowing, the spirit wind might blow.
Give me awareness to pause my to and fro,
sensing the moment as deep and broad and slow.
Here I find room to be myself,
try other ways to know:
blessed now by being on the shelf,
where I have time to grow.
Here I receive the spirit spark:
words glowing on the page.
Though I am groping in the dark,
I find the gift of age.
Waiting, not knowing, makes peace with destiny;
waiting, not knowing, I hear both you and me.
Give me the courage to wait to know and see,
let go control now and practise to be free.
Barbara Messner 3 December 2020
https://barbpoetpriest.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/waiting-not-knowing-1.pdf
The Return
The Return
Advent 2, Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8
Laments for exile flowed in psalm and tears,
but Babylon was home in passing years.
Prophetic vision urged them to go back,
but more than valleys faced them on that track.
The Baptist called the people to repent,
prepare the way for one whom God had sent.
So Christ as Suffering Servant walked his path:
a cross upon a hill was aftermath.
Now we are exiles who don’t even weep
for spirit that we’ve lost and ways too deep.
We’re urged to strive towards achievement’s peak,
but where’s the meaning worth our while to seek?
The way of Christ is lonely, rough and steep,
but word of vision stirs our half-drugged sleep.
Barbara Messner 2 December 2020
Precarious Advent
Precarious Advent Advent 1 2023; Mark 13:24-37, Isaiah 64:1-9 I hide my imagining eyes from apocalyptic visions – stars falling, heavens darkened; although my rational mind admits humanity courts self-destruction generation after generation. There is some comfort in the promise that the Cosmic Christ is, has been, will be there in the most desperate times, and his words will not pass away, though heaven and earth are transient. Yet in this precarious Advent, daunted by end time scenarios, do I really want to stay awake, or rather in mists of unknowing, beyond smoke screens of wilful unseeing, to dream I feel the hands of the potter moulding the clay of our being, finding the form and the colours that will emerge transformed by fire? Barbara Messner 28/11/2023
A Sonnet for Christ the King
A Sonnet for Christ the King
When Pilate asked him if he was a king,
“You say so,” were the only words he said.
He would not answer back to anything,
though mocked with crown of thorns upon his head.
So if you call him king, then be aware
that in his kingdom might is seldom right:
ex-presidential spite would shrivel there,
and media moguls lose their power to blight.
The one who comes in glory can be seen
in those laid low by hunger, illness, thirst,
imprisoned, naked, branded as unclean –
all those regarded as the least and worst.
We meet him in the stranger at our door;
his kingdom comes in service to the poor.
Barbara Messner 18 November 2020
Barb, poet priest 