Barb, poet priest

Belonging and Receiving

Belonging and Receiving
Pentecost 20; Luke 18:15-17
It is to such as this
the realm of God belongs:
the baby learning how to be
whose sustenance is love.

Her joy is to explore
the colours, shapes and sounds;
to her, the world’s new born,
created for delight.

Safe held in cradling arms,
she smiles to know a face,
then seeks her mother’s milk,
warm flowing from the breast.

Show me the way to be
as joyful as a child
exploring sights made fresh
as eyes perceive anew.

I smile to glimpse your face
play peek-a-boo in clouds
that mound like glowing breasts
back lit with hidden sun.

Help me to make a space
for learning stripped of words,
then taste again the flow
of meaning that sustains.

Let me be touched by God
as Jesus bids “Be still!”
to voices that reject
the child within us all.

Our liturgies and laws
must not control who comes
to hear the teacher teach,
receive his healing touch.

Give birth in us again
to soul’s simplicity
that chortles in surprise
rejoicing in your world.
	Barbara Messner 22/10/2025

The Need for Prayer

The Need for Prayer
Pentecost 19; Luke 181-14
I’ve got a problem with prayer
and it’s not just my discomfort
with Jesus’ teaching story.
I don’t think the God I know
is anything like the unjust judge
worn down by determined nagging.
Do we think that incessant praying
will prompt God to enforce justice?

I get Jesus’ point about the need
to pray always and not lose heart.
I admit that my prayer is uncertain, 
sporadic, no longer by the book.
I don’t think God needs reminding
of what God already painfully knows
nor can we tell God what to do.

I do see the point of lament,
crying out to God day and night
and knowing that we are heard.
I believe that God does save,
sharing the pain of oppression
even of an unjust execution.

So how do I think that prayer works
beyond being heard and understood
and knowing we are not alone?
I do believe prayer has power
that activates spiritual networks
that no technowhiz can hack
or technocrat exploit for gain.
How that power ebbs and flows
or how it affects our lives
is sacred mystery to me.

I believe that prayer softens hearts
so that God within can be heard
saying: “This I require of you –
to do justice, to love kindness,
to walk humbly with your God.
If people had that law in their hearts,
then justice and mercy would prevail
and no-one would exalt themselves
and disrespect the humble and poor.

I heard a woman bishop who prayed
for justice and mercy to be given
to those who are crying in their need
and she was mocked and threatened
by the leader her prayer might have changed.
Yet I’m sure there were those who were moved
to add their voices to her prayer
and those crying out took heart,
assured that they were not alone,
for God and the godly are with them,
sharing their yearning for justice
and doing what they can to bring change.
	Barbara Messner 16/10/2025

All the Earth Shall Worship

All the Earth Shall Worship
Pentecost 18; Luke 17:11-19, Psalm 66:1-11, 2 Timothy 2:8-15
Ten lepers were cleansed
and one returned to give thanks.
He praised God with a loud voice
and Jesus said to him:
“Your faith has made you well.”

Yet he was a Samaritan
and some despised his faith
for worshipping on a mountain
and not in the temple
and for incorporating beliefs
from pagan religions.
Jesus said to the Samaritan:
“Get up and go on your way.”
He didn’t say: “Come with us
and go on our way.”

Perhaps faith is not a matter
of having the only right beliefs:
rather faith is a grateful response
that gives honour to the divine
and understands that there is One
who holds our souls in life
and heals that which isolates us.

In the letter to Timothy
Christians are strongly urged
to avoid wrangling over words,
which does no good
and ruins the listener.
Do Christian denominations today
take that warning to heart?

It is not for us to judge
another’s words of interpretation,
although we might dare to offer
a re-imagined vision
of liberty and justice
as prophets are asked to do.

If all the Earth is to worship,
let us respect each other’s words,
valuing the insights of other traditions
and meeting in the joy
of shared gratitude and praise.

Whatever the words mean to us,
let us share in singing praises
and in praying our thanks 
for mountains and hallowed buildings,
for healing and cleansing
and for seeing people brought
into places of liberty.
	Barbara Messner 9/10/2025

Is It Faith?

Is It Faith?
Pentecost 17; Luke 17:5-10
Is it faith
that causes my heart to lift
as a pair of black cockatoos 
soar into my sight,
the slow surging strokes of their wings
in perfect unison?
Is it faith
that brings tears of joy 
to my eyes
and bids me cry out
in gratitude:
“Oh beautiful, beautiful!”

Is it faith
in the Creator
of these winged messengers,
or is it love
that recognizes in them
a spiritual connection
to me and to the Divine,
a link that I barely
have the awareness
or cultural wisdom
to understand,
but still I respond
in longing and reverence?
In that moment
faith and love dance together,
graceful in unison
like the black cockatoos.

I do not need to hope
that my faith might increase
enough to move mountains
or to plant a tree in the sea
or to attract a crowd of newcomers
from our secular society
to embrace formal liturgy
in a traditional church service.

Instead I dare to hope
that I will have faith enough
to keep on rekindling
the gift of God within me,
to strive and fail and still to serve,
trusting that my tears
of struggle and self-doubt,
of grief and painful empathy,
of joy and grateful insight,
are drops in the living water
Christ offers a thirsty world
beside our parching wells.
	Barbara Messner 30/09/2025

Chasms Between

Chasms Between
Pentecost 16; Luke 16:19-31
Over the years and across the wide Earth
those who have much exclude those who are poor –
maybe with claims of superior birth,
whiteness or maleness, tradition or law.

Some say that wealth is a blessing they’ve earned:
fittest survive while the lesser won’t thrive.
Those they keep down find best efforts are spurned:
doomed as outsiders, they’re barely alive.

Jesus tells stories that turn upside down
all such pretensions that keep a closed gate.
Francis left riches to serve as God’s clown:
left behind Father and fortune and hate.

“Rebuild my church!” was the call that he heard;
poverty chosen in joy was his way,
walking the roads with a fresh humble word,
challenging wealth of the Church in his day.

Is there a chasm we try to maintain,
keeping out God and the suffering poor?
Do we inherit a balancing pain
when we keep difference outside of our door?

“Poor lifted up and the mighty brought low?”
Prophets like Mary have sung this bold song,
seeing that change is too late and too slow,
calling for action to right what is wrong.

Chasms are many and most we have made,
blasting away and not counting the loss.
When we seem stranded in fire we have laid,
bridges appear in the shape of Christ’s cross.

Do we hear truth from one raised from the dead,
open our hearts to compassion and hope,
gifts of God’s kingdom in wine and in bread,
or, heedless, slide down our wealth’s slippery slope?
	Barbara Messner 24/09/2025

Serving Two Masters

Serving Two Masters
Pentecost 15; Luke 16:1-13
In practice, I have found that serving God
makes serving wealth a choice beyond my means.
The most I hope for is to have enough,
but surely some would see “enough” as “wealth”.

And I am grateful that it was to me:
the work I loved brought in enough to live
with all the basic comforts of our day –
to many in the world unheard of wealth.

I scratch my head to guess how Jesus’ tale
of manager and rich man might apply
to money woes in parishes today:
self-serving shrewdness seems in short supply.

Preoccupation with the deficit
can master us as much as riches might,
distracting us from following the Lord
who served without a place to lay his head.

Our buildings and their trappings are a wealth
that take attention from our humble God
who shared our human poverty and risk
and died at hands of those with wealth and power.

Now our enough must last our family
through ageing’s unpredictable expense.
How can we give enough to help the poor,
serve God and others and retirement’s needs?

Dilemmas for parishioners and me,
and this week’s gospel leaves me anxious still:
though Jesus satisfies my deepest need,
possessions are the standard here for wealth.
	Barbara Messner 18/09/2025

Alas

Alas (lyrics of a song to the tune Greensleeves)
Pentecost 14; Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; 1 Timothy 1:1-2, 12-19a; Luke 15:1-10
Alas, O God, we do you wrong
to cast you off discourteously,
for you have loved our world so long,
delighting in our company.
Mend, mend our disgraceful ways,
vain displays of fame and wealth.
Bend, bend our reluctant knees
to touch the hurt Earth and seek health.

See how the powers of evil grow
and good is lost where greed holds sway.
The Earth is bare, the birds have fled
and foolish people go astray.
Here, here we forget to pray
Wisdom’s guide we sorely lack.
Where, where is the One who cares,
who sees that the lost are brought back?

Paul tells of how he changed his ways
from violent acts of unbelief.
His gratitude to Jesus shows
how faith and love brought him relief.
Grace, grace of the Lord is here;
turn us round and make us strong!
Peace, peace of the Lord we need
to soften our hearts to mend wrong.

The shepherd who retrieves the lost
will call his friends to celebrate.
The woman searches carefully
and finds her lost coin. Her joy is great.
Sing, sing with the angel choirs;
souls return who went astray!
Bring, bring us to that resolve
where care and respect bring new day.
	Barbara Messner 11/09/2025

Shanay in Sunshine

We are grieving the death
of our little cat Shanay.

It seems as if
the sun won’t shine
without her invoking its presence
as she gazes at the sky
from the chair by the glass door.
How she luxuriated in its warmth
when the sunshine obliged her:
praise and gratitude personified!

How can I read
with the same delight
propped up on the couch
without the tread of small paws
over my shoulder
and a warm light weight
settling on my chest
waving a tail in my face
and turning to rub her nose on mine,
her small body generous with purring
as if her whole being vibrated with love?

She came to us already ageing
and gave us three years
of her gentle affectionate presence.
Thank you, loving God, for Shanay.
May she rest in your warmth and light. Amen.

Places of Honour

Places of Honour
Pentecost 12; Luke 14:1, 7-14
Jesus was invited to a sabbath meal
at the home of a leader of the Pharisees,
and he noted how some people chose
the places nearest their host
as though they were entitled
to be seen to be important
because of prestige or pedigree.
Then he told them a parable
that exposed the absurdity
of displays of superiority.

He turned the tables as it were
on their practices of honour and shame,
and suggested a counter-cultural banquet
where only the humble were invited,
those who were poor or disabled,
those who could not return the invitation.

I wonder how this parable
might apply to me, unwilling
to attend or to host a banquet,
and unsuited to climb ladders,
either physical or hierarchical.

Too easy though to cop out:
although I don’t aspire
to choose or to be assigned
institutional places of honour,
I have to admit that I love
to be out front in worship,
to deploy my performance skills
and my years of study and reflection,
to declaim the words of thanksgiving,
to consecrate and administer
the sacramental bread and wine
to those who gather at the table.
Do I not occupy a place of honour there?

Am I guilty of exalting myself?
I have observed some who do.
Is it sufficiently humble
to ask the hard questions?
Where is the fine line
between entitlement
and empowerment?
Are my gifts and presence
used in the service of the Spirit,
or co-opted for inflation of my ego
and manipulation of others?
If we were to hold a banquet
for the poor and marginalized,
would they feel patronized
by our display of generosity?
Is it possible to foster a meeting
of sharing and mutual respect
where all are genuinely humble,
willing to learn from each other?

I love that saying
that Christ in me 
meets Christ in the other.
Perhaps the heavenly banquet
revolves around the host at centre,
the welcomer between and within,
and all are hosts and honoured guests.
	Barbara Messner 28/08/2025