Accepting the Time
Epiphany 2; John 2:1-11
“My time has not yet come!” he said at first;
but changed his mind, turned water into wine.
Was there a premonition of the thirst
when cross upon a hill became his sign?
Then service before safety was his choice,
or would be from this moment on that day.
He heard the harsh resistance in his voice,
and let his mother show a better way.
He saw his fear might tempt him not to act,
so chose to fill their lack, save them from shame,
and having chosen, never would retract,
for he had claimed his destiny and name.
The water meant for ritual purity
became instead abundance offered free.
Barbara Messner 17/01/2025
Baptism as Watershed
Baptism as Watershed
The Baptism of the Lord; Luke 3:15-22
John and Jesus
in the waters:
they were connected
before they were born,
enfolded in separate
but related waters
in Elizabeth, Mary,
two prophet women,
pregnant and waiting,
singing their songs
of liberation.
At that meeting the child
in the womb leapt for joy.
Perhaps Mary pondered
prophetic knowing
in one not yet born.
And what of her foetus
foretold by an angel?
John and Jesus:
connected again
in Jordan’s waters:
that storied river
that runs down a crack
in the heart of the land.
John had prepared,
become the Baptizer,
annealed by wilderness,
ascetic living,
crying: “Repent!
Be transformed in the waters!”
But what of Jesus?
Is he the one
so long awaited?
Now he has come
after the hidden years
as carpenter, scholar.
He’s connected to John
and transforming waters:
baptism as watershed,
accepting vocation.
The Baptizer’s strength
guides him under,
holds him there
for a pregnant moment,
covered by water
in the crack of the heartland.
He leaps up joyful
into the God-light,
wet and gasping
as though he is new born.
His cousin steps back,
surrenders his place
to the one coming after.
The Spirit alights
and the Father affirms him:
“You are my Son,
the Beloved, and with you
I am well pleased.”
His purpose fulfilled,
what now for John,
imprisoned by Herod,
who will let his weakness
sanction a killing?
What now for Jesus,
ordained and commissioned,
wilderness waiting
to test his formation?
Soon he will grieve
after John’s execution;
Soon set his face
for the murderous city,
a cross on a hill
and an empty tomb.
The waters of death
will close over his head,
a pregnant waiting
in the womb of a tomb,
but he will burst forth
as though from the Jordan
into the God-light
that flows through creation
for he is beloved
and his Father well-pleased.
Barbara Messner 10/01/2025
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 worshipped 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 1 January 2021
Christmas Giving
Christmas Giving
I have no grandchildren
to whom to give the gifts
expected at Christmas time.
If I did, I would not give
what the shops lure them to want –
not electronic games, but clay
animals my hands have shaped,
baked in the sun; not Barbies
but hand-made dolls, knitted perhaps
and stuffed with carded wool
still smelling of sheep.
Would the childrens’ disgruntled politeness
smile their thanks, but consign my gifts
to the forgotten bottom of the toy box,
or would my love and theirs
give a greater value to these
than to commercial plastic?
Perhaps they might cradle my gifts,
touched that Grandma made them,
perhaps imagine stories like those
I surely would have read to them?
Would the dolls be Mary and Joseph,
the animals posed around
under a shoe box stable,
and would some gathered grass
support a swaddled bundle
with a soft toy’s face,
in lieu of God’s storied gift,
hand-made with love?
Could a grandma’s clumsy crafting
and her bed-time story-telling
clear aside commercial trappings
to make space for sacred birthing?
Barbara Messner 19/12/2024
With Joy You Will Draw Water
With Joy You Will Draw Water
Advent 3: Zephaniah 3:14-20, Isaiah 12:2-6
Joy bubbles up like some underground stream
channelled anew to this hidden dry pool.
Out of the depths it bursts into the light,
mating with air in bright bubbles and mist.
Maybe these waters remain for a time;
maybe they’re gone soon after they’ve come:
yet they awaken the ground all around;
greenness emerges and soon there are flowers.
So we’re encouraged to sing and rejoice,
let go of fears that have weakened our hands.
Prophecy claims God rejoices in us;
love soaks the driest of seeds into life.
Joy is the drawing of water from wells,
hidden in depths but raised up cool and clear.
Joy is refreshment in thanks and in trust –
healing distilled from the ages and earth.
Know that in flower and in flow God comes near;
shame will be changed and the outcast restored.
Gather like waters that flow into pools,
pray in thanksgiving and sing out in joy.
Barbara Messner 8/12/2021
Singing after Silence
Singing after Silence
Advent 2; Luke 1:68-89 (Song of Zechariah)
Zechariah sang after silence.
Without that muted waiting,
would he have found his song?
Doubt left him wordless,
no questions or answers, just listening.
Long awaited birth woke eloquence.
Our world is clamorous;
impatient with waiting, we exile silence,
deaf to the still, small voice of mystery.
There’s no hope of birth
without the growing space of gestation,
without fear of risk and labour’s primal cries.
Too many songs now are noise,
howling platitudes of love lost.
The God of love waits in silence.
Can waiting attune us
to hear starry songs of angels,
and to sing dawn-fresh words of praise?
Barbara Messner 6/12/2024
Advent Song
Advent Song
Advent brings a pregnant waiting
hoping for divine surprise.
We expect the birth of Wisdom,
truth that’s shaped to fit our eyes:
gift of being needs our seeing
meaning in a baby’s cries.
Advent intersects with prophets
exiled to beyond the walls,
speaking of the need to journey
and to heed the word that calls:
lonely teaching, dazed with reaching
to where light or shadow falls.
Advent sings of angels waiting
for the call of shepherds’ eyes.
Waiting makes the space for wonder
under night’s resounding skies:
star-lit guiding, hope providing,
gift and giver, poor and wise.
Advent time is out of sequence
with the New Year of the world.
New life comes beyond our comforts
where the hard-worked beasts are curled.
All creation sings elation
to the new born hope unfurled.
(Words by Barbara Messner 2014,
Tune Regent Square by Henry Thomas Smart, tune of Glory be to God the Father TiS142)
Song for the Counter-cultural Reign of Christ
Song for the Counter-cultural Reign of Christ
John 18:13-37 Tune: O Waly, Waly, English trad. TiS654
The tales we tell of those in power
show kings and tyrants, warped and sour,
who cruelly trample those in need.
While many starve, they richly feed.
Some rulers build a guarded wall,
while Christ’s way causes walls to fall.
Some seize the law to serve their ends,
to harm their foes and favour friends.
Some ruthlessly pursue a war
that robs their neighbours to gain more.
The leader’s ego makes the call;
the helpless ones are robbed of all.
So if we choose to call Christ King,
let’s question still the words we sing.
His meaning shows in poverty;
his wisdom seeks humility.
The poor are precious in God’s sight,
and love will serve, not rule in might.
Christ lives for truth and calls the true;
his offered life makes all things new.
Barbara Messner 20/1/2024
Don’t Judge on Apearances
Don’t Judge on Appearances
Pentecost 26, 1 Samuel 1:4-20, Mark 13:1-11
Though lofty in appearance, temples fall.
Our preconceptions dazzle us or blind,
and prejudice makes tyrants of us all
when how we mock or prize distorts our mind.
Poor barren Hannah mouthing silent prayer
was judged as drunk when Eli misconstrued.
She had to strip her desolation bare
before he blessed, instead of being rude.
She chose to hear God’s promise had been made,
though spoken by a priest with faulty sight.
Prophetic Jesus saw great stones, well laid,
would still be scattered by an empire’s might.
He warned false Christs can lead belief astray,
yet Spirit in our trials gives words to say.
Barbara Messner 10/11/2021
Widows’ Stories Revisited
Widows’ Stories Revisited
Pentecost 25; Mark 12:38-44; Ruth 3:1-5, 4:3-17
Though Jesus and a scribe spoke with respect,
and shared what love of God and neighbour meant,
the scribes with pompous egos he’d reject,
and call them hypocritical and bent.
He claimed that widow’s houses they devour,
then make a show of lengthy pious prayer.
They used the law to profit by their power
which should have been their means to offer care.
Then Jesus noted how a widow tossed
her last coins in the temple treasury -
a gesture of despair at all she’d lost,
or selfless act of generosity?
For Ruth, Naomi had a risky plan –
perhaps it was these widows’ last resort?
The harvest over, they must get their man,
or starve if legal justice was not bought.
So Ruth uncovered more than just the feet
of Boaz sleeping off his harvest fest.
He’d showed regard her body must complete:
stir him to make his kinship claim the best.
These stories have a sentimental guise,
with love and faith portrayed as pure and sweet;
or is the truth two women, earthy wise,
and one defiant victim of deceit?
Barbara Messner 6/11/2024
Barb, poet priest 