Sonnet for St. Francis
Though Francis bore the marks of Jesus’ pain,
he walked the roads in simple joy and danced.
He cast aside the robes of merchant gain,
embracing poverty as life enhanced.
A fearsome wolf at his request grew tame –
for animal and town a happy end.
He preached to birds and even dared to claim
that sun and moon were kin, and death a friend.
The Spirit urged him to rebuild the church:
both stones and preaching seemed a burden slight,
with soul and body yoked in eager search,
his life a guiding fire, a beacon bright.
The centuries have not eclipsed the sight
of this man, naked, singing dawn alight.
Barbara Messner 28/09/2021
Some Who Follow Christ
Some Who Follow Christ
Pentecost 19; Mark 9:38-50
I think that some who follow Christ
seem more against than for.
No doubt they think the same of me –
both look for other’s flaw.
They seem to claim that any text
they quote must count as law,
while I maintain inclusive love
defeats the points they score.
It sometimes seems the God they find
is opposite to mine.
Their God whose judgement punishes
makes Jesus pay our fine
in broken body, blood and death –
abuse as Love’s design?
or God with us in life and death
with bread and wine as sign?
The Jesus I know shared himself
at table with us all,
with those who will betray, deny,
when fear obscures their call.
How dare decrees of priests and state
make death on God’s son fall?
He shared the fate of those oppressed
where power treads down the small.
His choice to be self-emptying
was seen in death and birth –
a homeless baby in the straw,
denied his human worth.
He made no claim to privilege,
no bid to rule the Earth.
He died and rose to show God’s love
in pattern of rebirth.
Barbara Messner 25/09/2024
Last of All and Servant of All
Last of All and Servant of All
Pentecost 18, Mark 9:30-37
He taught them that the Son of Man
would be betrayed by human hand.
It seems he might have saved his breath:
they could not bear his talk of death;
they would not ask or understand.
Instead they argued on the way,
competing to be seen as great.
They might have known that he would ask,
and strip away each ego mask
to leave them all in humbled state.
“Such hopes of greatness are a farce!
God’s choice of first will be the last,
content to serve with simple grace,
not battling for some higher place.
The time for posturing has past.”
He called a little child to show
the open face of one not grown
to seek ambition’s fleeting prize,
or study to be worldly wise.
He held the child as if his own.
“A welcome shown to such a one
will also welcome God’s own Son,
the Suffering Servant sent to be
the promise of a world set free,
where greed and power will come undone.”
Barbara Messner 15/09/2021
Get Behind Me, Satan!
Get Behind Me Satan
Pentecost 17; Mark 8:27-38
“Get behind me Satan!”
he said to one he valued
as rock to build a church on:
worth noting just how quickly
key insights get distorted
by our survival instinct
and lustful need for power
to do away with suffering
and concentrate on winning.
“Oh! Get behind me Satan!”
he said to something in him:
a desperate human longing
to say pain must not happen,
to ask that God forbid it.
He fears that he might stumble
upon the block of safety:
be tempted to act godlike
instead of truly godly,
escape the mortal price tag
of death outside the city.
Cry: “Get behind me Satan!”
Alone upon the mountains
and in the midnight garden
he prayed for dispensation:
“Please let this cup pass from me!
Let’s do without communion
with blood and broken body.
Impervious and immortal,
I’ll lead a better empire
without the need for dying.”
“No, get behind me Satan!”
To be secure and powerful
are common human failings,
a self-defeating cycle
with endless streams of victims.
It’s human to be praying:
“Dear God, don’t let this happen
to us or those we treasure.
We can’t succumb to covid,
or mental loss in ageing,
or be displaced and homeless,
and as for facing dying,
we hope we barely notice
between a sleep and waking.”
But get behind me Satan,
for loving and creating
are forged through death and rising,
and God would rather suffer,
and share in being mortal,
than be untouched and distant,
unmoved, beyond our crying.
Take up your cross and follow
from tomb to resurrection.
Accepting loss means finding
what seems to be a failure
can bring God’s kingdom nearer.
Barbara Messner 27 August 2020 (busy week - old poem)
Cast Out Demons of Dishonour
Cast Out Demons of Dishonour
Pentecost 16; James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37
You shall love your neighbour
as yourself,
yet we project unrecognized shadows
onto others,
or make distinctions that favour the rich,
dishonour the poor.
Historic grievances are ruins that drop
harm like bombs.
Demonizing difference spreads disease
through generations,
absorbed like pollution from the environment
and now from social media.
Even Jesus, vulnerable human, gone to Tyre
to escape notice,
defensively mouthed his culture’s prejudice,
speaking rudely
to the Syrophoenician woman, seeking
healing for daughter’s torment.
Yet Jesus showed the way of self-searching
that faces the shame
of rash judgement, acknowledges true words
heard and respected.
Brave challenge cast out demons of dishonour,
healing healer and child.
Barbara Messner 5/09/2024
My Song of Songs
My Song of Songs
Pentecost 15, Song of Songs 2:8-13
What if
God who loves is also lover
and I and every living thing
and even rocks and suns
are the Beloved
and longing and belonging is our song.
And what if
Eros and “I AM” are one
and I-Thou runs deep in every atom
and relationship is all there is
and the sacred craving to come into relationship
is the stuff of body and soul
of gravity and magnetism
of one dark woman with one shepherd-king
of I myself with (my god!) My God.
And what if
a community struggling for unity
and a mystic embracing emptiness
and a lover desiring consummation
and an ascetic straining for chastity
and a people wrestling with covenant
and a carpenter facing crucifixion
are truly all united in the one metaphor
show forth their meanings in the one parable:
the Kingdom of Heaven is like this:
the knowing that embraces all
the singing of a song of love
the Song of Songs.
Temples Come Temples Go
Temples Come, Temples Go
Pentecost 14, 1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11,22-30,41-43; John 6:56-69
King David imagined a house for the Lord:
it would have been visible gift and reward.
The prophet came back with God’s word of delay:
“Let Solomon take up this dream in his day!”
Stone walls lined with cedar encrusted with gold
would stand as four centuries’ stories unfold.
The beauty created for that time and place
was broken by Babylon, leaving no trace.
When Jesus predicted their temple would fall,
those leaders decided to silence his call,
but forty years later, a litter of stones
was all that remained, like some dinosaur’s bones.
So let us imagine, and when time is right
it may be a dream will take flesh in our sight,
but can we let go of the forms of the past
when God calls us on to a new age at last?
Wise Solomon knew that the house they had made
with all of its beauty and meaning displayed
could never contain and define the divine –
God’s Spirit might take flesh in bread and in wine,
or come to fruition in one precious life
laid down as a gift when oppression was rife,
to rise like a temple rebuilt in three days,
the one who gives form to all meaning and praise.
Barbara Messner 18/08/2021
Flesh to Eat
Flesh to Eat
Pentecost 13; John 6:51-58
How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Not cannibals, communicants are we!
To give his flesh as bread subverts defeat,
forgiving our betrayals yet to be.
So often he disturbs our literal sense,
upsets convention, challenges what’s right,
and then must bear the brunt of our offence,
flesh broken, blood poured out, the looming night.
His body swallowed whole by death and tomb
is by his rising free for all to share:
to eat this bread will make in us the room
for flesh to mate with Spirit, if we dare.
Then we will bear the Christ. Our hands and feet
will do his work, creation made complete.
Barbara Messner 11/08/2021
Grieving over Lost Sons and Daughters
Grieving Over Lost Sons and Daughters
Pentecost 11; 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 14, 31-33; Luke 13:34,35
David wept:
“O my son Absalom,
my son, my son Absalom!
Would I had died instead of you,
O Absalom, my son, my son!”
How many weep
for sons and daughters
caught by the head
between heaven and earth,
caught by the trap of mind
dislocated from body and soul!
How many weep
for the pierced hearts
of rebellious youth
and of the parents,
set apart and waiting,
who cannot save them!
Jesus weeps
on the outskirts of our cities,
and wants to gather the children
as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings,
but they are not willing.
See, our house is left to us
until we can truly say:
“Blessed is the one who comes
in the name of the Lord.”
Barbara Messner 7/08/2024
Day after the Miracle
Day after the Miracle
Pentecost 11; John 6:24-35
When they found him next day Jesus said:
“You have eaten your fill of the loaves,
but you fail to see feeding as sign.”
They were asking what works he would do
to be proof that was worth their belief,
though they’d seen a child’s lunch feed them all.
Seems our eyesight’s as blinkered as theirs,
for though miracles happen around,
we think matter is all that exists.
Do we seek him for what we might get?
Can we recognize hunger of soul?
If we saw signs of God would we know?
Food that perishes? We are replete,
and we throw away more than we eat,
but our inner ache won’t be appeased.
We are lame though we walk on two feet,
We’re not well though our bodies are strong.
It is meaning we crave but can’t see.
“Bread of life” is what Christ claims to be.
We’re dismissive of truth’s metaphor,
and unseeing to portents and signs.
Yet undaunted he teaches and heals,
and our hunger and thirst lead us on
to recognize he’s what we need.
Barbara Messner 1/08/2024
Barb, poet priest 