Changing our Point of View
Pentecost 4, 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17, Mark 4:26-34
For anyone in Christ
a new creation calls
in love that urges change:
to walk by faith not sight,
to live not for ourselves
but with the risen Christ,
to lift our blinkered gaze
from human points of view.
The old has passed away:
the world no longer spins
on axis of myself,
my efforts and my worth,
priorities and goals,
achievements and control.
The Lord looks on the heart;
our preconceptions fail.
So Jesse’s older sons
were not anointed ones.
Appearance, stature, age
did not determine choice.
The youngest shepherd boy
would be the future king,
endowed with Spirit power
though shadows lurked within.
For God can choose a child,
or be a homeless babe.
The smallest seed grows high
so birds can nest in shade.
We can’t control or know
how earth will bring to bear
the harvest that’s a gift
to reap with thankful prayer.
Barbara Messner 9/06/2021
Home not Home
Home not Home
Pentecost 3, Mark 3:19b-35
Then he went home; perhaps he hoped
for quiet time with family,
affection free of fresh demands,
a sheltered space of privacy
that might restore his energy.
But crowds came, urgent in their need,
and sought him out. The streets were lined,
and villagers, resentful, said:
“Young carpenter has lost his mind!”
Familiarity is blind.
Perhaps his brothers felt ashamed,
or thought (for his own good!) they must
restrain him, take him out of sight,
and silence him until the dust
had cleared, the town no longer fussed.
I wonder what his mother thought?
She’d be upset when scribes accused
her son of using demon power,
and fearful that he’d be abused
by those whose status was misused.
The Spirit that set spirits free
they called “unclean” in jealous spite.
He questioned whether they blasphemed
to be so closed to Spirit sight
while claiming they discerned the right.
His family were left outside –
he claimed instead a wider kin
of those who heard with open mind,
not limited by class or skin,
but linked by Spirit born within.
Barbara Messner 2/06/21
What if Jesus Says “Eat!”
What if Jesus says “Eat!”
Pentecost 2; Mark 2:23-3:6
Long held rules seem to say:
“Don’t let hunger prevail,
though you walk in ripe fields!
Keep the Sabbath rites pure!”
Then though Jesus says: “Eat!”,
Pharisees lurk in wait
to accuse and conspire,
using law as their power.
Can we let Christ be Lord
of the Sabbath as well?
Are we governed by rules
that he might set aside?
We are told not to stray
from the bounds of one book,
though we long to be fed
with what’s relevant now,
and the Spirit plants food
that our hunger can’t touch.
Do the rules hold us back?
Is the Sabbath for us?
Are we hampered in strength,
like the man’s withered hand,
while the Christ in our midst
says: “Come forward! Be healed!”?
“In our worship,” he asks,
“is it lawful to save?”
Then he bids us stretch out
so the healing can work.
Will we eat and be whole,
or seek safety in rules?
Barbara Messner 25/05/2024
Nicodemus at Night
Nicodemus at Night
Trinity Sunday; John 3:1-17
Then Nicodemus came by night –
a man of law-trained, literal mind
replete with Scripture he could cite.
He knew his peers would be unkind,
so sure of ways they thought were right,
but he must see what he would find.
Perhaps this Jesus came from God -
some words rang true, he’d seen the signs,
but what he heard this night was odd,
and blurred the clarity of lines
to which he’d always given the nod,
assured by what the law defines.
What might it mean to be reborn?
His reason would not give that room,
and challenged, he replied with scorn:
“A second time in mother’s womb?”
Yet hope was stirred like wind at dawn.
If God is love, the world might bloom.
“How can this be?” A longing doubt
unsettles all he thought he knew.
Sometimes like him we twist about,
and try to test what might be true,
but then God’s love will call us out,
and Spirit birth a life made new.
Barbara Messner 26/05/2021
Come, Holy Spirit, Breathe
Come, Holy Spirit, Breathe
Day of Pentecost; Ezekiel 37:1-14, Acts 2:1-21, John 15:26,27, 16:4b-15
Come, Holy Spirit, breathe, put flesh and life on bones:
on desiccated liturgies and rigid ribs of pews.
We’ve lost the gift of tongues, the surge of fire and wind,
the burning in the heart that leaps to recognize good news.
Like wind that summons change, stir up our spirit gifts:
give energy to risk and dare, to fail and try again.
Breathe life into our dreams, ignite fresh sparks of hope,
that we may rise despite the weight of our remembered pain.
Give us the words to say when challenged by disdain:
we hear the mockers claim that faith is less than fairy tale.
Along with many tongues, let meanings now be heard,
and people choose a greater good than merchandise for sale.
Come, Holy Spirit, muse, work with our arts and crafts:
creating in God’s image, let us challenge and inspire.
Be Advocate and Guide to lead us to all truth,
then we’ll be drawn towards our God by magnets of desire.
Barbara Messner 15/05/2024
Ascension?
Ascension?
Ascension Day; Acts 1:1-11; Matthew 28: 16-20
He vanished from their sight, but did he rise
to lofty palaces above the skies
to sit in gloried state at God’s right hand?
Or did he slip among them where they stand?
The angels laughed: “Why do you seek afar
the one who’s always with you where you are?”
To visions bringing insight, it seems odd
when we in worship set apart our God,
who comes among us as a baby curled
within the welcome womb of every world,
and lives and dies and rises, seen or not,
in all the grime and muddle of our lot;
yet we persist in seeing Christ ascend,
although he said he’s with us to the end.
Barbara Messner 20 May 2020
Dilemmas of Love
Dilemmas of Love
Easter 6; John 15:9-17
So you said to your friends in farewell:
“This is my commandment,
that you love one another
as I have loved you.”
No need of ten commandments:
this one is challenge enough.
No doubt it would change the world,
but how do we live up to it?
How do we love as you loved,
you who are love embodied,
we who are bodies muddling love?
We trail our tattered loving
through the mud of the mundane,
or risk it burnt to ashes
in the wanton fires of passion.
How do we do Christ-like love?
Is there a manual of instruction
in the words of your teaching,
or your living and your dying?
Is humility a sign and lesson of love?
Being like a child, or a servant
shames human pride, and our egos
that grasp at being special and affirmed.
The key to your human existence
was being here with us and for us,
advocate for the marginalized,
host and healer for the down and out.
Even you were not completely impervious
to the stain of ethnic and gender bias,
or the burden of compassion fatigue.
Exhaustion and prejudice
marred your first reaction
to the Syrophoenician woman.
That was a lesson in loving,
not because you were perfect,
but because you struggled
to put aside your intolerant response
until at last you were there for this other,
recognized her desperate mother love,
and you listened, respected and enabled her,
saying she spoke to you a word of wisdom,
and was source of her own daughter’s healing.
In your last teaching, you longed
to open us to love and the Spirit,
knowing your time was coming
to live out your loving by dying,
the ultimate walking of the talk.
How can we aspire to such commitment,
or is aspiring a misconception?
Perhaps love does not come from comparing,
from instruction or even commandment.
Does it flow from awareness of being,
a connection with you and creation?
Can it be that the source of true loving
is response to the God of love incarnate,
transformation by mutual presence,
and in that moment, joy shared and complete?
Barbara Messner 2/05/2024
God is Love
God is love
(Easter 5 John 15:1-8, 1 John 4:7-21)
All people who use language
are second-hand word-mongers:
we mangle words or varnish
by buying into meanings
to suit rival agendas.
We fumble in our juggling,
and truth becomes entangled
with hurts to which we’re subject,
and what one hears, another
would never have imagined.
So “God is love” gets twisted
for some who hear “Our Father”.
They might have had a parent,
unreasonably controlling,
whose harshness warps the nature
of their resistant children.
Then “God” and “love” seem hollow,
and protest shapes a cynic
whose love is sparse and godless.
Yet “God is love” is speaking
of wisdom sourced in wonder
at what we see in Jesus –
a God more than Creator,
a wise and gracious parent:
compassionate and caring
for all that is becoming,
forgiving finite creatures
their limited awareness,
their fear for their survival
that warps their best intentions.
When we abide in Jesus,
it helps refine our loving.
Our “me-first” competition
for limited resources
transforms into the service
we base on his example.
We give from our abundance,
so grateful for receiving,
and sometimes try to offer
self-sacrificial caring
not just to those we value,
but enemies and strangers.
When Jesus speaks of pruning,
it’s not an angry stripping,
but shaping for our fruiting
with stronger upright branches
that show the vine’s true nature.
What falls away enhances
resilience and balance.
Since God is love, and Jesus
embodies what such love is,
when they abide within us
our love will bear their image.
Barbara Messner 27/04/2021
Warning: Sheep Astray
Warning: Sheep Astray
Easter 4; Psalm 23
Good shepherd, there is much we seem to lack,
though having much has blurred the truth of need.
If you could lead us weary creatures back,
green pastures and still pools might soothe and feed.
Our souls are parched, our bodies over fed;
right pathways now have given way to roads.
We seek refreshment, yet will not be led;
your rod and staff seem long discarded goads.
Death’s shadow is a warning we ignore;
fear unacknowledged spurs some frantic craze.
You spread a table: we go out the door;
our cups intoxicate, our senses glaze.
Your loving-kindness still invites us home,
but we think freedom means the right to roam.
Barbara Messner 17/04/2024
A Greeting of Peace
A Greeting of Peace
Easter 3; Luke 24:36b-48; Acts 3:12-20; Psalm 4
He stood among them, offered them his peace.
Amazed and doubting, they were terrified:
they thought they saw the ghost of one who’d died.
How did he help their fear and doubt to cease?
He chose to let them see his damaged flesh;
he showed the wounds in hands and feet and side.
He ate some food with them, and opened wide
their minds to understand his Word afresh.
How can we find the peace he offers here?
Our wounds reach out to his, feel he’s alive.
Communion shares the food that helps faith thrive,
and opening to Scripture calms our fear.
Communing with our hearts brings us release;
times of refreshment come; we sleep in peace.
Barbara Messner 12/04/2024
Barb, poet priest 