"I have decided that because the Lord saw fit to include so much poetry in our scriptures, I may, on occasion, preach in poetry. So whatever mental or physical posture you need to adopt in order to hear poetry well, I invite you to find that place now.
Torn from his lover, his God-given spouse
Nations, villages, genders, ethnicities, kept hooded and bound
A poet remembers the faithfulness of Yahweh:
“Lord, you were favorable to your land;
"You restored the fortunes of Jacob.”
But that time is no more.
Salvation has fled, tribulation has come.
Doubt shrinks the hearts of the people of God.
Can Yahweh make things right again?
“Lord, let us hear you speak again!”
says the poet.
“Our lives cry out with pain;
"The infection of sin grows red and inflamed.
“Will you speak words to us again: words of healing, words of hope?”
“Yes,”
says the poet,
“the Lord has a word for you.”
85, verse 10:
Love and Faithfulness meet together:
Righteousness and Peace kiss each other.
Lovers apart so long
Brothers apart too long
How long have they been apart? Where have they been?
What has Righteousness become without Peace?
A pair of old calloused hands, smudged grey
By twenty years without a single sick day,
Tough and precise, devoted to the job;
A furrowed brow beaten low by a boss
Then another, then another
Who never once said thank you
Flawless in duty
But hiding a heart that still fears a slight slip of paper
Colored pink.
Righteousness without Peace: do you want him?
A child whose A never has enough pluses,
Whose friends always have too many piercings
Or tattoos in places no decent parent would allow
Whose concertos, though perfect, lack just the right feeling,
Or maturity
A life in which an ounce of approval
Would cure a pound of challenge
Whose pillow whispers fear:
Can I be more than the sum of my achievements?
Righteousness without Peace: do you want him?
A life of defiance against the evils of the world
Whose fingers stab accusation that “they” are the cause
Of my ills and our sufferings
Without “them” we would be safe
The nerds judging jocks, or the farmers the mean girls
Or blue collars seething at big banks
Or flags waved at Iran
Those protestors marching at the end of the parade
“Jesus or Hell” signs flapping in the breeze
Faces set harder than the concrete they tread
Yes, they are righteous, but where is the Peace?
Torn from his lover, his God-given spouse
Righteousness craves the touch of his bride:
To be frozen forever, sculpted in bronze, in that moment of passion,
That lostness in bliss,
The bare-naked second that parents will try to distract
Their young children from seeing
Until they are older
And then they will desperately hope
Those children will have it
Righteousness misses
The kiss.
But where is his bride?
Where has maiden Peace wandered, and what has she done?
What dress does she wear when her husband’s away?
The smooth-sliding rapture of hormones
And touch that drags teenagers
And college students, and middle-aged adults, and
Those in the prime of life
Into the “feel good” relationship:
No worries, no cares, no boundaries, no bothers, it seems,
Yet doubt slivers in, because this isn’t the way it used to be:
Didn’t Grandma describe it differently?
And didn’t her happiness seem deeper?
Peace without Righteousness: do you want her?
A cheek stung daily with the white hand-print of rage,
The soft flesh that was made to be caressed
Abused instead by an intimate liar with cowardly fists,
Its only chance for safety, another hour without pain, is to stay silent
To hold its Peace
Even as the flesh cries out:
This is not right!
Peace without Righteousness: do you know her?
Nations, villages, genders, ethnicities, kept hooded and bound
By the muzzle of a gun, a machete, or
An intercontinental ballistic missile
Who know their place in an age of empires
At the bottom, uncertain whether their children will have children
And so remain captive to economics and power
While whimpering hope to the soft-spoken big stick
That they just want food and water and medicine
Peace without Righteousness: do you want her?
When the house, or the car, or the MRI bill, or a winter of fuel
Requires a loan
That does not look good three years down the road
But the banker says, Don’t worry, the economy will change
And quietly, cheerfully, another bale falls
On the back of the camel
Peace without Righteousness: didn’t I see her just the other day?
She, too, misses her spouse
And no phone calls, emails, or Facebook messages will do
She wants to be with him
To hold Righteousness close
So that if you’re talking to one, you must talk to the other
She wants them to meet, to hug, and even
To kiss
Do you remember them together?
You’ve seen them apart, but to see yellow and blue
Is not to see green
Did you catch it before?
Did you see it?
What the poet speaks of with joy, did you hear him?
A stranger in the temple, a teacher attractive and odd
Named Jesus
Sat
When a pack of Righteousness came and threw down before him
A woman who had looked for love in the wrong place
And when the wolves, wanting justice, said
“What do you say?”
He said, Let the perfect one among you condemn
And let his words fall like rain on the rightness parade
Until only she was left
And she had to look at him
And know she was wrong
And think she was dead
Because she craved a kiss that she could not have
Until now
Standing before the first man who sees
Not just the evil she had committed
Nor the curves of her body, the only power she had
But the image of God and how it might mend
And the hope that forgiveness can bring
The man who said,
You have seen Righteousness, now receive Peace
Then outside the city he would sit with his students
And teach them of Peace
But not the kind they had known
This Peace would equip them to walk into flames
Of anger, offence, of hatred and scorn
Of peevish little words that no one says matter
But everyone knows
He taught them the Peace that never stays silent
In the face of injustice, or error, or pain
But sings truth in the tone and the timber of love
Who gives up a house when the enemy needs a motel
And builds a new bridge when all the others are burned
And drives to the sister all the family scorns
Pregnant with sorrow, weeping with cold
To bring another chance
He taught them a Peace that walks
With Righteousness
Like old lovers with many grandchildren
And more than a few great-grandchildren
Hand in hand through the hayfield of dreams and realities
Whose life has been hard, and happy, and grey
With hearts deeply scarred by trusting through pain
Whose commitment some years
Was the only thing they shared
They stop once in a while to lean on a shoulder
To sigh and to smile
And to kiss
And when their great-grandchildren
The students of Jesus
Look out from their windows and see the old lovebirds
Who gave them Life
They cannot imagine Peace without Righteousness
Or Righteousness without Peace
And know how the two hate being apart
But still they must wonder
Will we be like that someday?
The Word of the Lord . . ."
~emrys
1 comment:
oh wow Emrys, this is absolutely incredible! Thank you for sharing!
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