LECTIONARY THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT: “Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done” (John 4:5-42)

“Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done”

Go now, don’t hesitate,

You’ll find him by the well,

The deep well,

The one with earthy,

Earthly water at its base,

Seek him at the well,

While he is to be found,

This is the prophet,

This is the messiah,

Their messiah,

And our messiah,

All’s messiah.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done”

He speaks with heaven’s knowledge,

He speaks with heaven’s words,

He speaks of a water that never runs dry,

A water that will take away that thirst,

And with every word he said,

With every grain of truth spoken,

The realisation dawned,

That the real deep well,

Stood before my open eyes.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done”

LECTIONARY SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT: The Wind Blows (John 3:1-17)

THE WIND BLOWS

John 3:8, The wind blows wherever it please. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

From above comes the breeze,

That captures the heart,

And the eyes,

Drawing back the focus to the hyper - real.

Revised intentions, shaped by cascading shards of light,

Reflecting on the lens, tinged by flare,

This new vision, from above,

Breaks before dawn awakes,

And leads the wanderer further,

Further than they thought they’d ever go,

This breeze carries with it hope and heartfelt praises,

For within the shadows cast by the collateral it carries,

Are etchings of new life,

Scrawled on to pavements,

Sewn into the fabric of lives encountered,

Life enriched and enriching,

And from above this ghostly breath sweeps away,

Tears, worries,

Failures and fears,

And plants deep into passersby,

Seeds of change,

New roots to be formed in concrete walls,

Previously shut off to fresh light,

And as with the wild goose,

The wind sweeps and soars,

Clattering left and back and right and forth,

The path it follows is the creator’s cause,

And it moves ever onward,

This wind,

This trail of hope and life,

And to us is given the task,

Of following in its wake,

Reaching after the leaves that flutter,

In the glare of this comet’s tail.

LECTIONARY FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT: Serve Only The Lord (Matthew 14:1-11)

When the times of trial come,

(And they will)

When all falls apart,

As parched ground cracks and breaks,

Quakes at the snares the tempter makes,

Know in the deepest core of the heart,

Where light nor dark can enter,

That it is only to the Lord,

That knees should fold and bend,

Only to God should eyes ascend,

In awe and worship,

No matter the outcome:

Whether trials have broken,

Or been beaten back,

Whether the tempter’s arrow tales,

Have hit their sallow target,

Or whether the serpent’s lies,

Have been vanquished,

Know that it is to the triune God,

That worship should be given,

And it is to the Triune’s truth,

That service ought be striven,

Only know that when it all feels displaced,

The Lord of heaven and Earth is still present,

When the 40 days and nights have no end,

And it is to God that attention can be given.

LECTIONARY SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE LENT: We Were All Transfigured (Matthew 17:1-9)

WE ALL WERE TRANSFIGURED

We’ve heard it said,

That the voice from above was heard before,

The words that echoed down out of that great cloud,

Had passed through ears before,

Been known before,

We’ve heard it said,

And now we have heard it,

First-hand,

The “man” we knew stood before us,

Resplendent in bright light white,

Face like sun,

Brilliant and hewn from ethereal gold,

Dressed in angelic shimmer,

Colours so rich and intense,

Yet simply white,

Diamonds hovering in the air,

The son lost in the sun’s light,

And the sun renewed in the son’s visage,

We saw and we heard,

We hoped to build tents of remembrance,

For the moment when amidst Moses and Elijah he stood,

We wanted to capture that occurrence,

As a reference point to illustrate who he is,

Who he was,

Who he was before his breathing shallowed,

And the sag in his chest spoke of strangulation and asphyxiation,

When choking and drowning-in-air overtook him,

We wanted a tabernacle to point to,

To point others to,

But only when the stoned was on its side,

Only when hell’s gates had been kicked down,

And kicked through,

And kicked out,

Only then were we to speak of what we’d seen,

Of what we’d heard,

And more importantly, what we felt,

Golden face and clothes tingling with creation’s light,

In that moment we truly saw,

Yet afterwards his voice,

It belonged to him,

There was no room for doubt,

It was him,

We too were changed,

We too truly knew,

We too were taken out of life’s mundane every day,

And brought back into life’s momentous every day,

And his words echoed in our hearts,

And the echo rumbles on still,

“Get up”,

“Do not be afraid”.

LECTIONARY SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT: .....Seek it.... (Matthew 6:25-34)

Luxurious words,

Speak of an elixir,

One that brings to birth,

True understanding,

“Lay down your worries”,

“And seek only the kingdom”,

Time will deal with the other things,

Seek the kingdom,

Mystery worth entering,

Completeness all encompassing,

Perspective shattering,

Seek the kingdom.

LECTIONARY THIRD SUNDAY BEFORE LENT: Telling Lies (Matthew 5:21-37)

Our hates tell lies our hearts fear to hear,

Our eyes tell lies our brains shouldn’t recognise,

Our actions tell lies our souls can barely bear,

Our mouths tell lies our ears are too hurt to hear,

We the crowd of witnesses,

The only hands and eyes and hearts and mouths the heavens have got,

Lay down not our cloaks or our lives,

But our starved hive minds,

Bold lies,

We live elegant and blind before the throne,

Tumbling, prone,

Again and again,

From one false start to another,

One broken heart to each others,

And there are moments,

When the screen cracks,

The facade creaks and we peer through,

Not the veil and not the scanner,

But some altogether other doorway,

Holding Huxley’s hand as we drift,

Through heavens and hells of our own making,

With our minds partaking,

Our eyes feasting,

Our words twisting,

And dreams breaking,

And through it all,

Through it all God persists,

God points towards God’s way,

Holds out a heart,

Pulsing and peaceful,

Calling to the broken,

The sinner,

The damned,

Offering grace,

When our offering is only...

The eyes that stare,

The male gaze,

The words that swear,

The failed ways,

The relationships tattered,

The romances shattered,

The angers flared,

The fists raised,

And this great king,

Longs for us to seek a more hopeful way,

To look differently,

At the words and the actions,

That are strewn across our paths,

Never built to last,

These simple distractions,

Only abstractions of what The Walked Way is supposed to be,

Let us open our fists,

Let us open our eyes and gaze upwards,

Let us sigh heavily in our hearts and exhale,

And let us whisper sweet nothings into the maker’s listening ear,

For,

Our hates tell lies our hearts fear to hear,

Our eyes tell lies our brains shouldn’t recognise,

Our actions tell lies our souls can barely bear,

Our mouths tell lies our ears are too hurt to hear.

LECTIONARY FOURTH SUNDAY BEFORE LENT: Just To Confirm (Matthew 5:13-20)

Hi, yes, hello.

Can I just ask one question.

I heard something and I want to confirm.

To make absolutely positive that I heard correctly.

Because I would hate to have misheard and for this to go down in history,

As one of those moments where things turn out unexpectedly,

Because someone misheard something,

Something someone else said.

So just to confirm.

Did you or did you not just say,

“you are the light of the world.”

“YOU are the light of the world.”

Because if you had said, “I am the light of the world” I would have understood,

A little better at least.

Because I am not the light of the world.

But you said I am.

In fact, you said, “you are the light of the world”

By which you meant me.

Me and the other people gathered on this hill to hear you speak.

I really think you’ve made a mistake.

Maybe there’s been some kind of grammatical, first person, next person,

Third person miss-match and mess-up because I can guarantee,

I am not the light of the world.

“I”, in my fickle sensibilities, my up and down emotions,

“I” and my lack of devotion and anger and prejudice,

And “I” with my hopeless handling of simple situations and emotional expectations,

“I” am not the light of the world.

I’m not even the light of my town,

My street,

My house,

My family,

So Jesus,

I am so sorry to break it to you,

But I think you must be wrong,

But saying that itself feels so wrong,

Because you are never wrong,

You are the light of the world,

And the light shines into darkness,

And the darkness cannot overcome it,

And if all that’s true,

(Maybe someone will write about it in 40 years or so),

But if all that is true,

Then the idea that you might be wrong,

Itself feels wrong,

So how can I be the light of the world?

Or maybe when you said, “you”, you meant “you” in a collective way,

Like, “you are all the light of the world”,

Maybe the point you’re making is that together your people and I,

Can be the light of the world,

That the goodness and completeness of everyone else’s lives,

Will somehow cover over the cracks and breakdowns of my own existence,

Maybe the fact that he and her, she and him, they’re all so good and pure,

That that will make up for the fact that I’m more a faded grey than a bright light,

Or then again,

Maybe by your words,

“You are the light of the world”, you’re setting me and my sisters and brothers a standard,

For all of us on this hill to reach,

Maybe the standard goes beyond this geographic location and this specific time,

Maybe your words cross eternity and back,

Maybe we, you’re people are the “you”, you have been addressing,

Maybe we can as one and as individuals be your light in this world,

And that sounds beautiful like,

Lived poetry,

Enacted cosmic drama,

But I’m failed and I think there may be other failure’s too,

So this master plan,

For I to act like you,

For your audience, when you said, “you”,

Meaning “I”, meaning me,

This plan seems to have flaws to me,

But I do not see what you see,

I don’t read history before it is written on the world’s clocks,

And I didn’t put the world’s clocks in place, like you did,

(Though just to be sure we better wait for some councils to set a date and make that clear),

Either way,

I don’t know what you know,

I don’t see what you see,

But if you say it’s like that then it must be,

I will try to be your light in this world.

I’ll try, but if I’m honest,

I could probably user a helper to help me do this,

I’m not sure I can be your light in my own strength,

Maybe I need a helper,

A helper or,

Maybe I need an advocate.