Wrath

When he said 
"Let go of your anger"
He didn't realize
You couldn't because
The anger was part of you 
Now, as real as your
Hand, skulking, reaching and
Jesus said you'd have to
[Not let go but]
Cut it off and 
Throw it
Away. 

Moses' Call to Ministry (Exodus 1-3)

Moses was one of those folks
Who wasn't from anywhere.
A Hebrew by birth, and
Supposed to die, to be buried
With the holy innocents
Their blood a testimony
Their souls perched higher
Higher, waiting in the courts of heaven.

Moses, you are the true Hebrew
An Israelite, indeed
There is deceit in you
And narrowly, narrowly were you
Saved.

Moses lived, or so it was thought,
On the right side of the tracks.
In the palace: Servants, six course
Meals, hieroglyphics, girls like
Cleo, and walls too thick to hear
The howl of the moon, and the cries
Of the beat-down children of God.

Moses, fatherless boy, you were the first
Man delivered from Pharaoh: When you
Knew you didn't need him. When you
Stepped outside and emptied
Yourself.

Moses has a record. An anger management
Issue. Red flags on his psychologicals.
He killed the guy in red blood, killed him
With his bare hands, and he enjoyed it
Savored the Egyptian's loud terror and
Slammed his head into the sand, over
Over, even after the Egyptian's last breath
And the Hebrew's strangled cry.

Moses! What were you thinking, or were
you thinking? Psychodrama turned violent
Or righteous anger uncontained? Either way
God was thinking. Any way, you are
Known.

Moses decided to start over. But he couldn't
Start over, not really, for in the land of Midian
The priest's daughters were in trouble, and he 
Told those shepherds, scared the scoundrels
And even in exile he was a warrior, a rescuer 
His vocation crying out like the fearful and false
Shepherds.

Moses, you must have known when you bound
Yourself to the woman you saved, and gave
Her a son, Gershom-- stranger-- you were born
Not really a wanderer but a 
Lover.

Moses was in wilderness beyond wilderness
And on the first of many mountains when God
Showed up, or showed his face in a bush burnt
But not consumed and Moses, in true form blurted
Out: God, send somebody else! Better to run than
To risk (it all) anymore, better to forget his people
His problems, his fathers, his destiny
Unrelenting.

Moses, teeming and huge with wrath, were you
Angry, too, with this God who pesters and demands
Of you your life, who doesn't seem to realize
Somehow you are still the small boy in the basket drifting
Downstream?

Moses listened, though, and came out from the
Wilderness and the anger was no longer anger,
Not really, and he heard himself say Thus saith
the Lord and Let my people go! because now the
Lonely boy had a people and now God was his
King and Pharaoh was not his father and in the
Questions and terror and wild fight Moses 
Stayed.

Moses, how did you stand between Pharaoh and
God, doubt and faith, your wife and your people
Rage and love, yourself and the world? That's the
Captivity from which there's no exodus, that's the
Calling you could not shake, that's every shepherd's
Place.

Moses, who drug and shuffled his feet, made it
Through, but only because the Lord was with
His mouth, the mouth that ate the manna of
Pharaoh, that cursed the dead unburied Egyptian,
And only because the Lord bore his raging 
Doubts, his flying terror, and with strong
Hands, loving hands, a father's hands, held him
Fast. 

Lucifer's Epistle to the Fallen by Scott Cairnes

Lucifer, Son of the Morning, Pretty Boy,
Rose Colored Satan of Your Dreams, Good as Gold,
you know, God of this World, Shadow in the Tree.

Gorgeous like you don't know! Me, Sweet Snake, jeweled
like your momma's throat, her trembling wrist. Tender
as my kiss! Angel of Darkness! Angel

of Light! Listen, you might try telling me 
your troubles; I promise to do what I can. 
Which is plenty. Understand, I can kill

anyone. And, if I want, I can pick
a dead man up and make him walk. I can
make him dance. Any dance. Angels don't

get in my way; they know too much.
God, I love theater! But listen, I know
the sorry world you walk through.

Him! Showboat with the Heavy Thumbs! Pretender
at Creation! Maker of Possibilities!
Please! I know why you keep walking-- you're skittish

as sheep, and life isn't easy. Besides,
the truth is bent to keep you dumb to death.
Imagine! The ignorance you're dressed in!

The way you wear it! And His foot tickling
your neck. Don't miss my meaning; I know none
of this is your doing. The game is fixed.

Dishonest, if you ask me. So ask. God
knows how I love you! My Beauty, My Most
Serious Feelings are for you, My Heart turns

upon your happiness, your ultimate
wisdom, the worlds we will share. Me, Lucifer.
How can such a word carry fear? Lucifer,

like love, like song, a lovely music lifting
to the spinning stars! And you, my cooing
pigeons, my darlings, my tender lambs, come, ask

anything, and it will be added to your
account. Nothing will be beyond us; nothing
dares touch my imagining. 

This poem, from Satan's perspective addressed to humanity, fascinates me. How seductive he is, how subtly and skillfully he leads us from God. And there is truth in it, too; God's heart does not "turn upon your happiness." Hagar, Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, Esther, Mary, Peter, Paul, and everyone else who tries to follow God learns that well. 

The Baptizer

Remember my baptism, remember it
For me-- when I was not yet three months
And it was the season of Christmas
Not Advent. Christ already born--
Now it was my turn. Wearing my 
Mother's wedding gown, altered:
Did you think, then, it was something
Strange, a baby getting married
In Chicagoland midwinter doom?
They tell me I was screaming,
Howling for all the world as though drowning.
And I was. 

Remember the pastor, remember him
For me-- I don't. I don't know his name.
But he was the interim, itinerant, wandering
The earth. And did he know, could he know
I, too, could be the baptizer-- cloaked
This time in a minister's gown, my gown
And drowning babies, momento mori 
Splitting parents from their children and giving
Them to God.

Remember the people, remember them
For me-- that little German congregation
Who welcomed me to the family of God. 
Their bruises incurable and wounds grievous
As Israel's in the days of Jeremiah-- what does
It mean to be welcomed by this people? Are they
Somehow with me still, and is theirs the voice
Calling me in the wilderness:
Make straight the path of the Lord and be thou
The next baptizer?

To Wrestle With God (Based on Gen 32:22-31)

He stays by the stream, he stays
Alone, and what must he be
Thinking, feeling in that
Eternal moment
That sparkling gleam
To which the whole orbit 
Of his years
Nature's years
Converged?

Jacob, Ya'aqov, deceiver 
Wanderer, Hebrew of Hebrews
Do you see his face daily
The face of your brother
The hairy man
The man's man
The son your father loved
Best?

He saw the figure on the other side
And it is nearly day
Dawn nearly shattering
Darkness-- Jacob 
Does not think to bow
Or weep or run or even
Kill but to 
Wrestle.

Jacob, for the first time in your
Life you must stand and fight:
No flight, no trickery
No mother to save you
You will live or die this
Day, this night of holy
Wholly relentless
Mystery.

He wrestles long, hard
Silently, silently
Groaning finally
His hip is out of joint. 
The man has hurt him badly--
Gasping, agony, pain beyond
Pain! He will not, cannot again
Run. 

Jacob, who is this stranger, this
Bearer of blessing, of pain?
Do you hate him? Is there anger
There, in your sweat and tangled
Limbs, the anger of the second son
The cast-out one? Is that why you're
Here-- avenging, bursting, let the 
Wrath spill over as you pin the angel
Down?

He grimly smiles as the stranger
Speaks: "Let me go, for day
Is breaking." But darksome still
The skies, still his heart-- and he
Won't! Won't let go, won't give
In, won't lie to himself, to the man
To the world. And with the cry of 
The anguish of the ages, replies:
"I won't let you go until you bless
Me."

Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham
Who, too, knew our wild, craving
Untamed God, you too, will seek until
You find-- the blessing, the
Birthright, the promise, the Lord. 
Hail, you mighty warrior! Fiercer,
Bolder even than your brother, who
Strove with game, for you strive with
God.

He is incensed once more-- the stranger
Answers his demands with a 
Question, a boundless question: "What is your
Name?" Aching question of questions
Posed by daybreak, by burning nerve and
Pounding heart and sweating hands-- what
Is your name? Empty question, foolish
Mocking question, at once everything and
Nothing.

Jacob! Do you really know your name?
Or do you know visions and voices-- your
Soup on the fire, your father's dismissal, your
Ladder ascending, your father-in-law's demand?
Is it violent clarity, the terror of insanity
Rooting you to the ground before him
The stranger who so strangely asked your
Name?

He replied, in any case, "Jacob." And the 
Angel continued, without even a breath:
"You shall no longer be called Jacob but
Israel." Yisro'el, El, God! "For you have
Striven with God and prevailed." He tries on
The name for size, quietly feels its sound
Its newness, its foreverness, etched in him and in
Heaven. 

Israel, you are a new man, you will forever
Wonder about the stranger, the wrestling that
So strangely burst from your body. You will
Forever limp, forever feel it in your bones:
The darkness that renamed you. The God who
Claimed you. You might mourn your old 
Name, but you can never again cross that stream.
You wrestled with God and
Won.

He demands-- and it was surely a fair 
Demand-- "Please tell me your name."
And the stranger turned it around on 
Him: "Why is it you ask my name?" And
Then he blesses him, and he trembles and
Knows he could not have both blessings and
Answers. Questions are what named him, what
Brought him to Peniel, Penu'el, face of 
El. 

Israel, Israel, are you resigned or angry
Exhausted or enlivened, terrified or
At rest? Or all of it and more, gazing
Upward, as the sun prepares to rise
In your honor? For the world will speak
Your name with awe and fear, and nearly
Nearly worship you who bravely did not
Run from God but
Wrestled.

He goes forth, limping of course, and
Moved and bearing the hard-earned
Blessing, met his brother. The years
Disappear as they hug and kiss
And boldly, the mighty man whispers to
His older twin: "Accept my gift. God has 
Dealt graciously with me and I have
Everything I want." The wrestling match:
Everything.

Israel, did the hurt and anger between you
And your brother-- surely it was there, surely
There were fiery days for you-- Israel,
In the feverish fighting by dawn was it at
Least, for a moment: The face and voice of
Esau? And was that how, in the sun
In his arms, you gave and forgave and
Gave?

He is the father of the nation, brave man
Limping man, trickster, runaway, broken
Bruised beloved and blessed of God. Not
The nation of Jews only but every one who
Crosses the stream, alone, and strives with
God and with people in the dark and light.
And these, O Lord, are your people
Israel. 

A Postmodern Psalm

I ran across this microfiction piece by Sean Hill and knew it belonged in a sermon someday.  

Wondering if I am real. Am I just a character in a story? My past seems vague, my future limited. Please, if you made me, let me know. 

Letter to A Congregation Unknown, Loved

Letter to a congregation unknown, loved

Dearly beloved-- for that is what you are
The stuff of my dreams, my nightmares
Love is proportional to danger
Already you have captured my heart
Already, body and soul-- yours. 

I am not your hero.
I have no capes, no magic wands
No priestly robes, no powers of absolution
God loved you before I belonged to you
God will love you after I leave you.

I am not a bearded, biblical sage
Nor a dark, handsome man
A coddling, doting mother
I am younger than your carpet
Your conflicts, your wounds.

I am young enough to be your daughter
With tight jeans, an iPhone, and naiveté
But Joel says your daughters will prophesy
And I see visions of you, dancing 
Dying, rising, shining-- like Christ.