...but I play one in homiletics class. Here's my poetic/midrashic take on Mark 5. Was this poem largely an excuse to write something in iambic pentameter? Yes. But I do really wonder about what it must have felt like for the disciples to be constantly thinking narrow-mindedly only to be rebuked (in words or, as in this case, silently) by a Lord who is always several steps ahead of them. Maybe I wonder about it because it's such a familiar feeling.
A knot between my shoulder blades had inched
Its way from left to right from dawn 'til noon.
And I, for one, the last to disembark,
Had suspected we'd depart again so soon.
It seemed to be our master's way to wear
Our welcome thin with just a single cure.
At least this time he'd cast away a legion
'Ere we casted off again for the western shore.
But still, that afternoon of inching back
Did little to improve my state of mind.
Had I known The Way included so much rowing,
I'd suspect I'd not have left my nets behind.
So shoulder strain and pent up irritation
Came with me as I joined the evening's throng
And jostled just behind the troubled Jairus,
Whose synagogue, en mass, followed along.
En route there was an incident of sorts.
(In hindsight, though, it wasn't incidental.)
What's kept that run-in fresh for me years later
Is that I could be so cold, and him, so gentle.
At first he asked the crowd which one had touched him—
I asked him how and why he hoped to know—
And then, in fear and trembling, came a woman
Who for twelve years spent and suffered, with naught to show.
“It's not good for you to be here,” I'd have shouted,
Since the rules were clear despite her desperate cries.
But before I spoke I glanced in his direction
And glimpsed the sea of mercy in his eyes.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment