Keep on seeing

 Matthew 25:42-45

for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

We saw you…

in the eyes of the homeless guy who sits near the ATM

as we made our transaction

and he pleaded for enough spare change

to pay for a night in the hostel

We saw you…

In those queued outside the cafe

that allows folk to pay it forward

a queue that silently waits

for the dregs we leave behind

We saw you…

in the harried mum

who is desperately trying to keep her child from kicking off

on the over-crowded train that is proving too much

for her child’s neuro-diverse world

knowing her parenting is being judged and found wanting

We saw you…

Even as we frowned and tutted

at the one who stumbled on approaching the communion rail

not noticing how you greeted them with outstretched arms

as you would any long lost friends

and in the woman with learning difficulties

who can barely read the liturgy

but who knows grace when she sees it

in the bread and the wine

We saw you, Lord…

And you see us

You call us today

not to fix the brokenness of the world

but to keep on seeing you

hunkered amidst the pain and the hurt

choking in the dust and the rubble

and not to look away

to offer a hand

or a cup of cool water 

for all of “the least of these.”

Liz Crumlish November 2023

It's complicated - Jael and the tent peg

 

Judges 5:24-28
“Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
He asked water and she gave him milk,
she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.
She put her hand to the tent peg
and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;
she struck Sisera a blow,
she crushed his head,
she shattered and pierced his temple.
He sank, he fell,
he lay still at her feet;
at her feet he sank, he fell;
where he sank, there he fell dead.
“Out of the window she peered,
the mother of Sisera gazed through the lattice:
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’

Jael waited 
for opportunity
for the chance
to avenge her people
Lying in wait
to charm the man
who thought he was home and dry
who thought he’d escaped the fate
of all who fought alongside him, felled in battle
And, as he slunk home
where his mother waited in welcome
Sisera was waylaid
by a resourceful woman
A woman who did not bring him
the water he demanded
but gave him more 
than he could have imagined
fine milk
a place to rest
and a deadly blow with a tent peg
He surely didn’t see that coming!
Meanwhile Sisera’s mother
knowing the cowardice of her son
in abandoning his comrades
waited anxiously for his return
endorsing his treachery
with a mother’s love.
Sisera’s mistake was not wrought 
in the midst of battle
but in his underestimating
the passion
and strength
 of a woman
whose loved ones he wronged. 
Always a grave mistake.

(Liz Crumlish 2020)