Transcending difference to Pray for Britain
Why I wrote the #poem The New Pharisees: After an afternoon of prayer, song and praise in Wembley Stadium on Saturday with fifty thousand cheerful folk, I took a leaflet from a joyless type outside and watched her joyless colleague denounce what we had been doing. I thought for a second… Surely the Atheists are not here! But no such delight! I read their leaflet in case they had some well based points to make and discovered a logic utterly flawed. It was the modern-day Pharasees..:
THE NEW PHARASEES
Standing in loveless misery
The New Pharasees
Denounce, declaim and claim superiority
Railing and bewailing
From the sidelines
Those who forgot their differences to make a difference!
…………
I pity these pharasees
Bitter in their pedantry
They cauterise the Bible
To prove the purity of their own reading
And the futility of any effort to combine
In prayer for our people!
……………………
In the face of their condemnation
And the illogical twists
With which they blister the bible
Into their own unique idol…
We have agreed to dance as David danced
Accepting the honour of condemnation!
It was, indeed, the modern-day Pharasees – who think that until millions read the bible with their true line, nothing can be done about our land…and that it is a sin to associate with an Anglican!!! I thought of writing to them …and realized they would take no notice.. .So instead I wrote the poem ” The New Pharisees”. The analogy is not chosen lightly – it has depth and substance based on a comparison between those who followed “the letter and not the spirit of the law” (St Paul coined this phrase) and those who do exactly the same thing again today. They do immeasurable harm because they mimic Jesus’ truth through their pedantry and ensnare vulnerable new believers away from God’s Love. They are the ones of whom Jesus said. When you come to me and say “Lord Lord” I shall say “I do not know you.” Quite possibly they will not even recognise him. I am working on a Pop opera about this theme. Watch and Wait! jm
Waywardspirit
October 2, 2012
This is what I came looking for. got distracted. : )
Ikr!
I’m not sure what the antidote is yet for this Pharaseeing. Well, I guess I do, actually. Just haven’t found the words. See, cuz I was one.
Spent allot of time pointing at the other Pharisees, in that characteristic joyless way. I think you are right. Maybe we do worship different Gods. Yet, what can one say to argue with a person god is speaking to? No matter what God? I’m sure thee is someone out there with a kinder bigger more wonderful download of God than my heart is ready for. : )
johndwm
October 3, 2012
i think Id like to read your story about this and I think others would. If you would like to you could post it also on mine as a sort of Charles Dickens weekly episode event. And I think by the end the begining will become clearer than diamond.. and decidedly more ethical!!!
Waywardspirit
October 3, 2012
You think it could get more ethical? Not sure how to ask this….
johndwm
October 3, 2012
I dont mean your story has to be tied to anyone’s assumtions about ethics. I was just quopping about the blood diamond thing…