Tag Archives: King

COMPLETE “No Christians were there”

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Steve’s complete verse has three stanzas. Yesterday’s post was only the first. Here’s the full piece.

“No Christians were there”

No Christians were there at the birth
of Jesus. (For “…disciples were
first called Christians in Antioch”
years later.) But were those who were
there believers? the shepherds, the wise
astrologers, the non-father,
the Blessed mother? Did they see
with eyes of faith, or more like we
do: wonder, ponder, doubt and stare
at the small baby stabled there…?

That three were Jews, we know for sure.
The genealogies we read
in Matthew, Luke, go back as far
as Abraham. Eight days, we read,
then circumcision for the babe.
The Arab wise guys may be from
the land we call Iran. The sheep
herders may have been aliens
in the land illegally: cheap
pay for smelly foreigners.

The barn contained no royalty–
the stock had better pedigree…
and yet some say a King was born
to poor folks that the rich would scorn…

– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Dec. 21, 2013

Pontius Pilate

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Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, May 19, 2012

“Pontius Pilate” arrived this morning by email after five days with Steve Shoemaker and other former seminary classmates. Each of us is increasingly aware of our mortality. We know that position is not the most important thing. We know that power is not ours. We’ve learned to listen to our spouses. Some of what we’ve done comes back to haunt us.  There are no “clean hands” among us. How we will be remembered is not for us to decide.  Following the man who was mocked as “King of the Jews” leads us down a different road…of thanks for all that has been and for all that we have yet to become.

Acrostic Verse: “Pontius Pilate”

Position is the most important thing,

Of course..   You say your reign is not in this

Nasty world, but here you are suffering…

Total power is mine.  If this grim choice

I make (and ignore my wife’s dream), nothing

Untoward will come back to haunt me!  I wash

Sand and dirt from my hands as I wash you…

 

Prefects are not required to be perfect.

If I send tax money to Rome, a few

Lies told against me soon will die.  A sect,

An uprising I stamp out now will do

The most to make my name remembered.  Fact:

Even if I call you “King,” you die a Jew…

Pontius Pilate

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Pontius Pilate with his Prisoner - Antonio Ciseri

Ecce homo - "Here is the man"

“PONTIUS PILATE” – (acrostic) – Steve Shoemaker – April 14, 2012

Position is the most important thing,

Of course…   You say your reign is not in this

Nasty world, but here you are suffering…

Total power is mine.  If this grim choice

I make (and ignore my wife’s dream), nothing

Untoward will come back to haunt me!  I wash

Sand and dirt from my hands as I wash you…

 

Prefects are not required to be perfect.

If I send tax money to Rome, a few

Lies told against me soon will die.

A sect or uprising I stamp out now will do

The most to make my name remembered. Fact:

Even if I call you “King,” you die a Jew….

If you like Steve’s poem, you might also be interested in “You don’t get to have a non-Jewish Jesus” (CLICK HERE), posted earlier on Views from the Edge on Christian anti-Semitism.

Art work Ciseri, Antonio, 1821-1891. Ecce Homo – “Here is the Man”, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.  http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55115 [retrieved April 14, 2012].