Poems

Combines or Labourers?

Date added: 29/05/2020

COMBINES OR LABOURERS?

Luke 10:1-12

 

The world isn’t won

With church statistics

     on compact discs,

With escapist, bright,

     free offers,

     vacuum-packed,

     market-researched,

     teflon-coated,

     via satellite.

 

Jesus sends us out

Without this gear:

Not to make the gospel easy,

Just to make it clear.

 

He sends not combine harvesters

But only his own labourers,

     poor and vulnerable,

     weak, dependent,

     humbly serving,

     healing, preaching.

 

'Believe it or not,

Like it or not,

The kingdom’s come. 

For the King has come;

A reign of peace,

Or sentence of doom.'

 

© Graham Kings, Nourishing Connections (Canterbury Press, 2020).

First published in the International Review of Mission LXXVII. 308, October 1988.