Poetry

Lectionary Poetry – Third Sunday of Advent ( Year C )

With the dawn of a new church year, we have launched a new feature on our website, a weekly post of poetry that resonates with the lectionary readings for that week (Revised Common Lectionary).

 
 

*** Revised Common Lectionary ***

Lectionary Reading:
Luke 3:7-18 
 

 
 

CLASSIC POEM:

I worked for chaff
Emily Dickinson

I worked for chaff, and earning wheat
Was haughty and betrayed.
What right had fields to arbitrate
In matters ratified?

I tasted wheat, — and hated chaff,
And thanked the ample friend;
Wisdom is more becoming viewed
At distance than at hand.

*** This poem is in the public domain, 
  and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.

 
 

CONTEMPORARY POEM:

St. John the Baptist
Thomas Merton

SNIPPET:

When, for the fifteenth year, Tiberius Caesar
Cursed, with his reign, the Roman world,
Sharing the Near-East with a tribe of tetrarchs,
The Word of God was made in far-off province:
Deliverance from the herd of armored cattle,
When, from the desert, John came down to Jordan.

But his prophetic messages
Were worded in a code the scribes were not prepared to understand.
Where, in their lexicons, was written: “Brood of vipers,”
Applied, that is, to them?

READ THE FULL POEM ]

 
 

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Katie Selby is Associate Editor of The Englewood Review of Books. Prior to her family‘s recent transition to the Englewood Christian Church community, Katie served various churches and organizations in Nebraska, East Tennessee, India, and Ethiopia. She is an M.Div. graduate of Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University.

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