exploitation

Chains and Chains

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

“One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a female slave who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.'” – Acts 16:16-17

My soul was heaped with chains.

A demon claimed my eyes,
my mind, my tongue, to speak
of things beyond a mortal’s ken.
Or possibly to fill the air with lies.

Some businessmen had claimed
my freedom. For as long as people paid
to hear the demon’s truth or lies,
the money went to them, and chains to me.

I still don’t know who claimed my legs
and tongue those days. The demon knew,
as I could not, that these strange men
were also chained, but to the healing power of a god.

I followed, but I don’t know how.
The demon’s words leapt from my lips,
but would it risk its power in the face of God?
Regardless, my legs pushed me after them.

I saw the look upon the speaker’s face,
a look of one whose patience had been tried
beyond its limited capacity. Beyond my hope,
he spoke the words that broke the demon’s chains on me.

I fell into the street and saw the businessmen
seize him and his companions, chain
them for the magistrates’ displeasure. I
looked down and found their chains bound me.

I am not fully free,
but I am freer than before,
and even though it cost them chains like mine,
I would be pleased to wear the chains of God.

A poem/prayer based on Acts 16:16-34, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year C, Seventh Sunday of Easter.

The image is Paul Casts Out the Devil from a Slave Girl in Philippi, attributed to Pieter Fransz, between 1610 and 1652. From Scenes from the Acts of the Apostles (series title). Photo by Rijksmuseum – http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.520428, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84964425.

Her Whole Life

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments
A painting of a well-dressed African man putting gold coins in a jar while a slim African woman carrying a baby and with a basket on her head puts two small coins in the jar. Others watch.
The Widow’s Mite – Luke 21:1-4

For all gave out of their abundance, but she—out of her poverty—gave all that she was having, her whole life. – Mark 12:44, translation by D. Mark Davis.

You’d warned about them, Jesus, all those who
devour widows’ houses with religious obligation.
I wonder, did you think you’d see it happen
there in front of you, so poignant and so soon?

She dropped her life into the box or jar
and heard it ring, so tinny and so small.

I wonder that you found the words
to say to your disciples “She gave all.
She gave her life, all that remained.”
I would have been struck silent in my tears.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 12:38-44, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 27 (32).

I have written two other poems on this text: “Devoured” from 2021 and “All She Gave” from 2018.

The image is from JESUS MAFA. The Widow’s Mite, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48392 [retrieved November 5, 2024]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).