Psalm 103:8-14
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Poetry is perhaps the most primitive of the literary arts. The oldest works of world literature – works like the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey – are all in the form of poetry. Creating poetic order out of our words, experiences and stories seems to be a trait inherent in human beings. Certainly, there are practical reasons for this; chief among them perhaps is the fact that, on account of the poetic forms themselves, poetry is easier to memorise than is prose; and in a world where most communication was oral, memorisation was crucial for transmission. Nevertheless, there is also something deeper about our inherent attraction to poetry. It may have something to do with how it presents narrative and feelings in ways which are ordered and with a beauty of balance and imagination, doing so in ways which give voice to our own unspoken feelings. The Italian poet, Salvatore Quasimodo, expressed it well when he said, “Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own.”
As children we all learned that poems rhyme, and unfortunately many of us never grew out of that definition of poetry. Yet, while rather prevalent rhyme is not the only poetic form, and certainly not the oldest or most sophisticated. In fact, John Milton, the 17th century English poet understood rhyme as not essential to poetry, going so far as to call it a “troublesom [sic] and modern bondage”. Ancient Hebrew poetry, for example, finds its identity as poetry not in rhyming but in various other forms like verbal rhythm or more importantly parallelism, which creates a natural rhythm of its own. Parallelism is probably the most dominant poetic device in ancient Hebrew poetry and there many types, but the two most easily identified are the synonymous and the antithetical. We are so used to these that they often go unobserved. Examples abound. In synonymous parallelism the same thing is repeated in different ways, as in today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah: “Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sin”. (Isaiah 58:1) In antithetic parallelism “the second member of a line (or verse) gives the obverse side of the same thought”, for example, “A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief.” (Proverbs 10:1) Through repetition and opposition, Hebrew poetry creates a special kind of unity, drawing things together to represent truth in ways which are memorable, and sometimes jarring as it brings together seeming opposites into relationship with one another. These patterns were not lost on Jesus and the writers of the Gospels, and we see that today especially as Jesus teaches his followers the true meaning of the ancient spiritual disciplines – prayer, fasting and almsgiving – the spiritual disciplines to which the Church calls us during Lent.
It cannot be argued that there is poetry in Jesus’ words as presented in the Gospel of Matthew. There is that poetic pattern of repetition in the discussion of those three disciplines: “whenever you give alms…whenever you pray…whenever you fast”; as well as the images of opposition: “do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…but store but for yourselves treasures in heaven”. And these patterns resonate with us, speaking to us and touching us in ways we cannot fully appreciate. For me, I see in the three disciplines reflected the three aspects of being human which are often at odds with each other: almsgiving representing our relationship with others and what is owed them by us; prayer representing our relationship with God and how to give that relationship the time and effort it deserves; fasting, our relationship with ourselves and our struggles to control our less attractive and more destructive impulses. Their being presented in this unified way helps to offer up the possibility that a harmonious balance can be struck between them; but also suggests that while they each function in different spheres of our lives, the appropriate approach in each case is humility, honesty and transparency, in short, don’t be like the hypocrites – and we hear that three times too. Had Jesus’ teaching been presented in less poetic ways, I am not sure that they would have the same resonances. The beauty of the words and the rhythms created help us to see things in ways not initially apprehended. They help us to engage the imagination and deeper echoes of our spirit. How true indeed are the words of Samuel Johnson: “Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”
We are going to hear a good deal of poetry during Lent, as we journey with some well-known and lesser-known English poets. By highlighting some of the Lenten themes using poetic forms, we are following a very biblical pattern, a very ancient pattern, but hopefully we also be enabled to come to a deeper, more immediate appreciation of the Lenten call. Try to immerse yourself in some of the pieces with which we will travel, and perhaps in your own scripture study during Lent try to read some of the scriptures in the same way you would read poetry – slowly, out loud, gently discerning the patterns that make the imagery work and which resonate with you in surprising ways; after all, as someone once observed, “Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them.” During this Lent allow your heart strings to be plucked and discern the music God is making in you.
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