Brown Rice Priests Poem by Adrian Wait

Woe to the brown rice priests
Indifferent of so much pain
Locked in detached materialism
Pride and career your only gain
Too important for pastoral care
Moment by moment never listening
Indifferent, disengaged and unaware
Passing by on the other side
Meeting after meeting distracts
Light is coming you cannot hide
Choosing Christ, to do Him a favour
To assure your status wear a collar
Chose the incrowd same norms, same Saviour
Brown rice and career is what you follow
Detriment of one sour apple remains
You grasp this arrow and call it suffering
Saltless, Your chosen career is mockery
Treasure revealed in the brown rice you chose
Indifferent betrayal of sheep left to wolves
Lost in brown rice parties totally unaware
Passing by communities of mourning
You did not even notice, did you even care
You reinforce opinion by selected verses
Ignoring challenges, overlooking injustice
Faithful servants die in silence, forgotten
Alienated from a church you represent
Servanthood their vocation, their prize
Emperor’s holy words are spent
Scattered, carelessly they lay unheeded
From your high throne of knowledge
Your carelessly words succeeded
Unaware that genuine expression
Is the true light of Scripture
You prefer your interpretation
Isms replace discomfort of Curum Deo
Subtle changes to words less spoken
Masks are worn like a cheap gown
Feigned sincerity sewn in and loud
Wide is ism trail, open to ambition
Fed by companions and circle of peers
Agenda well practised with a smile
Bowing the knee at altar of conformity
Careerism abides subsides reveals
Preference your substitute for doctrine
Vocation a term for the foolish, misguided
Label, Categorise and dismiss them
Woe to soft minded consumers
Band of hypocrites wear a badge
Sign a petition, but only for your ism
Shopping in the free market of faith
Invented passwords reveal your heart
The inarticulate, the weak, know you
They know where your treasure is hidden
A house divided, irrelevant to the poor
Who is in who is out, ism this and ism that
Disengaged lost in internal struggles
Power replaces the washbasin and towel
Weavers of words sharpen their axe
Protect and project their career
Secret meetings secret associations
All will be shouted from the rooftop
Exposed the liars lie their lies
Self-serving pride reveals the heresy
Of brown rice Priests indifferent squires
Lipservice abounds whilst plotting division
Faith, a word scorned by faithlessness
A Word for the poor, the weak, the other
A Word used to distract ‘our people’
Actor’s role secures their status
Woe to Usurpers one and all
Crowd of liars spinning their web
Learn the words spin the spin
Standing tall in feigned worship
Sink or swim let the dance begin
Pursuing pride in selfish agendas
Glancing down from detached pulpits
Bathing in self-wisdom inviting applause
Woe to you and your feigned affection
Neglecting the poor seeking promotion
Filling the air with your own wisdom
Woe to the brown rice priests
Not seeking, nor asking, but telling
Liberalised to a point of pointlessness
Round and around in relative circles
Descending into barren spirals
Of self-delusion and soulless rhetoric
The sheep remain unfed and thirsty
Professionalism bought and sold
Words spike, vex and puncture
Scattered intentions and lying eyes
Shallow trite methodologies
Abandoned when passion dies
Short-termism, conforms repels
Reinventing to avoid the genuine
And ‘mission shaped’ anything sells
Words for words sake, not life
Indifferent of so much pain
Locked in detached materialism
Pride and profession your only gain
Moving in all the right cliques
Careers of Unholy indifference
Woe to the brown rice priests