Will Mackerras loves Banjo Paterson. And he loves the Bible. But it wasn’t until after Bible College in Melbourne and a ministry apprenticeship in Wee Waa in north west New South Wales that memories of his childhood love for Paterson’s “Been There Before” inspired what he now calls the ‘Banjo Bible’. It’s a collection of Biblical stories told in the way Mackerras thinks Banjo might have told them himself.

Mackerras says he has taken some poetic licence with the Biblical stories to “mould them” to fit the form of the Australian poems. A CD is also available of readings of the poems. Click here to find out more.

Created in 2011, Eternity stumbled upon them this week and has been given permission to publish two of them today, in the lead up to Australia Day. Enjoy.

The Man from Ironbark

“Moses summoned all Israel and said… ‘You will settle in the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety’”  Deuteronomy 12:10

It was a very hairy man who struck a certain town,
And stumbled on a leery plan to bed and settle down.
He wandered here and wandered there, until a true beguiler
Enticed him with her looks and flair – a woman named Delilah.
The union, though, was fateful for our Samson and his mop,
For soon the lass would launch a store – a sort of barber’s shop.

Well Samson was a man of might – the strongest human ever,
With strength akin to dynamite and gelignite together.
He was the Living Lord’s design to save His populi,
From horrid things their Philistine oppressors used to try.
In fact it’s said that once he warded off a thousand crims
With just a bone, and what the Lord’d put into his limbs.

Delilah, though, was fair and flash, as tempters mostly are,
She wore a strike-your-fancy sash; and loved a verbal spar.
She was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
She honed the art of self-promoting: “Me,” she said “for Me!”
But here’s the thing, of all, that touches most upon our wagging –
She loved her money very much, and sure was good at nagging.

So when the dreaded enemy approached her in frustration
And offered her a hefty fee for certain information
About her strong beloved and his energy and muscle,
She took to seek the grubby grand, and started up the tussle.
“I have a question, dear, I do, I hope it isn’t rude,
But how could one as strong as you be tethered and subdued?”

Well Samson, so it seemed, was fine and willing to be tied –
He said “My darling, use some twine that hasn’t fully dried.”
The Philistines in turn provided seven bits of string,
And lay in wait as Lilah glided in to do the thing.
But when she called the plotters out to catch her wily double,
He tossed away the string without the slightest bit of trouble!

He later told her “Use my scruffin’, fluffin’ hair for weaving,
And see the rough and tough and puffin’ power in me leaving.”
She probably felt the time was right to give his hair a groom,
And gladly strung it extra tight across her weaving loom.
But when he felt his shaggy head connected to some cloth,
He pulled apart the pin and thread, and flung the fabric off.

Another try, another fail, but ‘Lilah was progressing –
You’ll notice there her maiden sale in hair and whisker dressing.
And so she let her lasso fly towards a final ropin’ –
For speaking metaphoric-lie, her barber’s shop was open!
She simply had to get the gent – her patron number one –
To answer her equivalent to “How’d you like it done?”

“I beg you, dear, to tell me how you’re stronger than a lion.”
But Samson gave her nothin’ now – a-nothin’ was he buyin’.
Delilah, though, she nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged again,
As if she’d caught a cat and dragged it screaming through his brain,
At last her partner, worn and fraught, and sick to death of chidings –
As good as said “I’ll have it short around the back and sidings!”

Delilah gave her friends a wink, a dexter eyelid shut –
“We’ve only got to give, I think, his bloomin’ hair a cut!”
They hurried in to lend a hand, and brought the promised cash,
And gave the strong ‘un’s every strand a cold and ruthless slash.
And as they did the quick and shoddy, maladjusted shearing,
The strength inside our Samson’s body did a disappearing.

His hairiness had been the source of all his punch and vigour,
For with it came the blessed force of someone vastly bigger.
The Lord, in fact, had told his Mum and Dad at his conception,
To raise the little chum to be badly-groomed exception.
And if a razor never saw the skin upon his cranium,
He’d always have an inward braun of reinforced titanium.

But now the Phillies hauled him off for dark incarcerating,
And with a condescending scoff began the celebrating.
They merried by the thousand in the temple of an idol,
Til Samson, from the wretched din, was going suicidal.
But then they made an error, for they brought him in to mock ‘im,
Which gave the wounded warrior another chance to sock ‘em!

He asked the Lord to give him just a final little filler
Of power – then he yelled and thrust his hand against a pillar.
He pushed it down – another too – and made the hall collapse,
And almost, in a day, removed all Philly from the maps.
And so the Lord had used a bloke who wasn’t too finessed,
To foil a foe and fix his folk a phase of fearless rest.

A Bush Christening

Paul said…”A man named Ananias came to see me…He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.

“Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’  Acts 22:2-16

Far beyond the Barcoo, when the churches were new,
And the gospel was sure radiating,
An official named Saul was a-filling with gall,
For the message was one he was hating.

He was righteous you see, or he thought he could be,
For he lived on the wrongful assumption,
That the Lord would declare he was blameless and fair,
On account of his effort and gumption.

But the offer of Jesus was free as the breezes!
He pardoned the lazy and lying.
And he answered the cry of the selfish and sly,
And he saved ‘em before they were trying.

Now the method he used to accept the accused,
Was a spiritual form of baptizing –
In the blink of an eye, in a manner all dry,
It’d give ‘em a revitalizing.

For the Spirit of God would arrive with a nod,
And would wash ‘em without any water.
With a scrub of the soul he would take the control,
And would cause ‘em to wish as they oughta.

For without an injection, he’d heal their infection –
The dangerous soul streptococcal.
With a hardy rewiring of all their desiring,
He’d change ‘em right down in the cockle.

But our Saul couldn’t figure how all of his vigour
Was useless in such a transaction.
He was mighty offended, in fact, and pretended
He didn’t require the action.

“Tis outrageous”, said he, “to be baptizing me –
I have tried all my life to be good.
I have scarcely a need to be humble and plead
To a man good for nothin’ but wood!”

Now in thinking like this he was certain to miss
All the light in the heavenly room.
Like a young native dog he had climbed in a log,
And was hiding inside in the gloom.

And he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
Though a preacher in vain might reprove him,
Til the trinity spoke without hint of a joke:
“We’ve a notion” they said “that’ll move him.”

“In the darkness is he, but he thinks he can see,
For he’s haughty and puffed in his mind.
But he’ll quickly be humble if having to stumble
And bumble about ‘cause he’s blind.”

So the Son of the Father, although he would rather
Be using a trick less severe,
With his garments of light and his larynx of might,
Put his head through the sky to appear.

Well our Saul – he was talking and scheming and walking
Along the Damascus arterial.
He was leading in fact a malicious attack
On the Christians and all their material.

But the deity called and the traveller stalled
In a fright, and he dropped to the gravel.
And he heard in a word what his maker preferred,
And his sight, in the light, did unravel.

With a “Saul” and a “Saul”, and a “Why are you mauling me?” –
Jesus – he struck with a vim,
And announced with a jolt that the smallest assault
on a Christian is also on him!

Now a fellow unsighted so sternly indicted
For many a crime on the shelf.
You would think wouldn’t fail while his eyes were all scaly
to have a good look at himself.

And it all went to plan for our Saul – he began
To perceive that he really was evil.
And to see that his effort, no matter how blessit,
Could never achieve a retrieval.

And when someone was sent to get Saul to repent,
And petition the Lord for a wash.
He responded mas-sive-ly for figura-tive-ly,
He jumped in the creek for a slosh!

“Will you save me”, he said “in my chest and my head?”
I appeal to you, Lord, for a scrubbing.”
“For my heart – it is sick – and my skull – it is thick,
And I cannot be faithful or loving.”

“And I need you to pardon me all the discardin’
I do of your wisdom and law.
I implore you – forget the gargantuan debt,
I would pay otherwise evermore”.

“And I know you can do it, for Jesus went through it –
the death and the rising – it’s done!
So I ask you for him – my predicament’s grim!
Would you save me because of your Son?”

Now the words I have guessed, but we know he was blest
for the Lord who was listening is truthful,
and he promises folk who will trust and invoke Him,
a life everlasting and youthful.

So it happened for Saul as it happens for all,
He was suddenly pardoned and altered,
To enjoy the divinity – all of the trinity –
“Jesus” he said “be exalted!”.

And he wasn’t perfected for still he defected
And wandered and stumbled and slid.
But he constantly pleaded the Lord who had bleeded
To hold him – and Jesus – he did.

And the rest of his life, in the bitterest strife,
(once his usual seeing returned),
he was telling the living that God the forgiving
could grant ‘em what Jesus had earned.

So to someone astray you’d be hearing him say –
“There’s a saviour who wants to revise ya.
So admit that you’re stuck in the filth and the muck,
And appeal to him, quick, to baptize ya!”