Among the Beggars

 

Among the Beggars

(“How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! So the Law allows a person to do what is good on the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:12)

We have songs to learn, spotlights to replace,
audio to check, dress shirts to be pressed.
We have prayer and candle time, cymbals and strings
and amazing things that we find so deep in the Word
that you never would have heard it if we had not used the
sweat of our brow
and our holy pickaxes
to reveal it to you.

And now you want health care when all we need do
is scare the virus away? Now you want mandatory masks
and ask us to keep our distance when you know we are
commanded to bundle up and spew our songs up and down
the aisles? If you had as much faith as we do
you would hold hands in a circle of prayer,
grab your neighbors to make sure they are there
and expose them to the health we share in the glow
of our communal, exclusive, pay as you go, enter
at your own risk,
faith.

II.

Today I find myself among the beggars asking
for alms of science. Today I find myself outside
the windows missing the rah-rah reformed protestations
that once filled my purpose like a balloon with wet sand.

But I know more, having learned more, now I do better.
The doors are closed for a while, the instruments mute on
high holy days
only because we value the lives
of those who are just flesh and bone
and filled with sunrise colors in the image of God.

I am no longer surprised (but I mourn instantly, constantly)
by the grand proclamations: Higher. Deeper. Farther.
Wetter. Steeper. Better. Jesus broke the
rule-of-the-7^th-day because it was a day to be healed.
I will break the rule-of-the-1^st-day for the very same reason.

I will do good on the day of His resurrection.