Turn Table

 

Turn Table

(“My house will be called a house of prayer–but you have made it a brigands’ lair!” Matthew 21:13)

 

We sell our soul, we sell our vote,
we sell our best words and call them hope.
Besides, no one was home when we knocked on the door
that one time six months ago, and now I’ve lost your address
and don’t want to disturb you with a call.

We build our churches, we erect our halls,
we sell rummage and erect our stalls
outside shopping malls in the best part of town.
And when the day is over, we luxuriate in showers
hoping to wipe away every bit of clown paint from our
roles of a lifetime. Most times we’re mistaken, most times
we want another turn down the slide on hot summer days.

Many times, we choose our teams and wonder why
the boys with uncut hair and the
girls with coffee stained jeans
never ask to be in our game.
And when someone cries loud enough, hard enough,
high enough to weep for acceptance…

But that rarely happens since we’ve already forgotten them.
And who wants to be rejected twice? Save your money for
a second piece of pie. No one wants to be forgotten a third time.

How angry can Jesus be? No, really. We awake on Sundays
and crowd into the back of the hall with others who agree with us
on almost
everything. How angry can he be? Every Christmas we find toys
for the poor little girls and boys. Every Thanksgiving we find enough
turkeys to feed a dozen for free. For two months of twelve we
give away to a few and shelve the rest for new classrooms on the
eastern hall.

Some days, when you remember the aching few, do it in a month
that requires nothing of you. Bits and bytes that fly through the sky
are counterfeit coins landing sideways. We need eye to eye. We
need a friend to walk up the driveway.