Delivered (a poem)

The pastor laid grief on my porch 

But there wasn't a corpse, 

Nor ashes, nor urn, nor candle to burn.

Twas a contract thick with Provisions
Bearing important revisions:
Weekly we gathered in Jesus' name
But now the friends who came
Would need a paid subscription

Incredulous claws 

Raking the pages to the penalty clause.
The sentence with the sentence to which I'm beholden 

For my door will stay open.

If you welcome them all,
Then the name must fall.
The church cannot be where you gather,
Wrote the pastor.

A scoff and a toss
"Not even a loss!
Cuz verse 20 in Matthew
doesn't even have you!"
As the weeks rolled over,
The gang came over,
Til the year was over,
And we turned over
Only the name.

And then the pain.
The start of a crack in my heart.
Mourning veins.
We're not disbanded
Just rebranded
And yet, the flame of change
It singes and stings.
Why does it bring this ache?
What did the king take?
Not our circle nor spirit nor schedule nor supper,
But chests are seized and squeezed,
A sniffle, a wheeze
And tears make clear what the eye sees
We are now "other."

Drop us from your directory
But don't you dare lecture me
About preparing for battle
Against what? Empathy?
How can my neighbors lose your favor
When you never came here?
To us, they were strangers,
But they were bold and grew braver.
We are hosts and curators
For question and challenge and
The fiercest of prayers.
We reach and we pull
To find Jesus in the weeds of us,
Uprooting thorns that we have worn,
Finally seeing the cuts we've been bleeding.
Scars are addressed, wounds are dressed, 

And we are filthy kintsugi
So thoroughly blessed.

If this is your course
To force a divorce,
Know the sorrow that you sow.

But you never had dominion here.
We refuse to sit in fear.
What this house offers
Can't land in your coffers.
Hot takes and guacamole
Make our dinners holy.

We break bread with the broken;
We never vet here.
Our doors and arms are always open,
Welcome those we've never met here.
We don't need to collect your token.
The Spirit is set here.
And the path to the Lord is spoken:
It takes together
To get here.