The Presbyterian Reflects on Communion

It would be wonderful if we all took the blood of Christ seriously 
If we let it demand something of our souls
If we let it in 
Rather than setting it as a serum on the shelf, to cancel sin
As if the goal were to begin, endlessly again, rather than to break free into some God-stoked revelry 

But 

That is hard work and would require true goodness and getting past religion 
Which we have shaped as the thing to numb the sting
And let us wear our Sunday best
As if God looks down with a puffed out chest at how we dressed
At our knotted our ties, and how we rise and genuflect

I wonder if we have not become religious and right, 
The shield against God himself,
The thing that God despises

But, then again, 

Why would we become good when we can just skate by on the great conveyer belt of life, Picking from it, like custards off a lazy Susan, whatever strikes our eyes?
All while we hold the promise, like a promissory note
Of a great piece of heavenly pie, waiting for us above, handed out by a Jesus of our own skin tone and color, who will say “You got your catechism right, so come on in!"

Still,

When we drove away from church I think I saw God, if I saw him right:
He was washing a window with tatted arms, strong and sinewy,
And I remembered some verse: if you can’t love the seen, don’t think you love the unseen

Well, now…shit

Such thoughts would be a grenade among us—
Who trust that our right thinking is the key to St. Peter’s gate
Even if , lately, I’ve grown afraid:
It might be an anchor’s weight, pulling us into a long and lonely sea  
And a sunless morning, long and dull and gray