The following poem is from our friend Kristin Jack. He and his family lived in Cambodia for 17 years.
We have turned the teachings of Jesus
into a religion,
living words into opium.
We have turned a blasphemous prophet
into a harmless sacrament
that comforts and confirms:
we are druggists,
who have made Jesus safe.
we have taken the food of the prophets,
the poets, the revolutionaries,
we have taken living bread,
words that burned with holy rage,
into a religion,
living words into opium.
We have turned a blasphemous prophet
into a harmless sacrament
that comforts and confirms:
we are druggists,
who have made Jesus safe.
We have taken a table,
a love feast spread
so that zealot and harlot,
leper and lunatic,
could be welcomed and fed,
and turned it into
unearthly symbol
of wafer and thimble
for the righteous instead.
We have taken a cross,
clotted rack of brutality
(electric chair built
to burn heretic and radical)
and crafted it into
pop fashion accessory.
We are publicists and anesthetists
who have turned this Jesus
into someone respectable:
a pillar of the community,
a seal of approval.
We are druggists and alchemists
who have turned his blood into water
(thin and insipid and easy to swallow)
we have taken the food of the prophets,
the poets, the revolutionaries,
we have taken living bread,
words that burned with holy rage,
and turned them into
pap for the pious,
pills for the nervous,
and homilies for the dead.
revolutionary Jesus