September 24-C, 2022

Jesus put an end to theology
and all of its stepchildren,
doctrine,
dogma,
dharma
and hymnbooks--
all of which are clandestine 
books of doctrine set to music--
with his,
"The spirit is like the wind
that blows where it will."

The spirit, bound to theology,
can't move,
locked in as it is 
by chains of thought
and shut away in dungeons of belief
and standards defining the way
things are to be thought and done.

The spirit, blowing where it will,
is a terminal threat to the church
and its theology and traditions
its forms of government
and its death grip on
"Is now and ever has been,
world without end, Amen!"

Jesus came saying,
"The old has passed away,
behold: The new has come!"
Which the church quickly recorded
in red-letter editions
of the Holy Bible,
and remembered with chants of,
"Tell us the old, old story!"
Allowing nothing to be added or taken away
through the long years of its
Stewardship of the Word and Sacrament.

According to the church and its theology,
Jesus has come and gone, like that (Snaps fingers).

One of the early stories
circulating in the years
following Jesus' death
was that in dying,
Jesus was released
from the constraints of the body,
and became one with the spirit,
going into Galilee and all the world,
calling those who would,
to join them in riding the wind,
still blowing where it will.

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