September 18, 2023

you had a whole list of reasons

why we, the body of Jesus Christ

should accept you as you stand

your many sympathetic supporters

agreeing you need not change

what you are to what He would have

all deriding as hopelessly out of date

those who, like me, speak otherwise

off to the side, not even in the arena

I wondered a puzzling “What if …?”

what if the word of your particular

were replaced by one more repellent

more universally known as wrong

like ‘murder’, or ‘assault, or ‘theft’

what if these words instead were used

in your eloquently spoken argument

replaced the sin you so closely clutch

what then would you say to us