The Audacity

I come from an audacious lineage.

A woman, bleeding—
forced her suffering into the open.

Syrophoenician—
words like crumbs that still carry power.

Two Mary’s—
testaments to radical devotion.
Hair unbound,
scent filling the room and tomb.

Bold.

A demographic whose grafting in
incensed the religious who inherited their belonging.

A kingdom built on holy scandal.

Are we still that scandalous?

Or have we become the two sides of the coin in the fish’s mouth?

Flip the coin again.

A woman.
First witness to the resurrection,
now barred from the pulpit.

The Good Samaritan,
tidy morning exegesis—
while we rationalize
border children in cages.

The poor and sick,
He reached for—
yet we move back two pews to avoid
their unwashed smell.

He healed on the Sabbath,
when He could have just waited.
We codify our acts of mercy—
like we’re doing taxes.

He kneeled in the dirt,
wrote in the sand—
while we assume the vulnerable already have a voice.

Our tongues have turned to brick.

Silent—

raising up hollow cathedrals on all of the words we’ve refused to say.

Snuff out fires we call tests, instead of warnings—

ignore congregational bruises under Sunday sleeves.

Indifference—
putting up walls that He tore down.

It’s not too late for us to return

to clearing the temple,

calling out whitewashed tombs—

washing each other’s feet.

We were never meant to guard the Gospel,
we were meant to run with it—

not with empty platitudes,
but with love that doesn’t look at the clock—

that learns the names we mispronounce,
and passes bread to hands that haven’t earned it.

As we run towards Him,
embracing our lineage—

let’s resurrect the audacity.

Will you have it?

—M.A