The Gunman at the Door
a poem about birthrates and church attendance
I saw, in my mind's eye, a gunman pacing outside the building where we met, where we sit round a table in a room with a cross on a frosted-glass door. We were busy listening to that fellow with the books rattle off statistics about churches or birthrates declining. Perhaps it was neither. Perhaps both. "Let them take us or leave us," the Apathetic yawned. "See, you're the problem!" the Idealists accused. One man said: "If we make a secure place, then they'll come and we'll grow." Then a woman rolled her eyes, "Is that so? Well, we'll accept who we nurture. And we'll nurture who we bear. So don't pressure us to bear down any more!" And I in my seat drummed fingers, tapped feet, watching the gunman bide his time. Something dangled round his neck. Was it a card or a key? Hard to see. I imagined what'd come next. I could guess. He'd break through the glass in the door. We'd startle and stare, caught unarmed, unaware, and too late to make a change or a move. "Cast off what encumbeth!" I found myself saying. "Leave the ninety-nine for the one-eth!" No one heard, so I froze between action and thought. Was one-eth a word? I think not. I'll stop-eth. Then the gunman jiggled knob, rattled lock. And I saw a sight I'd not noticed before. The hinges on our door and the lock as well were both outside the cross frosted-glass door. Were we safe or locked in? Were we good or the villain? Well, one thing was sure: we were a picture, at the mercy of the man behind the cross. Then suddenly, I knew what this was. And I knew what to do. With the flat of my hand I slapped the table with force. "Look!" I shouted. "The theif's come like the sun in the morn with the power to take life as he giveth!"
But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. (Matthew 24:43 NIV)
“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord. “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.” (Isaiah 54:1-3 NIV)
*Note: this was an image that came to my mind the other day. The arguments are added from my imagination as well as the cross door and the key. The final pronouncement I’ve altered to imply the day of the Lord instead of just a terrorist breaking into a church building. Originally the pronouncement was, “Look! There’s a gunman at the door!”
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