Salvation is too good for just one day
So why not go to church five days of the week?
Yes, Sabbath, end-to-end, day-after-day,
9-to-every-5—why not let the Protestant Work Ethic
Give spiritual worth to this, my worthless body?
High in the clouds, the Tower arises,
Full to bursting, this heart, for love of a jealous god
The CEO and his board of seraphim
As we ascend in that gold elevator chariot
Meet with parishonal impersonality
To rest back in our cubical pews—
We wake before the golden sun on each
To the darkness of the burdened soul
To pay our infinite debts to the collegiate savior,
The son of industry slain for our wickedness,
Our animal run amok, unlabored arms in search of work,
Set by the laws come down from Mt. Zion’s proxy:
The word of God, amen,
Sets these idle hands to work, good deeds
For the silver sons must be pleaded
To feed us, invisibly, from spoons
Glistening with their saliva from
Oblations and eucharists prechewed,
Once we ******* and sinners come to renounce
Those pagan gods of comfort and arrogant self-respect
Wash away unprofitable behavior
In the cisterns of the wealthy
So that we may be pure for our Alleluah—
Now, all rise!
Receive this word—now sit—
Be thy colleague’s keeper, be thy neighbor’s blight—
Now stand up, keep passionate words unspoken—
Now sit down, fists reverently pressed to your forehead—
Now stand up, receive the sacrament of the CEO:
This is his body, eat of it;
This is his blood, drink of it;
Peace be with you, good morning, peace be with you
It is what it is, peace be with you;
I hate this job, peace be with you;
It pays the bills, peace be with you,
How are you today, peace be with you;
We say, waiting for the well-dressed man
High on the dais to lower his arms,
To incense the crowd with homely—
To thine bed, to thine labor, to thine head, to thine life
Must it follow, for the day of reckoning is upon us
And all thine sin, all thine hatred, all thine personality
Shall be weighed against gold
To see if you will conquer death in the next life—
And you must ask if you shall take the golden gates
Of the weekend and the paycheck,
Or take the gates to unemployed hell?