Former Dead Guy Suing Jesus Also!

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET           

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

 

Former Dead Guy Suing Jesus Also!

Dateline: Bethany, April 2, 11:01:12:11

by Jack D. Sypal

Late Friday, Lazarus of Bethany, who we reported Jesus has brought back from the dead, joined I. Seituwell in suing Jesus for unwanted care. There seems to be considerable pushback against this miracle worker’s activities. Speculation has arisen that Lazarus and Seituwell may join forces with others in a class action suit. As political tensions rise and governmental pressures come to bear, could-be followers may choose to seek deep-pocket recompense.

Following is an interview account of the latest person to lay claim against Jesus.

“I mean, I thought [Jesus and I] were close. We had this real bromance going. So, when I was told that Jesus was going off without me, I was really hurt, like cut to the core hurt. I thought that we had something special going on there, and then he was gone with the rest of the guys.

“It wasn’t long after they left me, I was feeling pretty low, and then I got sick. I felt pretty lousy and had to go to bed for the day. My sisters, Mary and Martha, came in with some of that good Jewish penicillin around supper time, but it didn’t seem to be very appetizing. And if you know my sisters’ cooking, you would understand how unusual that was. In the middle of the night, I got this terrible stomachache and sweat started pouring out of me. That is about the last thing I remember for a while.

“My sisters would tell me they sent a message for Jesus to come, but no … I don’t know, maybe the message got crossed up or something, but he thought that he would hang for a couple of days.

Apparently, I got a lot worse. My temperature went sky high. I remember some time on the second day it felt like someone poured ice water in my belly. It hurt a lot; it was excruciating! When I asked my sisters about Jesus, they shook their heads. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t come.

“The next thing I remember, I was being called out. I was in this really peaceful place. I didn’t have any pain, and I was just totally chill, ya know? And then, this annoying voice started calling me out. I really just wanted to lay there. Then I noticed this stink. It was awful. It was sort of like being down at the slaughter yard on a hot day, standing near the fresh hides on one side and the blood pool and feces on the other. Yeah, it was pretty bad.

“And that voice kept nagging me, ‘Lazarus; come out, Lazarus; come out.’

“I finally recognized the voice as my man, but I thought, ‘What the hell? Why is he calling me now? He was the one who left me behind.’

“But finally, the smell got to me and I had to get out of there. That’s when I discovered that I was the smell. When I got out of the cave, I was struck by the sun, and the stench really took on a life of its own. And then I got a whiff of my own breath. Lord have mercy! It was enough to blow a fly off a gut-wagon. You know what I mean?

“Finally, people came and started stripping the wrappings off of me. I had to show my nakedness before all of those people. Public nudity is one thing, but I had pustules erupting on my body and skin sloughing going on. It was pretty disgusting.

“Most people looked at me with horror. They were petulantly pronouncing prognostications of pernicious, purulent, pustule pestilence. Penitents were prostrating themselves on the property, proposing persistent, pietistic popcorn-prayers of propitiation. Everyone was trying to hold their noses, and as soon as they could, they built a proper pyre for burning everything I had on. Even that smelled pretty preposterous.

“I spent hours in the bath trying to scrub the stink off, but after my skin started sliding off, I resorted to wiping my body off in nard. It didn’t get rid of the smell, but it masked it pretty well.

“Everybody thought that it was so cool; that I should be so thankful, but somehow, when I really needed [Jesus], he didn’t show. When I didn’t need him anymore, then he showed up, to do what? Leave me again?

“A couple of nights ago, my sisters invited him to supper; ‘To thank him,’ they said. Apparently I was still smelling pretty bad, so Mary went and got my nard and covered Jesus’ feet with it. The fragrance filled the whole house

“All I could think was, ‘Thanks, sis. Now what am I supposed to do tomorrow?’ I mean the stuff isn’t cheap. We may be wealthy, but we aren’t rich, if you know what I mean.

“Today I find out that there’s a contract out on me. Half the people are treating me like I’m a god, which I’m not; and the other half of the people treat me like I’m this zombie creature who will hex them for the rest of their lives, which I won’t. I can’t go back to work. I’m not even able to hang with my friends. It feels like the bromance is truly over, and I can’t get rid of this stink. If I can’t get my life back, I want pay back.”

GETTING MARRIED IN THE MOURNING

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET            POLITICS

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

GETTING MARRIED IN THE MOURNING

Dateline: Galilee, February 19, 05:38:48

by Matt Hughes

Josh Kristy continues to challenges today’s morality and our legal systems, surprised many by instructing his followers not to resist evil doers but to let them run rampant. He even suggested that his followers overpay plea bargain settlements by 100%. Further, after suggesting that young men enucleate eyes and amputate hands, Kristy presented extreme pacifist ideas counselling against fighting back when attacked. Kristy went so far as to say we should give our hard-earned money away to anyone who asks for it.

Ernest Workman said, “Soon our young men will be half blind, disabled, toothless, black eyed, impoverished, and likely homeless. If we give everything away to those who ask for it, who are we going to ask for money when the time comes?”

New insights into modern marriage practices among Kristy followers and an explanation of the rising divorce rate came when Kristy told his followers to love their enemies. Kristy said, “Anyone can love people who love them. The trick is to get your enemies embroiled in loving relationships, and then prey on them.”

When interviewed, Don T. Ghethitcht explained, “This makes it so much easier to be with the one you love. I used to think that I needed to look for the perfect woman, but now I just put my arms around whoever happens to be there. I’m bound to experience some antagonism from her, and then I figure that’s the one to love. I was so confused until I heard that I was to prey on them. It really simplified the whole dating thing.”

Mary Annie Thyme was heard to say, “This changes my whole attitude toward war. I mean, I never thought about the other side as being a whole new market for wedding bliss. I just wonder who my bridesmaids should be?”

Bar Association spokesperson, Sue M. Dailey opined, “This could change how we think about divorce. It used to be that people fell in love with one another, and then, over time, they became enemies or, worse than that, indifferent to their partner. It now seems that hatred and thoughtlessness is grounds for getting married. If they fall in love with one another, will that be grounds for divorce? I’m sure that there is a new legal precedent waiting to be proved in court. This should keep lawyers busy for years to come.”

Lost and Found--Luke 15

These texts of lost and found things probably bring many snippets of panic and fear to all of us. “Where did I leave the keys? Where did I park the car? I know I had that most precious of things (my coffee cup, the handouts for worship, the coupons for the grocery store), just a moment ago, but where did I put it or them?” In our hymnody, many of us will echo, “I once was lost, but now am found,” but few of us will spend any time reflecting on those things that are lost to us and cannot be restored.

A couple of years ago, my wife, Susan, and I were doing some radical pruning in our yard. I got to use the switch-blade-like pruning saw my mom had given me for Christmas one year. My mom had died the previous year and so as I used the saw I also heard my mom’s delight with new designs of tools and if not actually using those tools, her anticipation of being able to use the tool sometime in the future.

As I sawed through the many overgrown branches of the bushes around our new house I could almost feel Mom’s presence and satisfaction of knowing that she had given me something that I could really use.

When I was done for the day, I put my tools away, got into my truck and hauled all of the debris from the day out to the city waste disposal site where it would eventually become mulch for some other project.

The following summer I went to get my pruning tools to do some clean up on the new growth on those same bushes after discovering a few more branches that needed to be pruned out. My anvil pruners were where they belonged, the scissors pruners were there too, but my switch-blade pruning saw was nowhere to be found.

Yes, I pulled the shop apart. I went through the entire tool chest. I pulled it out from the wall. I checked under the work bench and on all of the ledges I might have laid it on. I even checked the laundry room and the shelves in the pantry, but the switch-blade pruning saw was not to be found.

I finally decided that some youthful transgressor had seen this novel tool and naively absconded with my prize tool not knowing of the sentimental attachment and my personal joy I felt using it. It was gone.

Well, I had other pruning saws, I thought. They weren’t as much fun or as convenient, but they were certainly usable. I went to work and tried to get over the grief and yes, anger over having had that wonderful tool taken away from me. Later that year I found the identical saw in a hardware store, but I was not able to bring myself to replace it. After all, I had gotten the job done without it, and even though I would have the tool, I would always know that it was not the tool my mom had given to me.

Over the years, I have thought about that saw with regret and wondered whether the person who had ended up using it appreciated it. I wondered if I could ever really justify replacing it? I really didn’t need it, but it didn’t really cost that much. Yet that lingering thought of having lost the gift that was given prevented me from being able to fully move past the loss of that simple tool. Each time I needed to do some pruning I revisited the sense of loss and violation I felt over the loss of the switch-blade pruning saw.

A few months ago I found an old tool box that I had been using at the time and I opened the box to check whether I had put the saw in there, but no. I kept looking in the past trying to reconstruct my movements that day trying to locate that saw. On some occasions I concluded that I had inadvertently put the saw among the branches I had trimmed that day and that the saw was part of some mulch pile somewhere and that the workers had gotten angry when the metal saw blade had gone through the shredder blades dulling and possibly chipping them. At other times I concluded that I had forgotten to pick it up at the end of the day and someone had come by and picked it up thinking that it had ben abandoned. Okay, I obsessed about it.  I even dreamed that I found it one night and had very carefully put it in a safe place to be used later, but when I went to that safe place the next day it was not there.

This searching for the saw continued as a way to restore something that was lacking in my life. It was something that was broken that I thought could be made whole again if I just put all of the parts together again. These parts were in the past and so I kept looking in the past revisiting the pain, nurturing the pain, feeding the pain and frustration each time I thought about it. I longed to have that sense of accomplishment and belonging that I felt that day I trimmed the bushes.

I thought that I had put it all away until I heard Joni Mitchel sing the iconic song of 1969 (Woodstock). In this song she sings, “We are stardust. We are golden. We are trapped in the devil’s bargain. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

I thought about my saw, I thought about our lives of faith and struggling to find the lost relationship of the Garden of Eden, the 15^th anniversary  of 9/11, and even the language of our election this year. how all of these things are trying to recover and restore something lost that cannot be made whole again.

Okay, I know that the loss of my saw had something to do with my mother’s death and that I was not going to be able to bring her back again, just as I know that the relationship of the Garden is not something that we can get back to. The mindset of our nation before 9/1`1 in gone forever, and  the rhetoric of trying to make us something again is not possible. So why do we keep trying so hard to do exactly that?

These events of loss in our lives can become fixations that anchor us in an unhealthy past. It is not that we should not feel grief or remember loved ones and the past with fondness and a sense of loss, but the wholeness we knew before these events continues to be part of our wholeness today. These particular events make us who we are and testify to our ability to cope and adapt to our new world situations.

The joy of recovering the sheep, the coin, and the son (in the prodigal son), are not about restoring a wholeness that was, rather, these stories are about creating circumstances for celebration in the present/future. These times of finding are opportunity for creating new communities of celebration and understanding. Even the great losses of life and property that we have witnessed around the world these past fifteen years are not events of paralyzing times of destruction only, they are also times for us to learn new ways of living with one another, listening to one another, and new opportunities of finding peace in ourselves and in our world.

There are those who say that our world was forever changed by 9/11, and to some extent that is true, but the loss of life and property is a daily event too. There are those who say that the greatness of our country has been lost and that we need to recover that greatness, but we cannot rest upon the laurels of the past. We must continue to build for the future. We cannot even get back to the Garden because God intervened in history, finding us when we had gone astray and changed the relationship forever. So we are given this amazing gift of letting go of our sins of the past in order to live into a new future having found not lost things, but our relationship with God.

Stanley Hauerwas responded in a pacifist response to 9/11 writes, “Our response [to life in a post 9/11 world] is to continue living in a manner that witnesses to our belief that the world was not changed on September 11, 2001. The world was [forever] changed during the celebration of Passover in A.D. 33.” Indeed, the consequences of that celebration resulted in the losing of one more thing. There was a body that was lost in the tomb. That loss has resulted in us being found finding new life in Christ. Finding that, all else is changed.

A friend asked if he could borrow my truck the other day. Wanting to clean out some of the detritus that had accumulated, I pulled out odd pieces of paper toweling, oil rags, and ancient maps. Reaching into the map pocket to see what was preventing the new maps to seat properly I found my switch-blade pruning saw. Suddenly I remembered getting into the truck that night and sitting on the saw which was in my hip pocket. Wanting to put it somewhere safe I threw it into the map pocket and promptly forgot it. So, in celebration I am inviting all of you to come to a shrubbery trimming party. If I can riff on an old saw, “[It] once was lost, but now [it’s] found. I’m blind and yet I see.