A cup of java with Jesus
by David Benjamin
“But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil.”
— Matthew 5:38
MADISON, Wis. — Usually when Jesus drops in to my coffee joint, nobody pays him any mind. The flowing hair, luxuriant beard, floor-length caftan and sandals — even the big holes in both of his hands — are pretty ordinary in a city heavily populated with homeless disabled veterans and superannuated hippies. Besides, his halo is only visible at night. But yesterday, everyone sat up and took notice. One woman screamed, snatched up her laptop and ran out the door.
Jesus was decked out in criss-cross ammunition belts and carrying an AR-15 assault gun with what looked like a fifty-round bullet clip. Accustomed to being ignored, Jesus was visibly nonplussed when all eyes turned on him. He hurriedly dug into his obviously new accessory belt and raised, for all to see, a white card.
“Look unto me, brethren and fear not lest ye be fearful unto eternity,” he announced. “See here? I got an open-carry permit. I won’t shoot. Be cool.”
People still looked nervous as Jesus moseyed over to my table, spread his arms blessingly and said, “So, whaddya think?”
“Well, this is a new look for you,” I said, and offered him his usual breakfast of loaves and fishes, with water on the side (which always, with an impish grin, he would turn into wine). But this was a new Jesus. He insisted on a soymilk decaf double-shot cappuccino with extra cinnamon and a tiny umbrella.
After he settled in, I said, “Jesus, with all that hardware, you look more like Pancho Villa than the Prince of Peace.”
He beamed at the analogy and replied, “That’s ‘prince of piece,’ as in ‘Hey! You wanna piece of me?’”
I insisted that he explain his seeming transformation from meek to military. He said, “Changing times, man. Look around. The role model for every evangelical Christian is an NRA toady who cheats on his wife, mocks war heroes and calls Nazis ‘fine people.’ Up against this, a messiah like me has to re-think his message. I mean, really, how many ‘likes’ can you get on Twitter with ‘suffer the children to come unto me’ or ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’?”
“Probably not many,” I said.
“Not a goddamn one,” said Jesus. He went on to lament the unfair competition he gets from televangelists like Franklin Graham, Bob Jeffress and John Hagee, who mesmerize vast megachurch congregations with a gospel of greed, racism, Apocalypse and ant-Semitism.
“I tell ya, amigo,” said Jesus. “Anti-Semitism is the new black.”
“But,” I retorted, “you were a Jew.”
“Still am,” said Jesus, a little sheepishly. “They hung me on the Cross before I could convert.”
He went on to say that the whole crucifixion business — scourged, crowned with thorns, forced to carry his own cross and then stabbed in the heart to cleanse the iniquities of all humanity — was maybe a good idea 2,000 years ago. “Nowadays, oy,” said Jesus. “Crucifixion is a dead end.”
He went on. “Today, even if I could get convicted, my execution would be on appeal for what? Twenty years! And I’d probably win and end up going free. Because, what was I guilty of? Pretending to be the Messiah? I was the Messiah! In the 21st century, that’s not a capital crime. It’s not even a crime, for Christ’s sake! Excuse my language.”
I sympathized, noting parenthetically that our current president has million of people who regard him, fervently, as their personal savior.
“This is what I’m talkin’ about,” said Jesus. “These days, if you want people to even think you’re gonna save ‘em — from something (God knows what) — you gotta have a huge media footprint and you gotta be totally over-the-top every time you open up your cakehole. Most of all, if you wanna have a platform for your scripture, you gotta be ready to take extreme — I mean X-Treme — actions that rape and ravage every norm of Christian decency.”
“So,” I asked, frightfully, “what can you do?”
“Well, I might be the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world, but who knows me from Adam?” said Jesus. “I walk in here and I’m nobody. So, one day, I faced up to reality and asked myself: How does a nobody rise above the white noise, fakery and rampant self-promotion in today’s 24/7 media circus?”
He smiled and patted his AR-15 lovingly. “That’s where this baby comes in.”
I shuddered. “Jesus! You’re not talking about a mass shooting?”
Jesus lowered his voice. “I was planning to shoot up this joint this morning, right after coffee and maybe a muffin. But I saw you and I had second thoughts. I mean, I know you personally. So, I’ll be heading up the street to Starbucks.”
I tried to talk Jesus out of betraying every word he had uttered in the New Testament. “What about ‘turn the other cheek’?” I pleaded. “What about ‘to hate your brother is to be a murderer, and murderers do not have eternal life.’?”
“What about,” said Jesus, “my Father wiping out everyone on earth except for Noah and a bunch of animals?”
He went on. “That was then, this is now. For instance, what’s the big trend in faith today — for any religion? Is it living humbly, following the Golden Rule and treating the poor, the sick, the wretched, the lost and the least among us as brother and sister? Whatever became of ‘There but for the grace of God go I’?”
I said, “Okay, I understand. We live in an age of narcissism. But — ”
“But nothing,” said Jesus. “Nowadays, our favorite Christians are loud, rich vulgarians who spend most of appalling their lives hip-deep in ‘fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride and folly.’ Until suddenly, to primp their public image, they holler “Look at me!’ and they repent. They get born again — whatever the hell that means. And they make a big show of atonement by funding hospital wings and sending laptops to Africa.”
“Well, everybody loves a repentant sinner,” I said. “Problem is, you’re not rich, powerful and sinful. You’re Jesus.”
“But you’d still end up being executed, maybe even by crucifixion,” I said. “That’s a pretty heavy price to pay for fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Fifteen years!” he said. “Besides, I’m Jesus Christ. Sacrifice is my middle name.”
“Really,” I said. “I always thought it started with an ‘H’.”
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