Yes Greg, I stole your line

So let’s say that you’re walking around the Church and you find yourself in that hallway that everyone knows about but nobody ever really talks about; that dreary passage that the janitor never seems to get too, where the lights don’t work real well and the wallpaper’s long since gone out of style.

And let’s say you open up the first door that you come to and you find it’s full of lepers, lepers lepers everywhere and not a drop to drink, all of them picking and scratching at their sores while they go on and on about how much God must hate terrible sinning leperousy lepers like themselves. Over in the corner you see George who runs the PowerPoint on Sunday mornings, and he’s saying something like “I love the naked boobies and the hot teen lesbians too much for God to ever love me” and that’s maybe more than you really wanted to know about George, but it just gets better because look! There’s Nancy the church secretary and she’s all “God could never love me because I’ve had an orgasm” and now you’re all LALALALALA because you didn’t ever want to hear those words coming out of a seventy-five year old woman. It’s pretty hard to get a word in edgewise what with all the wailing and gnashing and pretty soon you give up and head further down the hallway.

There’s another door along the way and the people behind it are surprisingly quite, given that they’re, you know, whores. Lot’s of quiet murmuring and sentences that end in “I’d like to, but”, “it’s just not realistic” or “well, I know that Jesus said it was a sin, but he didn’t have to live with her!”. Everyone’s really polite but you don’t dare let them start talking because you can’t get them to shut up. One of the ushers is in here and once he recognized you he started going on and on and on and it wasn’t until he’d been at it for twenty minutes that you realized that when he said “I’m just trying to do what’s best for my family” what he really meant was “All those folks with funny names started moving into the neighborhood”. The Excuse/Asshole ratio isn’t looking good and you know it’s time to bug out when Mark the keyboardist starts explaining why he thinks it’s all right that he bought a Lexus last year.

There’s one last door at the end of the hall and behind it you find Satan! Maybe you’re like me and don’t really believe in Satan but we sort of need him to advance the plot so here he is! You ask him what he’s wearing a toga for because you’d always pictured him as a Banana Republic sort of guy but it turns out he’s playing dress up – he’s the Ghost of Good Friday Past. While you’re trying to figure out what he means by this, Nancy sticks her head in the door. Before she can say anything, Old Scratch just nods and winks and she leaves as quickly as she came (so to speak), and he (the devil) tells you they love it when he agrees with them. Agrees with them? Oh yes, they all want to know if they’re still just lepers and whores and the Devil is always on hand to reassure them that nothing’s changed. They don’t like that part much, but at least they can tell themselves that they were right all along, and everybody likes to be right, even if they don’t really like what they’re right about.

So now you’re all “Check the date Holmes!” because Good Friday is so two days ago and it’s Easter now and none of this woe is me shit’s going to cut the mustard anymore. You’re running back down the hall, telling the whores that Christ may have died for their 401k, but he sure as the fuck didn’t rise for it, and you’re grabbing lepers by their sackcloth and telling them to cowboy up and confess already so they can get on with the business of the Kingdom.

Because He’s Risen goddamnit – And just because we’ve got to live in this Good Friday world doesn’t mean we need to act as though we like it.

Comments

[Xpatriated Texan]

Can I get a HELL YEAH!?!

XT

[Ol Cranky]

Somehow I think that if Benjamin took up the pulpit, I'd go to church every Sunday (and I'm Jewish)!

[Jason]

That... was wonderful, thanx for the reminders (and the fact that now i know another person who doesn't believe this whole devil crap)

grace and peace

[Benjamin]

Well the response to this has been pretty cool so far- to be honest, I'd rather people like this stuff than poo stories.

Oh, and - hell yeah

[Rick]

What is your religion? Where do I sign up?

[Brandon]

Hey, don't knock poo stories.

[jvpastor]

You've hit on the exact reason I hate prayer groups everybody hides behind false piety.

[Rick]

I'm new to the blog-world, and even newer to Benjamin's world, so I don't really know where your coming from, and maybe that was just a bunch of funny stuff, and I'm going to embrass myself by saying that it was really...moving --A poignant reminder of what God's absurd love is really like.

I mean, I actually teared up a bit. Not roll-down-your-cheek, type tears, I mean, the man-tears that guys get in sentimental movies -- where they just blink their eyes and maybe adjust their glasses a bit. Just to clarify.

So...was that supposed to be as serious as it was funny?

[Benjamin]

Rick -

I hope so...

I tried to write something serious about lepers and whores and about three drafts in I could tell that it just wasn't going to be very interesting. It would have been one of those posts that may have gotten a skim over, but nothing would have stuck and I wanted to do a little better than that for easter.

[Brandon]

I don't think you're off base at all Rick. I posted this to my site because I thought it was moving, too.

[Rick]

Yeah, I figured it was the real thing -- just thought I'd try to calm the hilarity a bit and make sure.

Benjamin -- after perusing your blog a bit, I think I gleaned that you're Quaker, but you must be the evangelical-type since you talk about "church" rather than "meeting".

I went to a "Hicksite" a/k/a liberal, silent meeting for a year or two, but they were too politically correct for my tastes -- it's okay to believe in Jesus, just don't talk about it too loud or someone might get offended. If someone had shot up during silent meeting and said something half as interesting or theologically meaningful as your post, I might not have had to backslide to being a re-lapsed Catholic.

[Benjamin]

Rick -

I was raised Catholic, but ended up bouncing around because my wife wasn't cool with the whole papist thing.

The funny thing is, I went looking for the hicksites (actually, beanites around here), and ended up at an Evengelical Friends church instead.

[Rick]

Jeez -- here I thought I knew my Quaker history like the back of my hand and I had to go to Friend Bill Samuels web-page to find out who the Beanites are.

Anyway, this is a great blog. I've only been reading it for a week or two, and not only have I had a theologically uplifiting experience, I've also increased the amount of fiber in my diet.

[Benjamin]

Well, I'm glad I could be of help. A regular man is a happy man.

[cruttydyehody]

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I like your great site - romanes.typepad.com .

I think it wasnt easy to post here so much information.

regards

Mark

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