How Jesus Picked His Apostles

Christians often take themselves and their religious beliefs too seriously. My first clue came in Sunday School at a young age after I was dressed down by the teacher for laughing about some religious parable, statement, or a comment made by the kid next to me. I was never exactly sure why the teacher went on a brief tirade aimed at me. I do know after my mom picked me up, I told her I never wanted to go back to Sunday School.

I found church services to be more reliable and less volatile than Sunday School because of the same every Sunday rituals. There were no tirades, or off the cuff comments made from the pulpits, at least not in the more than a few Episcopal churches I attended when I was young. Episcopalians liked their religion predictably bland with no fire, no brimstone. 

I left Christianity in disgust at age 13 or 14 because of the insidious and rampant hypocrisy hidden inside the cloaks of righteousness Christians wore. They often exuded an attitude they considered themselves of a higher moral and ethical fiber than the slobs down the street who did not attend their church or maybe worse, any church at all.

Many years have passed and now I don't tread as carefully or make room in my mind for organized religion of any kind. Even the "harmless" and supposedly inoffensive churches, like Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, and unaffiliated Protestants create a wall between themselves and the unwashed masses of the Heathen world. As soon as a church looks to spread the Gospel by opening more churches, they become dangerous in my opinion. Faith becomes a commodity and less a belief.

I did not want to delve this deep into my hate index for organized religion. My initial prompt for this post came to me by the meme to the right that I shared in "Opposing Views", a group page on Facebook. I have attempted to improve the fun with a re-write of my comment.

"How did Jesus find the apostles?"

Well, back in the day, some White dudes from New England thought it would be cool to go on an ocean cruise together. They climbed on board a Carnival Cruise Ark, sailed to Europe and then onto the Mid East, where they disembarked in Tarshish. They missed their Ark for the return voyage and ended up stinking drunk at the Dead Sea Scroll Tavern in what would later become modern day Jerusalem.

At the time, Jesus was the wine bitch for the Tavern. His job was to turn water into wine. He really didn't like turning water into wine. The gig had gone stale for him. He couldn't help but notice the gang of White dudes who everyday, showed up and drank gallons and gallons of his wine. One day he said to himself:

"This Gig sucks...I wonder if these guys would want to come in with me on a great con?"

They looked different, dressed different and best of all, some of them had blonde hair and blue eyes to match his own chiseled Aryan look. 

It took Jesus awhile to catch one of them sober. When he did, he pitched his proposal to John, who then agreed he'd run it by the group. He thought it was good timing because they were finding the Dead Sea Scroll Tavern a bit of a downer now and were contemplating renting some camels and moving on. John asked for a few days to give their answer.

It was a Tuesday I think when John and the boys gathered for their last bar dive and turned it into their First Supper as sacred Apostles of Jesus. 

The World has never recovered.

Okay, I more than just cleaned the comment up. I rewrote it, expanded it, and had even more fun with it this second time around than I did with the comment posted on FB. The less acerbic and shorter comment managed to bunch the panties of some folks who hang out in that group. Mike B commented:

Michael Macrum -  have you ever heard of translation wow

Like I indicated earlier, Christians can be thin skinned when it comes to their religion.

Hope this picks up your Sunday, or at the least, doesn't ruin it. Remember it's a joke.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ............................

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I picked a tune before I even began writing. And then when I checked the version I wanted, a second thought, then a third ....... suddenly I was an hour into picking a damn tune for this post. I have decided for another Two Fer: 

Here is Beth Hart and Joe Bonomassa Live in Amsterdam with a cover of "Chocolate Jesus", originally written and recorded by the late great Tom Waits.

I know the members of the original Dixie Chicks have always been up to date and hip Liberals just like me. It saddened me though when they caved to the whiny Libs who criticized them for using "Dixie" in their band name; so they changed their name to "The Chicks". So uncalled for in my opinion.

Here are The Chicks performing "Mattress Dancin" off I think their first album.