To say they were angry with him is an understatement even the insurance salesman and stockbrokers wouldn’t talk to him. They took his picture down off the new member’s bulletin board and they didn’t even offer him a church bulletin so he could get half off at Denny’s But was our revolutionary smiling when he left the building? I think he was, if not laughing at telling off the stuff shirts the self-righteous.
Then the rich man came to Che and asked, “Dude, this is really cool how can I join you guys?”
Che elbowed John in the ribs and gave Simon Peter a wink and then said unto him, go and talk to Thomas about the paperwork and then go give all your money to poor and then after you’ve done that come on back and we’ll teach you the secret handshake. And they laughed at the rich man all the way down the road to Jerusalem
Vader explains, “He’s obnoxious all right but he’s not threat to my empire. But Vader they implore, we want him dead and we’ve got to make it look like it was your idea otherwise folks might get the idea that we killed him because he was a threat to our phony baloney jobs.”
“I find no fault in him.”
“Vader we can’t kill him, can’t you just make something up? He did make ugly remarks about your voice box you know.”
“Well all right, just this once but you guys owe me!”
So it was that Che was put to death for preaching the gospel of food for the poor and treatment for the sick. Of brotherhood among all peoples and the equality of all mankind. That it was the rich and those whose piety segregated them from the people they claimed to serve that he would rebuke. That war was the ultimate sin against God not sometimes but every time. That his soldiers were in the service of peace, for he would fight for the poor but he wouldn’t allow his followers to fight for him.
Rather than a leather bound dogma of orthodoxy just one lonely commandment. Love one another as I have loved you. To understand each other’s sufferings and to be compassionate towards them. To remember whom God loves and who God hates. That despite for the most part this revolutionaries message being cloaked and usurped by the church it is still there for us if you look for it.
If you don’t want to believe that Jesus was the Son of God or not it really doesn’t matter. No matter if Luke blows up Vader, as they are both parables. Jesus called himself the son of man, was he the son of man? Did he stand up against all the powers of the earth in the name of justice for the poor? Was he willing to be beat down and murdered rather than renounce them?
Did he inspire the revolutionaries that followed him? In the parable of his crucifixion Christ walks the street beaten but defiant dragging a heavy cross to his death. Past hundreds of people, some mocking him, some ignoring him but none save one offering to give him a drink and wipe his brow. A parable of truth, Christian, Muslim, Atheist or Jew that you will make few friends trying to change the world. That only by trying to save each other can we save ourselves. That is the message of the revolutionary that saved Christmas.
Not the boxed ready-made chicken broth religious message that we are served up on a daily basis. Of a poor hungry shivering infant living in squalor two thousand years ago but the poor hungry shivering infant living in squalor tonight. But the orthodox rejoice and say I want to be here when Jesus returns to which I say I don’t think you’ve thought that through clearly enough.
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