The ‘J' Word Can Get You in Trouble

In the gospel reading for the weekend of October 24th and 25th, we hear about a Catholic priest in Manhasset, NY, who gave a blessing during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and during the blessing he mentioned the word “Jesus.” Immediately, a local politician jumped up and angrily interrupted the priest. The politician grabbed the microphone and, as a stunned crowd looked on, declared, “This is inappropriate!”

Oops, wait a minute. My mistake. We don’t read about that event in this week’s gospel reading. That occurred in the United States a few years ago. It seems that just mentioning the word “Jesus” in public is very offensive, and doing so can get you in a lot of trouble.

No wait, that’s not quite right. It’s perfectly OK to mention the word “Jesus” in public, as long as you do it as part of an angry and profane curse, for example, when you stub your toe or lose your cell phone signal. You can shout out the name of Jesus as profanity and it’s perfectly acceptable.

Or if you are a self-proclaimed “artist,” and you’ve received a taxpayer-funded government grant, you can dunk a crucifix in a jar of your own urine, call it “art” and see your work displayed in the finest museums.

In these situations, the name of “Jesus,” along with the requisite vulgarities and scatology, constitute freedom of speech.

You get into trouble saying the word “Jesus” in public only when it’s part of the concept that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the founder of Christianity, and—here’s the real offense—in the process imply that you personally believe what the Bible says about Jesus is really true.

Oh sure, there’s stuff in the U.S. Constitution about freedom of speech and freedom of religion, blah, blah, blah. But in our sophisticated modern culture, we all understand that the clearly written freedoms of speech and religion in the Constitution take a back seat to the unwritten freedom FROM religion, which is based on the also unwritten constitutional right NEVER to be offended.

In this week’s REAL gospel reading, it is interesting to notice that many people 2,000 years ago also were part of a sophisticated modern culture—that is, they too were offended when someone said the word “Jesus” in public.

A blind man named Bartimaeus sat by the roadside begging. When he heard that Jesus was passing by, he called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!”

The next verse in the gospel says, “And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.”

That’s pretty much what happened to the Catholic priest in New York. As soon as he mentioned the word “Jesus” he was rebuked and told to be quiet.

In our country, all believers in Christ have the constitutionally-guaranteed rights both to exercise our faith freely and speak our minds publicly. We all should be more like Bartimaeus, who, when told to be quiet, instead shouted all the louder, “Son of David, have pity on me!” We should take our cue from St. Peter who also was told by people in authority to stop talking about Jesus. Peter said, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Act 5:29).

I have an idea. Let’s stop using safe, generic figures of speech. For example, when someone sneezes, instead of saying, “God bless you” (which is usually a mumbled “G’blessya” anyway), say firmly and loudly, “Jesus bless you!” I bet you’ll get some very surprised looks.

Now of course, when someone sneezes and you respond with, “Jesus bless you,” you really have to mean it.