When I was growing up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts the town’s only country club was closed to Jews. Yes that was illegal, and yes there were plenty of Jewish lawyers more than capable of suing the club, but we chose not to storm this bastion of Christendom and to build a cooler club of our own down the road. It was called Twin Hills, and while it was open to Gentiles it was a haven for Jews who, simply because they killed Christ, were denied membership at the Longmeadow Country Club.
Twin Hills was very pricey, too pricey for my family, so we joined another club in a neighboring town. This one catered to the lower classes and was open to everyone. You knew it was for poor people because it was called the Yacht Club and yet was landlocked and had no boats whatsoever. The Yacht Club featured a small swimming pool, a ping-pong table, and a Coke machine. Take that you Capitalist swine!
I’m telling you this to say that I am no stranger to anti-Jewish discrimination. So this morning when I learned that today’s National Day of Prayer was closed to nonChristians I was outraged as only a member of the Yacht Club can be.
But wait, I’m not being quite fair. Anyone can attend the National Day of Prayer, but only Christians can lead said prayers. So the National Day of Prayer is really the National Day of Christian Led Prayers to the Christian God who, because he is Jewish, is excluded from leading prayers during His Own National Day of Prayer. This is what really pisses me off— if Jesus Himself came down from heaven and asked to lead a prayer at any of today’s National Day of Prayer events he would be denied.
Yes, you heard me: Christians Deny their Lord!
Woe unto thee Shirley Dobson, woman of Focus on the (Christian) Family founder James Dobson, for thou hast denied thy Lord, and have used thy two million dollar budget to create a cult of exclusion that mocks the One Who Died for Your Sins Who was Himself a Jew and Whom thou wouldst deny a place on thy sacrilegious stage. Woe, I say, to thee, Woman! Woe! Woooooooooooe!
So what to do? Should we sue? No, that’s a waste of money. We should do what the Jews of my hometown did: create our own way more cool National Day of Prayer. We will call it the International Day of Prayer, Meditation, Chant, Psalm, Song, and Wisdom Devoted to the Unification of All Peoples in Service of Love, Compassion, Justice, and Peace or IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP for short. This day will be open to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, First Peoples, Pagans, Wiccans, Atheists, Rastafarians, Pastafarians, Mormons, Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Fourth Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Allah’s Witnesses, anyone in Witness Protection, and, yes, even Christians, though I imagine they, like the Christians at Longmeadow Country Club, will prefer to be among their own kind at their own puny National Day of Prayer events.
What shall we of the IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP prayer for? As founder, president, CEO, CFO, and Chief Rabbi of IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP I invite you all to join with me and pray for the speedy return of Jesus during next year’s National Day of Prayer. That way when He comes back the Christians will miss it because He isn’t going to go where He isn’t welcome. Instead He will come to our IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP events where He is welcome and He will lift us all up to Heaven so that when the Christians come out of their National Day of Prayer events they will find that they missed Him and we will all be laughing our asses off with Jesus up in heaven. And then all the Christians will be crying and screaming and saying that it’s not fair that they are excluded. They will be jumping up and down and tearing their clothes and wailing, and then Jesus will send Satan down to scare the crap out of them, and they will be running around screaming, and we will all be up in heaven laughing, but only for a while because terrorizing Christians just never seems to be all that much fun, and so we will stop laughing and Satan will get bored with chasing them, and Jesus will lift them all up to heaven where they will build their country club that the rest of us can’t join and they will be happy for all eternity.
Of course if Jesus doesn’t come we can always join the Yacht Club.
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5 comments:
Dear Holy Rascal,
You always have a way to make me feel better.
I was raised by a diverse village. Yep. I was housed in homes that fit the IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP model. I was also passed from one group to the next – people decided I wasn’t . . . whatever holy thing they were – or I was too not enough like them to make them comfortable.
Elders of one group would point down the road at another house of worship and suggest to the guardians du jour that perhaps I belonged over there, down the block, around the corner, anywhere else would be good.
Lately, I’ve spent thousands of dollars in a program, to have the director; one month before graduation say, “We don’t know you. You aren’t (fill in the blank) enough” then, proceed to call everyone they could think of to discuss how I don’t quite fit in, perhaps with a few thousand more?????
Arguh. May I join the yacht club? Maybe I could wade in the pool and learn to play ping-pong.
Desiring to become an official member of BOTH the Land Locked Yacht Club
AND IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP.
g
Rabbi Rami,
I like your acronym IDPMCPSWDUAPSLCJP. It certainly says it all. I think that the National Day of Prayer ought to be renamed as well to: The National Day of Prayer For Exclusivist Conservative Evangelical Christians: TNDOPFECEC. [I'm sure someone can come up with an even better name.] Why should they get a generic title?
I'm thinking about the irony of Jesus the Jew not being allowed to pray at a breakfast where everyone would be speaking to God in his name. A perfect example of what I would call "Ostrichist" theology.
Shalom,
David
I once shocked the heck out of a very nice Christian boy who couldn't believe that I was Jewish. "Why didn't I believe in Jesus?" he asked me in horror, "When he was the Messiah promised by my Jewish faith?" I looked him straight in the eyes and said "Has the world ended yet? No? Then he isn't the Messiah my God promised me, sorry." The poor fellow looked utterly flummoxed and I had to give him a quick lesson in Messiah literature just to get him to stop gaping like a fish.
You're right, it isn't much fun to tease the Christians, most are so ignorant about their own faith that all the fun goes out of it. :P
Come on - all GOOD Christians know that the minute Jesus was resurrected he denied Judaism and became a Christian. I think they even have flannel graphs about it. ;0)
Back when I lived in Manhattan, and was administrator of two Episcopal parishes, people would routinely ask me: "What's a Jew doing hanging around here?" To which I'd point over the altar as say: "Ask Him."
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