The Sixteen Disciples (cont.)
(12, 13.) Bartholomew ("Yemin," right winger) and Simon Ben-Joseph ("Zelotes," leftist) were drifters who, like Nathanael, hung around, off and on, looking for a handout (Mark 3:18). When it was time for chores – cooking dinner, or doing laundry, or carrying the luggage, or preaching the gospel, neither one of those scurvy politicians did a lick of work. Mostly they sat around arguing imperial policy: Simon Zelotes disliked the whole idea of Republican Rome, but he was all talk, no action. He never actually tried to throw the bastards out of office (and one reason for that is this: Simon Zelotes also disliked the idea of being crucified). Bartholomew, who believed in family values, said that the best way toward political reform was to catch Emperor Tiberius with his pants down, and to humiliate him. He said that all Christians and Jews everywhere should pray earnestly to our heavenly Father to send a special prosecutor to Rome, to "get Tiberius," even if it cost 50 million drachmae.
Instead, the Lord God, who works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, sent prostitutes and teenaged boys and bored housewives to Rome who caught Emperor Tiberius with his pants down nearly every day of the week. And if you think Tiberius was bad, you should have seen how Nero carried on. No, I mean, you should not have seen it.
(14.) Lebbaeus Thaddeus ("Yischak," laughingstock) is the only disciple whom Jesus ever fired (Matt. 10:3). Lebbaeus, who considered himself quite the comedian, happened to recite, out loud, a Blessed Virgin limerick that made light of Mary's tendency, in her later years, to have control issues. Thomas, Nathanael, Simon Zelotes, Matthew, and the Ben-Alphaeus brothers, when they heard it, laughed quite heartily. But Jesus did not think the poem was funny. Lebbaeus then repeated the verse at a feast of publicans, even after Jesus had warned him, "Woe unto you!" (Mark 2:15-17).
Jesus Christ, in those days, could forgive just about anything. He could forgive you for sabbath-breaking. He could forgive you for cursing, and killing, and for poor personal hygiene. He could forgive you for hating your family; in fact, he encouraged it. He could forgive you for shoplifting, and drunkenness, and moderate lechery. On his good days, he could forgive a figless fig tree. But if there was one thing that Jesus did not tolerate among the Twelve, it was pointless levity with respect to his mother's bossy personality. That's where he put his foot down, and I don't blame him. In fact, I thought better of Jesus, after he gave the boot to Lebbaeus Thaddeus. I would not have trusted a Messiah who stood by and allowed his friends to exchange jokes about his own mother's personality.
My editor, Bob, tells me that I must be discreet in publishing a transcript of the Lebbaeus manuscript here for the first time, since certain parts of it could offend Christian parents, or Roman Catholics, or even Jesus himself. I have therefore allowed Bob to facilitate electronic replacement, with da-DUM, for any phrase in the Lebbaeus poem that might otherwise escape your browser's obscenity filter (if it should happen to be turned on, which I doubt). By this means you may read a chaste version of the text, with the most indelicate bits modestly censored--
"da-DUM, da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM,
da-DUM, da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM!!
da-DUM, da-da-DUM,
da-DUM, da-da-DUM,
da-DUM, da-da-DUM, da-da-da-fucking bitch!"
Jesus had just two words for Lebbaeus Thaddeus, for writing that poem: "You're fired!"
--and when Jesus tells a sinner he's "fired," he does not mean precisely the same thing as when Donald Trump says it. When Jesus says, "You're fired," he means it quite literally, and forever.
"Lebbaeus," said the Lord, "if poking fun at the the Holy Ghost is an unforgiveable sin [and it is--Matt. 12:32, Luke 12:10], then what everlasting hole in Hell is hot enough for a man who writes limericks about my mother?"
– L.
(On deck: Judas Iscariot!)
