As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.

Mark 2:14

I was on the Internet a couple of weeks back trying to find contact information for a collection agency whose robot was placing innumerable telephone messages on our answering machine. It seems someone named O’Brien owes this robot some money. It saddens me to think that, because of this lowlife, non-parking-ticket-paying degenerate, a hard-working collections robot is destitute and unable to properly upgrade and maintain his little children.

I want to help, but my name isn’t O’Brien.

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the traditions of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?”

- Mark 7:5

This passage took me back to a time before I knew Christ, to a little bathroom at a little pub in Nanaimo, British Columbia. It was my favourite pub, and I was poised this night before the far left urinal in the men’s bathroom. At the urinal next to me swayed an inebriated stranger, hiccupping and belching politely to himself (by “next to me,” I mean two urinals down – the Laws of Urinal Dynamics are too complex to delve into here, but all men consider them as real as the Law of Gravity; Rule One states, “unless it is unavoidable, a man is not to occupy a urinal directly beside another man”). Keeping a firm gaze fixed upon the tiles in front of me (Rule Two), I finished my business, did up my button fly, and made my way calmly to the exit.

The gent turned to me (just his head, thankfully), hiccupped once more, and said “hey buddy, aren’t you going to wash your hands?”

Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man – and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

Mark 5:16,17

Two thousand demon-possessed pigs run off the edge of a cliff and fall into the ocean. A man is freed, and a legion of evil spirits liquidated.

Haha, ‘liquidated.’ That’s gold!

When I first read that passage, I had to shake my head. What a waste of bacon. Such thoughts probably make me a bad man, but seriously… that’s a lot of bacon.

After I tore myself away from the culinary aspect of the tragedy, I began to wonder who owned all those pigs. A Gentile, if the livestock itself is any indicator, probably an ordinary, hard working Gentile with a couple of wives and a few dozen children to feed. His name would be something nondescript like… oh, I dunno, let’s call him Morty. Morty the Swineherd.

Jesus was lucky there was no People’s Court in those days. I can see the judge now...

‘Be quiet!’ said Jesus sternly. ‘Come out of him!’

The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.

                                                                                                                                      Mark 1:25,26

That was easy.

But then, it doesn’t take much to make a demon run away screaming if you happen to be Jesus Christ the Messiah. All the foul creatures of hell know him; it’s a shame most of us normal folks don’t.

Pastor John wanted to explore the whole concept of the angry thought in a message entitled “If Looks Could Kill.” I had a really cool idea which I was going to call Bloodsport but my wife figured the congregation wasn’t really ready for animated gladiatorial combat. I settled on this little animation, and though it locked up after about 15 seconds during the church presentation, it did generate an acceptable amount of laughter.

Or were they just laughing at Gery as he struggled in vain to make it all work?

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

                                                                                                                                           Acts 17:23

Et tu, Greece? Like many of my own friends, those Athenians hedged their bets. My friends say things like, “Sure there’s a God, but he’s my own personal God,” or “Dude, God is everywhere, he’s cosmic, he’s not in that little book of yours. Whoa, are these nachos spicy or what?”

My friends delight in the Unknown God, because the Unknown God is whomever they want him to be.