What if Jesus lived today?

They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. But like Albert Camus, I believe that “idleness is only fatal to the mediocre”.

There is so much invisible labour involved in what we call idleness. Last Sunday night, as I wandered limitlessly in thought’s streets, I went imagining what would happen if the biblical “son of man” was born and lived in our times.

So, the news would pass, that a new king has been born. How would this be received? Would Mary and Joseph have to explain themselves to the authorities? Would we demand for a DNA test to establish the true father? And if Jesus was truly God’s son, what kind of life would we expect him to have lived today?

But wait, for as on of God to be born in a kraal? In a manger? No way! Such a low life is for those who have not prayed enough to receive God’s favour. We would think that perhaps Mary and Joseph had not tithed enough in the synagogue.

If Mary got a chance to watch TV, she would hear the preacher hoarsely counsel: “Are you tired of producing in kraals? Do you need a mansion of your own? Do you need asylum? Come here so that the man of God prays for your miracle today”.

Perhaps Mary would then ask Jesus: “If you are a son of God, then why are we poor? I heard the preacher say that God’s children are supposed to live in abundance. Why don’t we have a posh car of our own? Of all professions, why should your father be a carpenter?”

Then Jesus would grow and start his ministry. And other preachers would hear on the news that he sat watching the rich putting their gifts into the Sunday offertory basket and that he also saw a poor widow put in two coins of Shs 100. That he said:

“Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in all she had to live on.” I bet they would disown Jesus. How dare he entertain coins in church!

How would he expect them to facilitate their high life of huge, customised-number-plate cars, mansions, and flamboyant garments? In actual sense, people like the widow Jesus praises are supposed to sit behind in church, and that is if there are free seats after the rich have found comfort.

I doubt Jesus would be allowed to kick traders out of church. For as long as they could dive their hands into their pockets during offertory, who should care about their misdeeds?

But I also doubt Jesus would have to do a lot to convince people to go to his church, if he built any. If he worked all those miracles we read about, his church and its entire neighbourhood would fill. If he guaranteed us visas to Europe, Middle East and America, curing diseases, finding us spouses, and getting us good jobs, what more!

Is there anything else we still want from church apart from miracles?

One more question though: would Jesus be critical of government’s excesses, injustice, and corruption? I surely know that he would be given a Toyota Prado, and he would be advised not to nose into political matters.

But if he “spoke well”, then it would be okay to talk politics too, and he could earn himself a ministerial position where he would start to speak in tongues. Would he speak clearly with a mouth full of food?

But I suspect that he would not be silenced by such enticements. He would still want to speak for the downtrodden, for the voiceless, for the poor, and against their tormentors.

But this would require more courage than of the times of Pontius Pirate. We now have more than canes to deal with defiance. If he tried to protest against corruption or attempted to enter Kampala on a donkey, we would spray both him and the donkey with pepper – before breaking the donkey’s legs. Or we could go for the simpler option of putting him under preventive arrest.

Perhaps we wouldn’t crucify him; we would allow him to live a long, painful life of shouting in vain. We would not fail to compromise his apostles in any case.

Judas Iscariot would be made minister in charge of Kampala, Peter would want to become an ambassador, and Thomas a presidential advisor on dubious business…for in Uganda today, most of what persuasion and violence fail to achieve, money can buy.

jsssentongo@gmail.com

The author works with the school of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi.