No it isn’t just a catchy title to grab your attention although I think it will do that as well. I was watching Ralphie May’s “Girth of a Nation” comedy special and from the info page of my DVR it said one of the topics was doing drugs with Jesus, I was nervous but why not. I actually think he had some profound things to say especially in looking at how the Gospel would be written to a certain group of people.
His story started when a friend of his asked him who he would most like to smoke pot with in all of history and his reply was Jesus Christ. Assuming that this would make some people upset (as if all of his other jokes wouldn’t have) he began to use a preaching and debate technique of answering the opposition.”
“Now, he shouldn’t say that, he isn’t a very good Christian” he said in a voice I really think I have heard a Pastor use before to imitate his detractors.
“Why, because I want to hang out more with Jesus? I think that makes me a great Christian, and you don’t know if Jesus smoked when he was on earth, it isn’t recorded but you just don’t know, you just don’t know.”
Jesus had long hair, a beard traveled around in sandals with twelve other guys with no jobs, he had to be a hippie and hippies smoke pot, was his conclusion but he also did a part where he acted out the smoking act, and at the end, parodied Jesus miracle of feeding five thousand, by Jesus turning seeds into a couple pounds of pot.
A stretch, sure; blasphemy I doubt it; interesting, to me it was I think it was. If Jesus first coming was today, how would it look different? Now in this country it is illegal to smoke pot so I think Jesus would obey that law but I believe there is a benefit to relating the Gospel story to different cultures just as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did. They all wrote different ways while trying to read different audiences and the church has been trying to reach the church for years. The problem is those people we need to reach are no longer part of a church generation; they are not familiar with our stories, traditions, or ways of thinking. We must stand less like Jesus in the synagogue and more like Paul on Mars Hill, quoting their philosophers and their poets quoting things about Zeus but telling them about Jehovah. I pray God gives me the wisdom to do just that.