Who do you say I am?
Jun 12th, 2007 by TheStraitGate
One thing that I find difficult to understand about some of my fellow Christians is why they seem to think that being a Christian means that we all turn into the no fun faith. If you visit any Christian forums you’ll see people who refuse to watch certain TV programmes, won’t read certain books, etc etc. Don’t you dare go enjoying yourself!
So it made a nice change to come across a post on Maggi Dawn’s blog with a Jesus joke which I’ve reproduced here.
And Jesus said unto them, “And whom do you say that I am?”
They replied,
“You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”
” You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming roughness’ in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.
“You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.
“You are my Oppressed One, my soul’s shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”
And Jesus replied, “Huh?”
I thought that was pretty funny, it’s a reminder of how we can complicate what really is a simple message.
Apparently, according to one of the comments on said blog, this is a variation on the orginal which went like this:
“they answered: ‘You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the mystical essence of the divine kerygma.’” And our Lord’s response was “Wot?”, not “Huh?”
Obviously the abridged version. 
It’s a pity the joke didn’t extend to the next couple of verses “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” but I suppose we would need two versions like this:
Catholic version
Peter replied - “come again?”
And Christ answered, saying “I”m making you the first Pope matey”
Protestant version
Peter replied - “why are you calling me Petrina?”
And Christ answered, saying “it’s a play on words”
