Sit Down Comedy … November 30th, 2018

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Mall Talk

Santa: Jesus Christ!

Jesus: Are you cussin’ or just glad to see me?

Santa: (hugs Jesus and pulls back) I almost didn’t recognize you.

Jesus: That’s because I’m traveling S. I.

Santa: S. I.?

Jesus: (smiling) Savior Incognito. So good to see you, old man.

Santa: Yeah, that’s interesting, because I supposedly have gained immortality, but they’ve stuck me at about seventy-five years of age.

Jesus: Well, I died at thirty-three–that’s where I’m kind of stuck, except I didn’t exactly leave behind a pretty corpse.

Santa: (frowning) Sorry about that.

Jesus: Oh, lighten up, old man. It’s Christmas. We’ll get around to that Easter stuff later.

Santa: Well, what brings you to this mall on this day?

Jesus: I was about to ask you the same question.

Santa: Well, there are so many people dressing up like me now, that it’s easy for me to slip in, as you say, incognito, and play myself at a mall. No one knows the difference.

Jesus: So why this mall?

Santa: The best damn curly fries at the food court. I’m tellin’ you, you’ve got to try them. They’re to die for.

Jesus: Was that another crack at my crucifixion?

Santa: Oh, I’m sorry…

Jesus: (punching him in the arm) Just kidding! You’ve gotta lighten up!

Santa: Well, there’s a lot of pressure. This time of year, you run into this “Christmas war” thing–you know, where you and I are supposed to be enemies. You representing the “true meaning of Christmas” and me being a commercial bungler.

Jesus: Well, don’t people know that you’re real name is Saint Nicholas?

Santa: I’ve always been your greatest fan. I watched what you did with children, learned from how you gave to people. And I took it seriously when you said in your Beatitudes, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.”

Jesus: And you even copied my twelve elves!

Santa: (a bit flustered) Well… Not exactly.

Jesus: Well, sometimes they acted like elves. You see, people like to keep you where they found you. Lots of folks met me in church so they think I live there. (whispering) Honest to God, Claus–I haven’t been there for years.

Santa: You’re right. Because with me, they loved the Old North Pole thing. Obviously couldn’t do all the work in one location. I have it spread all over the globe. Every once in a while, I even use Amazon.

Jesus: If people just understood that there’s no bad way to say Christmas. It’s kind of like the word “candy.” You can substitute “chocolate, peanut butter, confection, caramel”–and still, what comes to your mind is…

Santa: (interrupting) …candy. You’re right! You can say “reindeer, Christmas tree, carols, jingle bells or manger.” What comes to my mind is Christmas.

Jesus: So they can call it a holiday. That doesn’t help them. Because the word “holiday” means “holy day.” They can say “Season’s Greetings,” but everybody knows the season is Christmas.

Santa: People just fuss too much.

Jesus: I’d say “amen” but I’m not that religious.

Santa: You really aren’t, are you?

Jesus: Nope–I just love people. I love my Father, I love Mother Nature and I love the idea of life. You know I was born in a barn…

Santa: (laughing) That’s funny.

Jesus: (serious) What’s funny about it? You live in a toy shop with reindeer.

Santa: (serious) Well, I didn’t want to argue with you.

Jesus: (laughing) You really are uptight about this Christmas thing, aren’t you? Tell you what–let’s head off to the food court and you can buy me some of those curly fries and prove to me that they’re the best in the world.

Santa: That’s a deal–if you’ll tell me about the first Christmas.

Jesus: Well, I was just a little baby surrounded by asses.

(Santa is shocked)

Jesus: (poking him in the arm) You know–donkeys. Listen, old man–we’d better hurry and get those curly fries right now. You are desperately in need of some good cheer.

 

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Any Given Sunday… March 4, 2013

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I often find myself challenged.
Usually it’s by friends and family, who wonder why I continue to pursue an “inreach” to the church instead of expanding my activities outside the stained glass windows, to the marauding masses.
Did you ever notice that it’s always easier to view somebody else’s situation and figure out what they should do instead of messing with your own life? It’s why Jesus said we would rather take the speck of sawdust out of our brother’s eye than deal with the log protruding from our own.
But there is a miracle going on in this country. Just because it does not presently feel very miraculous does not detract from its potential. Any given Sunday, millions of Americans rise from their beds and head off to buildings, to worship the God of their choice. There’s nothing quite like it. There’s nothing that imitates it.
Even though my critics would occasionally suggest that I should go into the educational system and teach, or turn all of my products into a marketing scheme and start businesses that reach larger forums, or even that I become politically involved and change the world around me legally, I have to stand back and take a good gander at the opportunities afforded to me at this juncture in history and pursue what’s really going to work instead of what should work.
Let me tell you the problem with education. You need a diploma. What I mean is, we still evaluate the intelligence of our population based on the level of certificate they’ve received. Of course, we know this to be fictitious. We have gradually been admitting that technical schools, personal training and even apprenticeship can be preferrable methods for preparing people for the marketplace.
So how about entertainment? The problem with entertainment is that it needs applause. When you’re trying to appeal to the mass mentality, it is difficult to land on powerful ideas born through spirit or wisdom.

I suppose you could pursue corporations–but as you well know, they need a profit. They require squeezing every single dollar of savings out of your ledger of costs to always plump the bottom line.
How about politics? Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that politicians need a vote–and if you’re trying to get everybody to vote for you, the only thing you’re really running from is the truth.
It’s the church.

Flawed as she may be, encumbered by tradition more than passion, she still remains the only avenue for change–where people understand that some receptivity and learning may be necessary to gain favor.

Any given Sunday, you will see them gather. They are the huddled masses of our nation, still clinging to the hope of better ideals, even if those principles are muttered instead of proclaimed.
I sat in my green room yesterday morning preparing to share my heart with a new group of people from Houston, Texas. Outside in the hallway there were a myriad of conversations that floated through my door. These interactions were not any different from what you would have heard at a barbershop, a shopping mall or outside a football stadium prior to the game. They were laced with humanity, riddled with a lot of opinion, and even frustration.

But here’s the difference–we weren’t at a barber shop, a shopping mall or getting ready to go to a football game. We were heading into a room to sit our butts down in the presence of God and try to think about something besides ourselves and our own woes.

It opens the door for a possibility for renewal. It opens the window to revival. It opens our minds to the resurrection of change.

No one left the way they came. That’s why I go to the church. That’s why I keep believing.

And that’s why, on any given Sunday, there is the magnificent mission of generating a glorious new Monday.

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You Know Your Life Might Be a Little Out of Balance if it Seems to You That Every Day Is … October 9, 2011

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New Year’s Day.  Symptoms:

• You always find yourself making resolutions, only to break them very quickly and then feel a sense of despair which is just as quickly alleviated by eating something sweet. You also might have too much desire for roses, parades and watching football.

Valentine’s Day.  Symptoms:

• You are obsessed with romance and feel that if you could actually find your soul mate you might find your soul, and you have a bizarre notion that a little fat angel shooting an arrow through your heart does anything but kill you.  This condition is also marked by a sensation that a box of chocolates solves all the world’s problems.

The Ides of March.  Symptoms:

• You take simple tasks like going to the marketplace, but you do it while wondering who is going to stab you in the back.  Or the front, for that matter. Of course, the problem may be that you walk around acting like you’re Caesar.

Your birthday. Symptoms:

• For some inexplicable reason, you’re always expecting presents from people.  This particular condition is accentuated by a desire to have your cake and eat it, too.

May Day. Symptoms:

• While children are dancing around poles with flowers in their hair, you fail to notice, because you are always wondering when your life is going to stall in mid-air and go down, crashing into the ground.

Arbor Day. Symptoms:

• You seem to be much more fond of trees than you are of people. Dogs and cats are the oppressed races on the planet and it really bothers you when your acquaintances wear the fur of animals you’ve never met. You tend to worship nature and all its components–except for having a grudge against your fellow humans.

Fourth of July. Symptoms:

• You find yourself always talking about freedom, basically because you want to do what you want to do without anybody’s interference or even taking adequate responsibility for your actions. You have the spirit of a child–in the sense that you want to set off a cherry bomb in the school bathroom.

Labor Day. Symptoms:

• What you have is not really a job.  You’re not really even working for a paycheck. Instead, you are laboring–a struggle to get up, a struggle to get ready, a struggle to do the occupation that you still are able to perform, a struggle to get home, a struggle to listen to the family talk about problems, and then a bit of a struggle to get to sleep. It seems you have found one thing that brings you joy, but unfortunately, you only get to do it once a year while you struggle a bit with it–because you have to take the family along.

Halloween. Symptoms:

• You find yourself dressing up to try to be somebody else so as to get treats, even though you know in the long run, it all may be just a big trick.

Thanksgiving. Symptoms:

• You like to eat–and have learned to disguise it well by complimenting the cooking and being thankful for stuffing yourself like the turkey you have already murdered..

Christmas. Symptoms:

• You seem to be waiting for someone to come in a magical sleigh to bring you all the things you’ve wanted since you were a child as you decorate a tree, complain about the crowded conditions in the shopping mall and have a bumper sticker on the back of your car that reads: Jesus is the reason for the season.

And finally, Easter. Symptoms:

• You innocently walk into a plot for your demise, survive the atrocity and rather than lying down and giving up, you decide to raise yourself up–and try again.

Now, maybe there are many other choices, and certainly other symptoms in our lives.  But you might take a look at these and see if bits and pieces of the holidays have slid into your philosophy of life.  After all, the word “holiday” was originally “holy day.” 

And to be holy is to find the best way you can to create a sense of wholeness in your life.

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Jonathan sings “Let”

Jonathan Sings “Spent This Time”

Jonathan and his partner, Janet Clazzy, play “The Call”