Don’t Call Me Babe!
Posted by Mike The Admin | Filed under Essay
Back in my post college days watching David Letterman was a religious experience. I still feel delight in my belly every time I recall this exchange. The camera cuts to bandleader Paul Schaffer after the musical opening. Paul casually shouts, “How ya doin’ babe?!” With his trademark playful, satirical style, Letterman thunders, “Don’t call me babe!!”
December is the traditional Christian holy season celebrating the birth of Jesus. We will be saturated with sappy images of the “babe, wrapped in swaddling clothing.” Once again the prevailing storyline will sentimentalize the righteous holiness out of Jesus, reducing him to a cutesy babe whose cheeks we want to pinch.
Most folks will never allow the prophetic zeal of Jesus to permeate their being. The grown up Jesus disturbs us with teachings like this, which foreshadow those who wade in the shallow end. “The road to life is crooked and winding, and those who find it are few.”
I got to know Jesus as a radical prophet by reading the gospels like I had never even heard of this Jesus guy. I tried like heaven to strip away all of the hearsay about him in an effort to uncover the soul of the upstart Rabbi. I was frankly bewildered to hear the “Song of Mary” when John the Baptist’s mom testified about the babe in Mary’s womb. “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior… he has scattered those who are proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”
Jesus turned out just like his Dad. He emerged from his wilderness temptations to preach his first sermon, fittingly in his hometown. The Nazareth old-timers synagogue society discounted him. “Isn’t this the kid who grew up down the street?” Jesus answered sharply, “Don’t call me babe!”
The sacred work of Jesus has not changed one mouse click. Let us grow up with Jesus, radiating this living testament to corporate and government halls from Washington to New York, from Bentonville to Islamabad, from Moscow to Rangoon.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me…he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”