Jesus bar-Yosef
House with a hole in the roof
Capernaum, Galilee

Dear sir:

In light of recent events which have damaged your public image, we offer our services as public relations consultants. We believe that we can increase your name recognition and your positive reputation.

To give you some idea of the value of our services, we would like to comment on two recent encounters that resulted in unnecessary conflict with significant public figures. You can evaluate our suggestions here and realize the benefits you would realize from a permanent business relationship with us.

We realize that your followers – or students; one of the things we’d like to clarify is their role in representing you and your ideas – were hungry while you were out walking with them that day. It is regrettable that they had not prepared for a trip. While we are not event planners, we recommend that you get some additional support to see that you are properly supplied.

The public relations concerns arose when they began to pluck grain on the sabbath. Everyone knows that the followers of a religious leader will be properly scrupulous about following the sabbath regulations. Indeed, a higher degree of respect for those practices is simply expected by the populace. In the moment, it would have gone much better if you had said, “Not now, friends. We don’t have far to go. There will be something to eat soon.”

You were walking just a short distance, weren’t you? We’re confident you were.

Alternatively, as noted above, you could have redirected them to use their pre-prepared foods. Best of all, you might have carried some yourself, and distributed those to your hungry followers. Imagine the positive responses to your generosity!

Then there was the man with the hand. We acknowledge that you actually broke no sabbath regulation at all. You didn’t anoint his hand with oil, which is permitted by most authorities. You didn’t even touch it.

Our concern is with your interaction with the other religious leaders in the room. Granted, they didn’t say anything to you. You might have interpreted that as consent, rather than challenging them for hardness of heart. You might also have said, “Let us see what miracles God will do on the sabbath,” which would have been very pious and quite successful.

Best of all, you could have said to the man, “Come see me tomorrow and we will see what God will do. Today we will rest, and God will rest.”

Frankly, Jesus, he’d been living with that hand for some time. One more day would not have been a burden.

These two events, and a couple of others, have generated some opposition to you and to your message. We firmly believe that you can move past them to a better, more productive relationship with the public at large and with your peers among the religious leadership. We think that some circumspection in some areas, and more emphasis of some elements of your teaching, will really resonate with the population. In short, we believe you have potential and hope to represent you.

The proposal in full is attached.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 2:23-3:6, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 4 (9).

The image is Christ Heals the Man with a Paralyzed Hand, a mosaic in the Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily, Italy (late 12th – mid-13th cent.). Photo by Sibeaster – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4515630.