The Day We Found Jesus (Fish)

Close Encounter of the Fishy Kind

I sat on a bench outside our house, watching the world go by. The bench was yellow, which was a little strange as all the other benches were painted dark red. At least I think they were painted red, sometimes it was hard to tell what was paint and what was, well, the results of some unpleasant encounter.

In any event, I was sitting on the bench when my pseudo-half-brother Charley walked by, he had a fish on a leash. It was a nice looking fish, all silver and everything.

“Hey Charley,” I asked, “where’d you get the fish?”

“Down by the docks, it was just walking around.”

“That’s interesting, don’t fish need water or something?”

“Not this one, wait, wait, wait,” he stopped himself, as if he had forgotten something important, then slapped his forehead, “wait!”

“I’m waiting,” I answered with a smile, sometimes we had to give Charley some leeway due to his proclivities.

“Oh, right, you should hear what else he can do, come on fishy, do your trick,” he looked down at the fish and the fish looked back up at him.

“Follow me and I will make you fishers of men,” it said.

“Whoa! Cool!” I exclaimed, “what kind of fish can do that?”

“It’s a Jesus fish! I know, I looked it up!” Charley was excited.

“Can it say anything else?” I asked, looking at the fish.

“Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?” It said.

“That’s really amazing,” I admitted, “I wish I had a Jesus fish.”

“Well, this one’s mine, he promised he’d show me how to turn wine into urine.”

“Wow, can I watch, too?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think there may be another one, if I go down to the docks?”

“I don’t know, hey fish, do you know if there are any more like you down at the docks?”

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword,” it said.

“Is that a yes?” Charley asked.

“No, no,” I interrupted, “I think its saying it was at the docks looking for its sword, did you see a sword down there? It seems important to it.”

“No, I can’t say I did, what should we do?”

“Well it’s your fish, you want it to be happy don’t you?”

“Yes,” he started, then stopped, seemed to think about something, then added, “or delicious. One or the other.”

“Oh, no Charley, I don’t think you can eat a Jesus fish.”

“Oh.”

“It would be against the law or something, I’m quite sure of that.”

“Oh, that’s okay any way, I guess we should help it find its sword, then?”

“It would probably be appreciative if we did.”

“Anyone who already has something will be given more, and they will have plenty. But anyone who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away,” the fish responded.

“Um, that’s, well,” I stuttered, “kind of mean isn’t it?”

“I think so,” Charley nodded, “hey fish, that’s kind of mean.”

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple,” was the answer.

“I’m not sure that’s much better,” I pointed out, “I mean, okay, I do hate most people, but it’s hard to hate your family.”

“But he didn’t say anything about hating your brother,” Charley pointed out, “hey fish I don’t have to hate my brother do I?”

“In righteousness he doth judge and make war.”

“I’m not sure I want a Jesus fish now,” I reasoned, “it sounds like it may come at you in your sleep.”

“He does seem kind of angry, maybe we should just help him find his sword and let him go back into the water.”

“His family probably misses him,” I suggested as an out.

“I doubt it,” Charley answered with a tone of disapproval, “not if he talks like that.”

“Maybe he has some followers, you know the disciples he was talking about?”

“Yea maybe, wouldn’t want to come across them though, if they hate everything, including their own families.”

“Could be violent,” I agreed, “we should probably do this before they come looking for us, I

mean there is a lot of us, but I wouldn’t want to take too many risks.”

So with that I got up from the bench and we headed towards the docks. It was a nice day, so nice we could see all the way to the smog that obscured the mountains, which made things pleasant or would have if the fish hadn’t insisted on talking the whole way. About half way through the walk it said, “if a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned,” which led to three burnings of skinny people that a random mob mistook for withered non-believers, before someone stopped and advised them it was not likely anything more than a metaphor.

Boy, were they sheepish and apologies were freely given and accepted.

Fortunately, except for that one misunderstanding, there were no other deaths, at least none that occurred within our range of view. It was always possible some of the screams behind us were a result of our collective passage, but we really weren’t interested enough to find out.

“Say fish,” Charley started, as we reached our destination, “where do you think your sword will be?”

“Slaves submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh,” it answered.

“Huh?” I huh’ed.

“You know fish, if you were nicer you’d probably have more followers,” Charley admonished but the fish just stared back. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know, how big a sword do you think it’d be? Fish size probably, right?”

“I guess, but how would a fish hold a sword?”

“Maybe it’s a metaphor,” I answered.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure, it’s something I heard a few minutes ago, hey phone.”

“What!?” The phone answered angrily.

“No, it’s okay, it’s a serious question.”

“…okay?”

“What’s a metaphor?”

“It’s a word or phrase applied to an object in a non-literal way.”

“Wow,” Charley said, “that’s profound, hey fish why can’t you be profound like that?”

“But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me,” it answered.

“Cool,” Charley responded. I looked at him and frowned causing him to correct himself, “no its not cool, bad fish, bad fish.”

“I think we should we should just, I don’t know,” I started, stopped, scooped up the fish quickly and tossed it into the ocean.

“Oh,” Charley said quietly, “I guess that’s for the best.”

“I agree, let’s go home.”