As many of you know, our church continues a long-deferred and desperately needed reconstruction of our buildings. In these winter months the work shifted to our basement. There, under the old oil tank, we made a new epochal discovery, we found another part of the long-lost Manhattan Gospel of Henry Rutgers. I am presenting the first draft translation from the New-Testament NewYorkish (Ancient English spoken around Verdi Square and The Ansonia landmark), here is the text:
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One day Jesus’ disciples were again arguing about economy, politics and the morals of forgiveness. Sternly righteous James just quoted with his raised finger Mahatma Gandhi’s “Commerce without Morality.” Judas started to laugh, and guileless John kept asking what it was all about. At that moment Jesus lowered with disgust The PalisadeStreet Journal he was paging through and told them this story:
“Once upon a time there was this very clever banker. He did not run any petty savings bank - I told you, he was very clever. He was a director in an investment bank, trading in securities (buying and selling other peoples’ debts and mortgages) and he was making tons of money. Then he got even more clever - he started to churn out and deal in derivatives (selling what he did not have and buying what he did not want). He made even more money and was very important and very loud.
Then, one night, he and all his friends did not have for the buyers what they had already sold them and themselves were left with what no one wanted to buy. He and all his pals ran to the head of government begging for bailout money, explaining that their businesses were too important to fail. And indeed they received hundreds and hundreds of billions in government money and not a single one of these guys ended in debtor’s prison.
Yet, as soon as they returned to their banks, they started to collect outstanding loans of small debtors, evicting an unemployed man and his family from their home, confiscating the car of a single mom with three kids, forcing a widow into bankruptcy because she could not pay the medical bills of her late husband. In short, they ruined livelihoods and families of thousands, even millions.”
And then Jesus added, “You see, for centuries and even until now it has been claimed by all-important "Reverends" and theologians of many different stripes that my original parable (preserved in Matthew 18:23-35 The parable of the unforgiving servant) was utterly unrealistic, fable-like, exaggerated, and that it must be interpreted metaphorically, theologically and spiritually. Well, what do you think now? Isn’t it time, to start thinking again about how God would want us to order our lives?
One day Jesus’ disciples were again arguing about economy, politics and the morals of forgiveness. Sternly righteous James just quoted with his raised finger Mahatma Gandhi’s “Commerce without Morality.” Judas started to laugh, and guileless John kept asking what it was all about. At that moment Jesus lowered with disgust The PalisadeStreet Journal he was paging through and told them this story:
“Once upon a time there was this very clever banker. He did not run any petty savings bank - I told you, he was very clever. He was a director in an investment bank, trading in securities (buying and selling other peoples’ debts and mortgages) and he was making tons of money. Then he got even more clever - he started to churn out and deal in derivatives (selling what he did not have and buying what he did not want). He made even more money and was very important and very loud.
Then, one night, he and all his friends did not have for the buyers what they had already sold them and themselves were left with what no one wanted to buy. He and all his pals ran to the head of government begging for bailout money, explaining that their businesses were too important to fail. And indeed they received hundreds and hundreds of billions in government money and not a single one of these guys ended in debtor’s prison.
Yet, as soon as they returned to their banks, they started to collect outstanding loans of small debtors, evicting an unemployed man and his family from their home, confiscating the car of a single mom with three kids, forcing a widow into bankruptcy because she could not pay the medical bills of her late husband. In short, they ruined livelihoods and families of thousands, even millions.”
And then Jesus added, “You see, for centuries and even until now it has been claimed by all-important "Reverends" and theologians of many different stripes that my original parable (preserved in Matthew 18:23-35 The parable of the unforgiving servant) was utterly unrealistic, fable-like, exaggerated, and that it must be interpreted metaphorically, theologically and spiritually. Well, what do you think now? Isn’t it time, to start thinking again about how God would want us to order our lives?
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