Jessica – a Fable

About a week ago, I got in a big discussion on Facebook with someone who said God couldn’t possibly be a woman.  Perhaps, that’s where this fable came from.  Or maybe the Holy Spirit whispered it in my ear.

***

Once upon a time, many, many, years ago as time is measured by men, but only yesterday in the celestial calendar of heaven, Creator God, more familiarly known as Abba, and the heavenly hosts were sitting around with their feet up talking of this and of that.

Michael, a very outspoken archangel, said, “You know, you really need to do something about those people on earth.  You put them down there, and gave them laws to live by, and gave them a perfectly wonderful planet to live on, and they keep making bigger and bigger messes.”

“I know,” sighed Abba, “I suppose I’ll have to send someone down to see if they can be redeemed.”

“Well, don’t send me,” said Gabrielle, a stunningly beautiful archangel.  “They didn’t even pretend to listen to me the last time I went.”

“No, I’ll have to go myself,” Abba replied.  “My problem is that I’ll have to go as one of them, and there’s too much of me to fit in one person.  Men are strong with great leadership ability and women are soft and loving.  I’m both of those and more.  In order to do the job right I suppose I’ll have to go as one of each.”

***

And so in the fullness of time, twins were born to a Jewish woman named Mary and her husband Joseph, and they called the boy Jesus and the girl they called Jessica.

The children were happy and grew to adulthood with their earthly parents.  Jesus worked with Joseph in the carpenter shop and Jessica helped her mother with the housework.  They knew that they were on earth for a purpose, and they understood that their real parent was Abba who had poured lots of the Abba’s selfhood into both of them, but they were fully human as well and could not escape their human natures.

Jesus told everyone, all the people from their village, that they needed to be better human beings, to help each other, to take care of the poor, and to worship Abba in heaven.  He tried preaching in the synagogue and on the corner, but the people of Nazareth got tired of listening to him.  Jessica also undermined him, because just when he got really worked up and started pointing out the sins of most of the people, she would interject, “Bless their hearts,” and would pass out hugs to everyone around. Her loving ways took all the sting out of his sermons. And so they began to argue and fuss.

When they were 33 years old, finally Abba had had enough of their bickering and sent them into the wilderness to work it out between themselves.

“People have got to be told about their sins so they can repent of them,” Jesus said.

“Bless their hearts,” replied Jessica.

“That’s just what I’m talking about.  They don’t take me seriously when you go all soft and loving like that!”

“But that’s what Abba is,” Jessica answered.  “All soft and loving, no matter what.”

“Men just aren’t all soft and loving!  I have to show them how to treat each other better.  That’s the only way they will be redeemed,” he said.

“The only way they will be redeemed is if someone gives up everything for them, I’m afraid,” she answered.

And because she was a woman and an expert in compromise and acceptance, Jessica proposed an accomodation.

“I’ll make a deal with you, Jesus,” she said.  “You can go your way and teach everyone.  But you have to take this bracelet with you – see it says ‘WWJD’ – for What Would Jessica Do?  And you always have to remember to think like I think.  Teach them how to be kind, and how to take care of the poor and the widows and orphans, and how to love and serve Abba.  They won’t like hearing it from you, and you’ll be lucky if you last a couple of years.  They’ll come and kill you – you with your martyr complex.  And I’ll go away and you’ll not hear from me again in this life.

“But when you’re dead – yes, and even after you’ve been raised from the dead, you’ve got to agree that then I get to come back as a Spirit, and put love in their hearts.  And I will be with them always.”