O Little Town of Knoxingham

Jesus is back, just in time for Christmas. No, really. Jesus is flying into Knoxville on the Heavenly Host, and I've got dibs on picking him up at McGee-Tyson because I think I know where He wants to go on His tour of Knoxville. Jesus wants to go where the money is, and I'm taking Him to all those fancy ‘hoods named after English castles and duchies, like Kensington and Buckingham, and those other places that spell “point” with an “e” on the end, cuz that's how people with money spell “point.” It's “Pointe.” And if you're educated and have money, you know it's really pronounced Pwont. Like Mariner's Pwont.

Now ye of little faith are probably assuming that I have it in for rich people, and I'm just jealous, and you're probably wondering what Jesus has to do with any of this. So before I pick up Jesus, I just want you to know what I will readily confess to the Lord: I would not mind being rich. Like the rich, I would give to the poor, but I would give to myself first. I would have a spiritual problem for sure, but I can promise you this: I would never reside in a place named after expensive crystal, or the champagne that goes with it. (I want to take this opportunity to give thanks for Knoxville developers not having yet figured out how to pronounce Chandon de Noailles, though I would not put it past them to throw up a new gated community on Northshore Drive called Shannon de Nails.)

Jesus is in the car, and He's the co-pilot. I'm driving this tour. It's after dark, and we're winding along the recesses and excesses of Knoxington and Knoxingham, for verily, this is the land of the Knoxoisie. And it's fitting for the Lord to visit these provinces because these are a Christian people. As the New Testament teaches, they have incredibly large houses that expend vast amounts of energy, garages big enough to house three or four SUV's and a boat and lake accessories, and they spend thousands of dollars each year depleting the earth of its last fossil fuels to ensure an impoverished and burdensome future for their offspring.

Jesus is thrilled! He looks like a – well, like a kid on Christmas Eve, His eyes all-expectant at the prospect of more grotesque waste around every bend. And it's not just the profligate gorging and shitting of vast sums of money on the Almighty Self that pleases the Prince of Peace, it's the touching celebration of His holy birth in the ghastly mega-kilowatt-burning light displays.

So we're looking for a church. They're not hard to find anywhere in town, but out here, they're really nice. I mean, you don't find a lot of slack-ass poor people stinking up the joint. I don't think you can even get in if your handbag doesn't match your shoes. Anyway, we're just tooling around, looking for a decent church with a big parking lot with enough asphalt to choke the earth and flood the shopping malls built on top of old wetlands. I'm heading for one of the mega-churches with horn sections and scary-bad music, the kind possessed by the rhythm of 1,000 robotic white men – singing in their three-chord safety zone – Christian music variations on the theme from Raw Hide.

What the hell? Sorry, Lord. It's just slang. But check out the homeless dude on the side of the road, begging for money. What a loser. Why doesn't he just get a job? I mean, You say that over and over again in the New Testament. Have no mercy; just make assumptions about how the man ended up standing in the cold panhandling on the side of the road and judge him. It's easy! Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Your wisdom and for absolving me of any sense of unquestioning stewardship of those less fortunate. It's more important to know for a fact that I am not being taken for sucker.

Ah, finally, we have arrived! It's the Big Ass Church of the Holy Redeeming Self, one of hundreds located all over Knox County. Our Lord is gladdened in His Sacred Heart. Let us go in and hear the sermon about the Reason for the Season.

Well, first off, we should love the Lord. And we should be sorry for our sins. And we should love our neighbors, except for the foreign ones who hate freedom. We should love freedom as it has been interpreted by St. Diebold and St. Halliburton, and we should vanquish the nations that despise it and boycott the nations that interfere with our righteous vanquishin'.

But most important among all things, paramount of concern to the state of man today: We should fear sex, and those who like it. Dear Lord, please keep America strong by making us act like 12-year-olds on issues of sexuality. Don't ever let it become something above shame and suspicion. Otherwise, people might forget that gay marriage is an abomination because we can't let “everybody” who falls in love get married. That would be evil, like going to church while you're menstruating, or eating shrimp or the flesh of animals with cloves on their feet. Or is it cloven feet? Whatever it says in Leviticus. Oh, wait. We eat shrimp and ribs by the buffet-full every night. Nix that prohibition. Oh, and, uh, we'll just forget all about the one comment You ever actually made about marriage – that divorce is an abomination? Son of Man, you must have been pretty high on the Jesus juice that night.

I hear the angels coming for to carry You home, Lord, so I just want to remind You before You leave this Godly place: You're an illegal alien. I hear You're going to Mexico next and some of those other brown countries south of the border, but whatever You do, don't try coming back to the Promised Land of America riding one of those gimpy donkeys like the one that carried You into Jerusalem. We'll have a wall up by then.