Tjeripo, our beloved clergyman

My good friend Tjeripo – a believer in always trying new things, convinced me to accompany him to a local congregation to hear the word of God.

I willingly gave in to the invitation, appreciating the gesture from my long-standing friend. I had one or two doubts though – Tjeripo is not the best decision-maker there is!

Tjeripo once attempted to convince me to join Namibia’s liberation struggle. I refused! He called me a coward – something I didn’t like. I mean, I seriously had a stomach-ache and couldn’t go to the battle front. Seriously, I’m sure my comrades who suffered the same fate, will back me up.

Anyway, as we drove to church on that day, Tjeripo signaled me to stop as we drove past the sea where a baptism ceremony was taking place. My friend was thrilled, and decided to get baptised right there and then.

The priest conducting the baptism would dunk the people’s heads under water and ask, “Have you seen Jesus?” The people would respond “Yes, I’ve seen Jesus”.

When it was Tjeripo’s turn, the priest dunked his head into the water, pulled him out and asked him “Have you seen Jesus?” He said, No, so the priest put his head back under water for a few more seconds and again asked “Have you seen Jesus?”

Tjeripo replied “No, comrade Pastor.”

Running out of patience, the priest dunked his head for much time, pulled Tjeripo’s head out and asked him again; “How about now? Have you seen Jesus?”

I bit my nails and crossed my fingers, hoping Tjeripo would not anger the Priest by repeating his reply… “Etse, my brother, the Pastor .... are you sure this is the right sea where Jesus fell into,” came Tjeripo’s reply.

I had to get him back to the car and sped off to church. After waiting for half-an-hour for my friend to dry out, we stepped in and took one of the front rows. I figured if I sat close enough to the Pastor, I would be able to remember the sermon better and not be distracted by the glamorous designer outfits that filled the congregation hall.

I recognised the Pastor as one of the attendees of a Religious Leaders Conference which I had covered for my newspaper earlier in the week. As he started his sermon, I gathered that he wanted to rephrase a joke that was shared by an elder Pastor at the conference during the week.

Okay, the joke, as I remembered, went like this: The elder approached the pulpit and, gathering the congregation’s attention, he said;

“The best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman that wasn’t my wife!”

The crowd was shocked!

He followed up by saying, “And that woman was my mother!” - the crowd burst into laughter and he delivered the rest of his talk, which went over quite well.

Now, my over-enthusiastic Pastor from Mondesa decided he’d also give this ‘humour thing’ a try and used the same joke in his sermon.

As he confidently approached the pulpit on that sunny Sunday, he tried to rehearse the joke in his head. It suddenly appeared a bit foggy to him.

Getting to the microphone he said loudly, “The greatest years of my life were spent in the arms of another woman that was not my wife!”

The congregation inhaled half the air in the room.

After standing there for almost 10 seconds in the stunned silence, trying to recall the second half of the joke, the pastor finally blurted out, “... and I can’t remember who she was!”

I felt the walls of Jericho coming down on my poor Pastor. Being of the calibre he is though, the rest of the sermon went quite well, although at times, I thought the Pastor was talking explicitly about me.

You see, he would turn to my side and say “…you shall burn in hell, all of you unrighteous ones …”, then turning to the other side he would say “… peace be upon you.”

All in all, a refreshing sermon it was indeed.

Until then…