said the joker to the thief

                                              Luke 14:A Commentary












He is there, like Clouseau,
at the odd moment,

just right:
when he climbs
out of the fish pond

into which
 he has spectacularly fallen,
and says condescendingly
to his hosts,


the owners of the estate:
"I fail where others succeed."


You know this is truth.
You know he'll solve the mystery,

unprepossessing
as he is,
the last of the great detectives.

He'll blend again into the scenery, and
more than once, be taken
for the gardener.
"Come now," he says, taking us
for all we're worth:
 "sit in the low place."

Why not? We ask, so easy
to fall for a man
who makes us laugh. "Invite those
you do not know, people
you'd hardly notice."


He puts us on, we put him on;
another of his jokes.


 "There's room,"

he says.


The meal is good,
absurdly  salty, but delicious.


Charlie Chaplin put it this way:


"I want to play
the role of Jesus.
I look the part.
I'm a Jew. 
And I'm a comedian."




                  Kathleen Norris












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