I Saw Jude
Every now and then the wind will blow strangely or I’ll be awakened by loud music or something innocuous will happen and I’ll feel … a way. In those moments, inevitably, I’ll hear a line from Geto Boys or Mystikal or Petey Pab. Gospel. It’ll just be on repeat until I acknowledge it and research something. God does God things.
This morning, I heard a line from that oh so preachable Geto Boys text, Time Taker… at least the way my imma-mangle-these-lyrics ear hears it. Scarface opens that track and midway through his verse he says, “I had a dream and I think I saw Jude. He had the looks that of a killer and he sang to me these four tunes. He told me life is like a game of dice. Roll em right the first time. You seldom get to roll em twice.”
That ain’t my favorite line in the song and I’ve always considered it a throw away. But today, it was on repeat. So I pulled up Jude. The epistle. The one that is a single chapter of … well, it’s a whole read. And we quote the end as a wonderful benediction but the text?
Oh, it’s about church folk. And it carries the admonition to “hate even the cloak they defile with their bodies.” They? Church folk whose dreams cause them to “defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander angels.” They? Church folk who demand that the folk they harm be harmed in grace and peace … but never think to just not harm. They? Church folk who “use the love feast to feed themselves,” ignoring everyone around them and insisting their own needs are of utmost importance. They? Church folk who “slander whatever they do not understand and … are destroyed by what they should instinctively know.” They? Church folk who have decided that they are more Holy than the prophets, more righteous than the priests, and more worthy than the pastor. They? “These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.”
Jude brings up the desire to rape angels. Jude mentions the rebellion of Korah. Jude mentions Cain and Balaam - whose donkey had to talk before he remembered that God alone is God - and says, outright that even the devil had better sense than these folk.
It’s in the Bible.
And it’s no wonder that we shy away from it … because we’d always see someone else as “them” and never ourselves. We’d always read ourselves as the ones that Jude calls “beloved” and to whom he says “build yourselves up.” We’d never recognize that he’s talking to one group of people. “They” and “you” are the same.
Beloved, life is like a game of dice. Roll em right - pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, look forward to the mercy of Jesus Christ and extend that mercy to those whose actions are so filthy that they make their clothes unclean - so that you don’t find yourself in the middle of life, targeted by the results of your own choices to target others.
At least that’s what Jude said … both in the Bible and to Scarface.
