To Billy Sunday

You come along... tearing your shirt... yelling
        about Jesus.
      I want to know... what the hell... you
	know about Jesus.

Jesus had a way of talking softly and everybody
	except a few bankers and higher-ups among the
	con men of Jerusalem liked to have this Jesus
	around because he never made any fake passes
	and everything he said went and he helped the
	sick and gave the people hope.

You come along squirting words at us, shaking
	your fist and calling us damn fools so fierce the
	froth of your own spit slobbers over your lips --
	always blabbing we're all going to hell straight
	off and you know all about it.

I've read Jesus' words.  I know what he said.  You
	don't throw any scare into me.  I've got your
	number.  I know how much you know about
	Jesus.

He never came near clean people or dirty people
	but they felt cleaner because he came along.  It
	was your crowd of bankers and business men
	and lawyers that hired the sluggers and murderers
	who put Jesus out of the running.

I say it was the same bunch that's backing you that
	nailed the nails into the hands of this Jesus of
	Nazareth.  He had lined up against him the
	same crooks and strong-arm men now lined up
	with you paying your way.

This Jesus guy was good to look at, smelled good,
	listened good.  He threw out something fresh
	and beautiful from the skin of his body and the
	touch of his hands wherever he passed along.

You, Billy Sunday, put a smut on every human
	blossom that comes within reach of your rotten
	breath belching about hell-fire and hiccuping
	about this man who lived a clean life in Galilee.

When are you going to quit making the carpenters
	build emergency hospitals for women and girls
	driven crazy with wrecked nerves from your
	goddam gibberish about Jesus -- I put it to you
	again:  What the hell do you know about Jesus?

Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to.
	Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every
	performance.  Turn sixty somersaults and stand
	on your nutty head.  If it wasn't for the way
	you scare women and kids, I'd feel sorry for
	you and pass the hat.

I like to wash a good four-flusher work but not
	when he starts people to puking and calling for
	the doctors.

I like a man that's got guts and can pull off a great
	original performance, but you -- hell, you're only
	a bughouse peddler of second-hand gospel --
	you're only shoving out a phony imitation of
	the goods this Jesus guy told us ought to be free
	as air and sunlight.

Sometimes I wonder what sort of pups born from
	mongrel bitches there are in the world less
	heroic than you.

You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to
	fix it up all right with them by giving them
	mansions in the skies after they're dead and the
	worms have eaten 'em.

You tell $6 a week department store girls all they
	need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead
	without having lived, gray and shrunken at
	forty years of age, and you tell him to look at
	Jesus on the cross and he'll be all right.

You tell poor people they don't need any more
	money on pay day and even if it's fierce to be
	out of a job, Jesus'll fix that all right, all right --
	all they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say.

I'm telling you this Jesus guy wouldn't stand for
	the stuff you're handing out.  Jesus played it
	different.  The bankers and corporation lawyers
	of Jerusalem got their sluggers and murderers
	to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn't
	play their game.  He didn't sit in with the big
	thieves.

I don't want a lot of gab from the bunkshooter in
	my religion.

I won't take my religion from a man who never
	works except with his mouth and never cherishes
	a memory except the face of the woman on the
	American silver dollar.

I ask you to come through and show me where
	you're pouring out the blood of your life.

I've been in this suburb of Jerusalem they call
	Golgotha, where they nailed Him, and I know if the
	story is straight it was real blood ran from his
	hand and the nail-holes, and it was real blood
	spurted out where the spear of the Roman
	soldier rammed in between the ribs of this Jesus
	of Nazareth.

	-- Carl Sandburg, 1915

Last changed: 30-NOV-1995 13:53:43