ROCK ISLAND The willful mispronunciation of “Jesus” by preachers apparently embarrassed by the name provides ample occasion for—you guessed it—ridicule. The Name Unlike any Other usually comes off sounding something like “cheese sauce.” You can’t swing a dead possum by the tail without hitting a double-chinned blow-hard speaking authoritatively about what “Cheese Sauce said-uh.”
The uses are endless.
“Cheese Sauce!” I shouted each time Michigan State turned the ball over Monday night, sometimes deploying the profane variant “Cheese Sauce H. Rice,” who, as many readers probably know, is the founder of an Italo-Asian catering business, which boasts a menu that is simply divine.
The possibilities for Protestant hymnody, which for the most part would merely be silly were it not also sappy and sentimental, are not inconsequential: “Cheese Sauce, Cheese Sauce, Cheeeeeeeeese Sauce—there’s just something … about … that name.”
Multiculturalism would be improved by the fact that “Cheese Sauce loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are nachos in his sight.”
How about the Doobie Brothers toking their way to heaven and singing, “Cheese Sauce is just alright with me”? “Cheese Sauce, he my friend . . . he took me by the hand . . .”
But what Cheese Sauce could do for the bumper sticker industry—or for the cute little signs out in front of the churches that dot this great land of ours—is almost limitless. “Cheese Sauce Saves” comes to mind. “Cheese Sauce is my Co-Pilot” might sufficiently puzzle the idiot behind you in the traffic jam. I have never put a bumper sticker on any jalopy I’ve owned, but I would give serious consideration to “Real Men Love Cheese Sauce,” because I love cheese sauce and would fain be accounted a real man. “Cheese Sauce is the Way” isn’t meant to take anything away from the fact that “Cheese Sauce is the Answer.”
But what I want is a church marquee sign, or a bumper sticker, asking “What Would Cheese Sauce Do?” That’s a real question. Trust me. I have a Ph.D. What would Cheese Sauce do—I mean besides drip over the edges of a jacket potato sprinkled with Bacos?
The WWJD phenomenon came to me, as much pop culture does, slowly. Every day on my morning walk to campus I saw a WWJD bumper sticker stuck to the back end of a Ford Expedition parked in front of a gym. For a long time I was able to live with not knowing what “WWJD” meant. But then one day curiosity got the best of me. I asked a colleague, who gave me, as my colleagues willingly do, the truth. “It stands for ‘What Would Jesus Do?’”
Well you can imagine my amusement. Apparently what Jesus would do is drive an SUV to a many-mirrored gym to pump iron in the hall of Narcissus. Cheese Sauce is here to Pump You Up.
Then I began to notice the slogan everywhere—and to sink more precipitately into a funk. Cheese Sauce would be comfortably obese in an age of hunger. Cheese Sauce would vote for W. Cheese Sauce would support war and the death penalty. Cheese Sauce would sanction the use of pole barns for the worship of Itself. Cheese Sauce would have all the mystery removed from sacred writ by the editorial board of the NIV. Cheese Sauce would think as highly of the Cheese Sauce Seminar as its members and lemmings do. Cheese Sauce would pay a visit to the RNC. Cheese Sauce would prefer Colorado Springs over all places on earth. Cheese Sauce would bring down the price of gas. Cheese Sauce would be honored by bad music and lyrics accompanied by guitars and drums. Cheese Sauce would approve of our being certain what Cheese Sauce would do, even though the New Testament, if it is clear about anything, is clear about the fact that nobody was ever sure what Cheese Sauce would do.
For example, he hung out with low-lifes. He spat in the dust and made mud on occasions especially calculated to give offense. He was apparently regarded as a drunkard (giving especial meaning, by my lights anyway, to the imitatio Christi). He once went into the temple and opened up a can of whoop-ass. He didn’t respect people’s “learning styles.” He preferred mercy to sacrifice. He wouldn’t countenance the first casters of stones. He recommended cheek-turning. He basically told Peter, the first bishop of Rome, to step off. He dined with little tree-climbers whom most people hated.
And let us not forget that Cheese Sauce laid down his life for his friends—an act that the ascetical discipline of pumping iron at the gym prepared him to do. Lucky for the friends Cheese Sauce had a four-wheel-drive behemoth to get him to Calvary on time. The instrument of death fit nicely in the back. “U,” you know, stands for “Utility.”
And Cheese Sauce is happy to look down approvingly this week on all the theatrics that the unaffiliated western “church” is putting on. My own local paper is full of such thespian reenactments of the death of Cheese Sauce. So-and-So, a worker at Such-and-Such, will play the part of Pontius Pilate. To his right is Mrs. Sosostris, who will play . . .”
The pomp and circumstance that accompany Easter at the Church of the Hip Jesus is little more than a longing for the liturgy that is lacking 52 Sundays per year.
What would Cheese Sauce do? My guess is Cheese Sauce would do away with the Circus Show and reiterate that great longing for unity uttered in the high-priestly prayer recorded in St. John’s gospel.
What would survive such a unifying movement? Again, my guess: not drums, not guitars, not idiotic hymnody, not bumper stickers, not warfare, not capital punishment, not pole barns, not Colorado Springs, not the apocalyptic delusions lining the bookshelves of the Family Christian Bookstore. Maybe not even the FPR.
(Thanks to KD’s brother Lisle for the image)
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
“Cheese Sauce would approve of our being certain what Cheese Sauce would do, even though the New Testament, if it is clear about anything, is clear about the fact that nobody was ever sure what Cheese Sauce would do.” Brilliant, Jason. A riposte that had never occurred to me.
We’re talking about melted Velveeta, right? (A processed substance that resembles cheese only by application of marketing propaganda.)
My prayer of petition is that Cheese Sauce will convert my daughter to the eating of broccoli.
Aside from a sermon on the Curb of East Passyunk Ave. in Philly, that city of Brotherly Love, Cheese Sauce might look skyward after surveying the besotted age and say “Cheese Sauce H. Rice… Not Again?”
Nothing offers up a more invigorating helping of brilliant satire than the various Cable Religious channels.
Elmer Gantry dint know nuthin.
My personal view of the Christ, developed over a number of years, was that he wasn’t a 6’2″, 180 lb., pale-skinned, Viking but rather a 5’6″, 160 lb., dark skinned, curly headed Jew with ripped shoulders and biceps, and severely calloused hands.
Jason, loved the critique but winced at the cheese-sauce thing. As for the Fundamentalists, Born Agains, Charasmatics, ect that take the brunt of your post, I would remind you that by and large they have rather stoutly built front porches and take their quest for the experiential Christ rather seriously.
Overall, a thoughtful post which prods one to consider the irony and shallowness of some aspects of christian behavior and “christian culture”. However, criticizing modern translations of the Bible for “removing the mystery” (I presume this is relative to the “Authorized Version” of circa 1600), is a complete shot from left field and smacks of genuine Ludditism (the BAD kind). Otherwise, an appreciated prod in the right direction.
Praise Cheese Sauce and visualize Whirled Peas.