Ask Brother Zeke

Zeke had owned the denim jacket since before the church existed, back when it was just a Bible study and everybody still called him "the guy who keeps bringing up Greek words." He'd paired it that morning with denim jeans that did not match it in wash or intent, a t-shirt underneath, and — after twenty minutes of standing in front of the bathroom mirror having a conversation with himself he would never admit to having — a pair of aviators he did not need indoors. He drove to the station with the windows down and Jefferson Starship’s "Jane" turned up loud enough that the bass rattled the glove box, mouthing along like a man rehearsing for a part he'd already been cast in forty years too late.

This was Zeke’s brush with fame: Q103.5, "The Bluff," midday call-in slot, the one where people phoned in about potholes and produced their own theories about the Grizzlies. He had few goals beyond making it through alive. One of them was to mention the food pantry drive at least once before they cut to the weather.

Ordinarily this sort of thing would've belonged to Associate Pastor Leon "Peaches" Watkins.

Peaches loved microphones the way golden retrievers loved tennis balls. He'd spent years as a professional wrestler, which meant he'd never entirely recovered from the belief that every room improved if someone announced his entrance. Even now he could walk into a church fellowship hall carrying a crockpot and somehow make it feel like the main event. If a reporter wanted a quote, you sent Peaches. If Channel Seven wanted somebody to smile next to a stack of canned goods, you sent Peaches. Once, while waiting on a church copier to get fixed, he'd somehow learned the repairman's birthday, favorite brisket rub, and custody arrangement. Peaches once spent fifteen minutes talking to a toddler who only knew the word "truck." They both walked away feeling heard. Peaches had the spiritual gift of small talk; Zeke considered it something to survive until everyone involved could get to the interesting part.

The arrangement had worked beautifully for years.

Zeke stayed in the background writing Bible studies, filling yellow legal pads with notes about the Old and New Covenants, the historical context of Second Temple Judaism, Septuagint vocabulary, and the cultural backgrounds of the questions Jesus and the Apostle were asked. He was perfectly content being a quiet, bookish voice of reform that occasionally wandered out of his office to tell people, "Actually, the Greek's doing something fascinating here," before disappearing again like a friendly theological groundhog.

However, this time Peaches was on vacation.

When a local radio station had called asking if "the pastor" could come on the air, there had been an awkward silence.

Brother Earl had finally broken it.

"Well..."

"Don't."

"You're the pastor."

"I know."

"You should probably go."

"I was hoping nobody would remember that."

The host met him in the lobby with a coffee she'd already guessed he'd want black. Her name was Dana Okafor-Reyes, and she had the specific radio-voice trick of sounding like she already liked you before you'd said anything worth liking.

"Brother Zeke." She said it like it amused her. "Love the jacket. Very — what is this, seventies?"

"Seventy-one, if the jacket could talk."

"Can it?"

"It's been trying to tell me something for years. I don't listen."

She laughed. Dana was thirty-something, sharp, wore her hair like she had somewhere to be after this, and had the kind of easy warmth that made you want to keep talking just to keep her looking at you. Zeke had been married for twenty-two years. He knew exactly what to do with a feeling like that, which was nothing, politely, forever.

"You nervous?" she asked, walking him toward the booth.

"Nervous implies I have something to lose. I'm just here to talk about Jesus and canned goods."

"We'll see how long that lasts. Actually—Full disclosure, Pastor, we've been doing relationship questions lately. Started as a bit, but our numbers in the 11 o'clock hour did things. Program director loves it. So today's a relationship show. With a pastor. Live."

"Nobody told me that."

"I'm telling you now."

"I feel like I've accidentally wandered into somebody else's doctor's appointment," Zeke admitted.

"It's easy. We ask, you answer."

"That's an amusing amount of confidence."

They went live on the air at 11:04 AM.

"Alright Bluff City, we've got a special guest in the studio — Pastor Zeke from That Church By The Vape Shop, which, yes, that's the real name, no I'm not making it up. Zeke, welcome."

"Dana. Blessed to be here. Grateful, humbled, and" — he paused for what he believed was gravitas — "groovy."

"...Okay. Lines are open for callers. Zeke, anything off limits?

“Dana. Dana. In addition to Song of Solomon, I have read Ezekiel; there are passages in there about women being stripped naked on street corners and comparing a nation to a woman that likes men with donkey-sized…we're not doing ‘off limits’ today. Off limits left the building. I want to open by saying to believers: whatever you've heard, whatever fear somebody handed you at a youth camp about losing your salvation, about God's patience running out on you — that's not the deal. The deal was signed in blood that wasn't yours to spill and never runs out. You're not on a leash. You're not on probation. You are held." He let that sit exactly as long as a man in aviators indoors believes a pause should sit. "The Accuser has spent centuries convincing us that certain things are sins despite a lack of biblical basis. Also, food pantry drive, Saturday, the church parking lot, bring cans, we don't judge the brand—"

"We're gonna take some calls," Dana cut in, grinning at the board, already lit up. "Line one, you're on with Zeke."

The first caller was a man, maybe twenty-five, using his outside voice for an inside problem. He said he was asking for a friend that looked at a picture on his neighbor's wife's page. More than once. He wanted to know if his “friend” had un-saved himself.

"Brother," Zeke said, "you didn't lose anything. First, salvation isn't something you can lose like your car keys. Salvation is a Person named Jesus, and He isn't going anywhere. Second, let me tell you what Jesus was actually talking about in that verse everybody's terrified of, Matthew 5:28. Our English Bibles usually say 'lust,' but Jesus was invoking the Tenth Commandment's idea of coveting. The Greek verb epithymeō is the same word the Septuagint uses in 'You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.' Jesus wasn't inventing a brand-new commandment about involuntary attraction, because adding to the Law of Moses would have been a sin. He was exposing the covetous heart that sets itself on taking what belongs to somebody else (as a comparison to the hateful heart that wants to murder). There's a world of difference between saying, 'She's beautiful,' and keeping a spreadsheet of some dude's work schedule while plotting how to wreck his marriage. Think about Ahab. He didn't just admire Naboth's vineyard; he obsessed over it until an innocent man was murdered so he could have what wasn't his. That's coveting. Brother, from what you told me, you had eyesight, not a conspiracy. If you'd gladly settle for a twin sister, you'd refuse a real encounter out of respect for their marriage, and if, without grumbling about why she’s with him, you’d give her husband a hearty high five and a “Solid pull, Bro!”, you're just appreciating, not coveting." 

"So I'm — I'm good?"

"You were never not good. There's a difference between window shopping and casing the joint. People want the text to produce 'good behavior' rather than 'need grace.' Read Romans sometime when you're not scared. And bring a can of something to the church Saturday."

Dana said, "Brother Zeke...I've always heard Jesus made everything harder. Like, Moses said don't murder, then Jesus says don't even be angry. Moses said don't commit adultery, Jesus says don't even lust. Was Jesus basically making a tougher list?"

Zeke smiled.

"Deuteronomy says He couldn't have made the list longer without sinning. He was making the mirror cleaner."

"...Explain."

"Imagine you've got mud on your face."

"I usually do after softball season."

"If I hand you a better mirror, did I make your face dirtier?"

"...No."

"I just made it harder to pretend you were clean."

Dana leaned back.

"So you're saying Jesus wasn't inventing impossible rules..."

"I'm saying He was talking to people who believed they were already passing, like the Pharisees. He says things straight from Leviticus 19 like, 'Be as perfect and holy as your Father is perfect is holy.' No one does that but Him. The point isn't despair, it's honesty. God gave Israel the Law to reveal sin, not because He thought humanity was one motivational speech away from becoming adorable. The Law and the Sermon on the Mount say, 'Here's what holiness looks like.' And the Cross says, 'Since you can't rescue yourself, I will.'"

Silence settled over the studio.

Dana finally spoke.

"So the Sermon isn't, 'Try harder.'"

"It's, 'Quit pretending you've already succeeded.'"

"And then?"

"Then believe the Good News."

A beat.

"The tragedy," Zeke said, "is that people keep reading the Sermon looking for twelve exciting new ways to grade themselves."

Dana nodded slowly.

"When maybe it's trying to convince them to stop bringing the report card."

"Exactly."

The producer held up his whiteboard.

This time it read:

...I THINK I GET IT NOW.

Zeke glanced through the glass.

"I'll have you reading Galatians before lunch."

The producer immediately erased the board and wrote:

LET'S NOT GET CRAZY.

The next caller was a woman whose small group leader told her that loving a TV show more than her devotional time made the show an idol.

Zeke exhaled through his nose like a man who'd heard this exact sentence structure fourteen times this year. "Ma'am, Paul let people eat lunch meat that got waved in front of an actual statue of Zeus and told them to stop being weird about it. Y'all found a way to make a golden calf out of a Tuesday night sitcom. We have Christians apologizing because they enjoyed nachos too much during football season. You’re not picking that over Christ; Christ is your life, even in and through your enjoyment of that. You might even get to connect with a friend that needs to hear about Jesus sometime over mutual enjoyment of hobbies and interests."

"So it's fine?"

"It's fine. You're not on trial. Nobody's grading this. Most things are permissible, it’s just that not everything is beneficial. Life is pretty simple: believe in Christ, love one another, and don’t do the wildly gross stuff the apostles ruled against in Acts 15, much of which unsurprisingly has specific definitions in Leviticus. We're back in that sweet spot between Genesis 15 and Genesis 17 where Abraham was credited with righteousness for just having faith, so the "rules" (apart from letting the Indwelling Christ rule) look like what was applicable to all humanity back then. To fit the relationship theme we've got going today, the Canaanites that weren't under the Law got wrecked for, among other things, actual sexual immorality. Even pagan kings in Genesis knew messing with other guys' wives was off limits. The more literal Bible translations specify "inordinate lust" rather than horniness in general as the problem, you know, wanting things like adultery, bestiality, incest, a specific act involving another dude, period sex, etc."

Dana pointed to the clock and took another caller.

Next, there was a young man, laughing before he even got a word out, the laugh of somebody who'd been dared to make this call. He wanted to know, specifically, whether a particular thing he and his girlfriend had been doing — not the main event, he clarified, unprompted, several times — counted as fornication, since technically —

Zeke didn't let him finish circling it. "You're asking me about oral sex," he said flatly and without flinching, the studio going very quiet for exactly one second before Dana's shoulders started shaking with laughter that she was trying to keep off mic. "Say the word, it's not gonna strike you dead, I promise. Now — Song of Solomon's got a few references to it even in a pre-marital context, so even calling it ‘sex’ is a misnomer. It's in your Bible, not behind a curtain in the back of a video store, if y’all still remember what those are. What Scripture actually restricts is a very short list, and it's not the list you were handed at church camp." 

Dana, recovering, joked: "We are a family radio station, allegedly—"

"I said Song of Solomon, Dana, that's a family answer."

"That is not what our program director is gonna say it is."

"God made bodies. Bodies aren't embarrassing. Self-styled Puritans are embarrassing."

The producer held up a little whiteboard through the glass: LEAN INTO IT.

Dana pointed at it.

"Our audience likes honesty."

"I also like honesty. Even without the things that are only mentioned like bestiality, if the Bible were a message board post, it would be hotcoded for incest, rape, exhibitionism, ENF, voyeurism, etc."

"We're going to take another call," Dana said, with the specific brightness of a woman recalibrating live, on air, in real time, "because I need a minute." 

Next, there was a man's voice, older, careful, the kind of careful that meant he'd rehearsed this and lost his nerve twice already. His wife had gotten sick years back, he had gotten so used to hearing “no” that he had stopped initiating relations, there hadn't been anything between them in that way for longer than he wanted to say out loud on the radio, and frankly, he didn’t miss it. A well-meaning counselor had told him that wasn't really a marriage anymore. He wanted to know if God agreed.

Something in Zeke's posture changed.

"No," he said. "God doesn't agree. Whoever told you that wasn't speaking for Him. You know what the only actual command in that whole passage everybody misquotes at you is? Don't abandon your spouse. That's it. That's the command. Everything else Paul said was him doing his best with some freaky Corinthians, and you are already doing better than that counselor's whole theology. Y’all didn't fail a test. You're just — you're still there, keeping her fed, clothed, sheltered, and whatnot. That's the fruit right there, man. That's the Spirit in you, not some performance you gotta keep up."

The line was quiet for a second.

"Thank you," the man said, and hung up before his voice could do anything else on live radio.

Dana didn't say anything for a beat either. Then, gently, into the mic: "We'll take one more before the break."

Someone wanted a ruling on an itemized list read off what sounded like a legal pad — was it a sin to skip a Wednesday service for a football game, was it a sin to have one drink, two drinks, was it a sin to —

Zeke let him get to item four before he cut in, and when he did, the cadence he had been affecting (in a manner not unlike the Muppet known as “Dr. Teeth”) came roaring back, big and rolling. "Brother, brother — you're trying to find the exact mile marker where Jesus jumps out of a bush with a referee whistle. Believers, the people themselves and collectively, are the Church now; you are free to decide what buildings you want to go to and when. Jesus gave a bunch of wine to drunk people; use God’s blessings responsibly, and don’t black out and sire your own grandchildren. Before you get to the rest of the list, you sound like you're doin' your taxes with Jesus. Brother, you've got receipts in three binders labeled ‘Possible Damnation.’ Ain't no audit. Ain't no ledger. You got total forgiveness, past tense, finished, done, and you're out here tryin' to open a new account." He laughed, big and real this time. "So if your relationship with Him is built on asking, 'What's the maximum amount of selfishness I can squeeze out before God starts throwing flags?'...you're already asking the wrong question. Galatians says to walk by the Spirit, and He doesn't usually need a ruler. Put the pen down. You're not on trial. Come to the food pantry drive Saturday, bring a friend, bring your list if you want to talk about it, but I bet we end up using it for kindling."

After some commercials, a legalistic lad asked, "I kissed my girlfriend for eleven seconds instead of ten. Do I need to repent?"

Brother Zeke replied, "I don't know. Did second number eleven contain witchcraft? Kissing was a greeting in Bible days. To me, regular weddings sound like, ‘I now pronounce you man and wife; you may exchange business contact information’. Peace be with you."

A philosophical caller started with, "If Adam and Eve hadn't sinned..."

"...Sir."

"...yes?"

"I'm ninety-three percent sure you only called because you're lonely."

"..."

"Do you have anybody you can eat lunch with this week?"

"I've struggled with porn for years."

Zeke’s tone changed immediately.

"No jokes. What you are into might not even be pornographic from a biblical standpoint. There are people that won’t tell you that, and that won’t tell you about grace, and both are offensive. Let’s be clear; are these depictions of sinful copulation and/or abuse? Or are you just a fan of God’s Image and His craftsmanship of the nude form? Don’t answer that out loud. Jesus already knows. If it’s something your new heart has a problem with, He's not negotiating whether He'll forgive you today. You're already completely forgiven because of His blood. Now...your brain may have learned something unhealthy. That's different from God abandoning you. Let's work on healing instead of pretending shame has ever fixed anybody. God says that, thanks to what Jesus did for us, you are a holy and righteous saint. If you believe in your new identity, you will begin to act like it. If you think you’re dirty and distant from Him, you will act dirty and distant from Him."

Another caller asked, “Can Christians use dating apps?”

Brother Zeke said, "They're fine."

"...Really?"

"They're just introductions."

"So they're biblical?"

"So is walking to a well. Technology changes. Meeting people doesn't."

A married guy called in and said, "My wife says I don't listen."

"You don't."

"...You haven't even met me."

"I’m a husband."

Dana said, "Half our audience just nodded." 

The next caller said, "My husband says I nag."

"Do you?"

"..."

"Ma'am?"

"...I called six times before I got through."

A newlywed woman asked, "Brother Zeke...is sex supposed to be awkward?"

"Oh, absolutely."

"Really?"

"Two naked mammals trying to cooperate while carrying twenty years of insecurity and some advice they got from a youth pastor whose dating experience ended at age sixteen?"

"..."

"It gets better. Give it a few years. Eventually you'll both just be tired at the same time, which somehow is more romantic."

"Should married Christians avoid intimacy so they can be holier?"

Brother Zeke leans into the microphone.

"You know...Paul literally answered that. No. Read 1 Corinthians 7. If you think you understand it, please read it again slower, and as many times as it takes."

“You also told that earlier caller that not having sex is okay, though.”

“Are you a concubine? Because unless being a literal sex slave is your job, mandatory intercourse sounds pretty rapey and similar to ritual sex or temple prostitution, and God historically ain’t a fan of that. David, who gets a gold star except for the Bathsheba thing per 1 Kings 15:5, fed, clothed, and sheltered a bunch of ladies in 2 Samuel 20:3 without expecting a thing in return. It amazes me that godly people can say that the spies ‘lodged’ with Rahab the prostitute in an entirely chaste sense and then insist that the same phrase in Exodus 21:10-11 makes it about food, clothing, and forced sex. Again, Paul’s only command in 1 Corinthians 7 is ‘don’t abandon your spouse’, and the rest was pastoral advice to the freakiest congregation of recently former pagans having trouble being formerly pagan you can imagine. The mutual submission of Ephesians 5 means we have to be considerate of our partners and do the loving thing. No means no.”

"Hold on,” said Dana.

"Sure."

"I’m still trying to wrap my head around some stuff you said earlier. You really said that Song of Solomon mentions oral?"

"It does."

"...How did I miss that?"

"Most churches sprint through Song of Solomon like it's on fire. God has a few clear expectations, and we have much cultural baggage. It figures, since Jesus said hookers (and He did not say ‘former’) were getting into Heaven easier than the holy rollers back then. In Song of Solomon 8, they’re still discussing the dowry, so the activities described prior to that are premarital. In Song of Solomon 7, the woman is described from the floor up. The ‘navel’ that is somehow described before the waist (described with a mound of wheat, no less) can also be translated as ‘vulva’. Do people think Solomon was talking about tasty bellybutton juice?” 

Dana laughed, "I regret asking."

Zeke, "No you don't."

Dana said, "...I absolutely don't."

Zeke continued, “A lot of guys could be treating the women around them a lot better than they do. If my wife's listening — she's not, she thinks this station only plays oldies — it’s as neutral as stamp collecting, but I’m not offering it today, Dana. The little lady at home doesn’t share my worldview, so I limit my freedom out of respect for her. It’s like what Paul said about what to eat with regard to weaker brothers. I could rattle off a bunch of stuff about my rights as the head of the house, but out here in the real world, every time my best friend uses the wrong emoji chatting with her, it’s a two day argument, so I’m going to choose peace. Remember to do the loving thing, and not just when you think you can’t get away with something else.” 

“Shots fired. Are you going to be in trouble for using her as a sermon example when you get home?”

“Honestly, my wife doesn’t pay a lot of attention to me. She doesn’t even know I’m ordained. She still thinks I work at a hospital. I’m not hiding it; she’s just more into what she’s into.”

“How?"

"We've both been very busy. Now, I’m happy to keep providing clarity about sex and relationships because there is so much confusion and ink spilled over it, but it’s all way less important than faith and love. No matter what comes through these phone lines...somebody still needs green beans."

"You are astonishingly committed to these canned goods." 

For the next call, a young voice on the line said, "My youth pastor says dating is basically practicing divorce."

Brother Zeke replied, "I've heard that. Someone on YouTube also thinks Denver International Airport is run by lizard people, but that don’t make it so. Go outside, meet people, do fun stuff, and don’t sin. Sin is not fun."

A concerned parent said, "My daughter has a boyfriend."

"How old is he?" asked Zeke.

"Twenty-three."

"How old is your daughter?"

"Twenty-four."

"I don't think this is your emergency anymore."

Dana laughed and said, “Next caller.”

A woman said, “Okay, this is — my husband still, um, handles his own business. Solo. And I don't know if I should be upset.”

Zeke replied, “Ma'am. Ma'am. Real talk. It’s a “wash up and everything’s cool by sundown” thing under the Old Covenant, and the New Covenant did not get stricter. God set up the plumbing within easy reach, and God is not shocked by the plumbing. Colossians literally tells grown men rules like ‘don't touch, don't taste, don't handle’ like museum exhibits with regard to ‘things that go away with use’ (which is the most tactful way to describe erections) are dumb, and Paul's whole point is that rule is useless against actual sin — it does nothing but make you feel like a criminal for having a body. Now, if he's choosing a phone over choosing you, that's something for the two of you to discuss. But if you're mad because a man's downstairs office occasionally works without a scheduled meeting — sweetheart, that's not an affair, that's a Tuesday. Y’all’s schedules aren’t going to always line up. The righteous patriarchs used to show up with a whole extra woman for you to find room for at the house. SURPRISE!” 

Dana, losing it, said, “We need a break — we need a break, we'll be right back after this —”

Zeke talked over her seamlessly, straight into the mic, insisting on keeping it tight on business.

“And hey, before y'all go anywhere, we got the food pantry drive this Saturday at the church, two to five, bring canned goods, bring yourself, no judgment, Jesus already paid for whatever you did last night so you can walk right in —

Dana cut to commercial laughing so hard she had to mute herself. Zeke leaned back and cracked his knuckles.

"You are," Dana said, wiping her eyes, "the single most dangerous person I have ever put on this air."

"I prefer 'free,'" Zeke said. "But dangerous works too."

What followed can only be described, in retrospect, as a fifteen-minute stretch during which the station's legal and sales departments experienced two entirely opposite emotions simultaneously. The producer began holding up dry-erase signs with the flat, thousand-yard resolve of a man watching a controlled demolition go slightly uncontrolled. The first read IS THIS LEGAL? HR IS ON LINE 2. Zeke answered a caller's question about polygamy in the patriarchs by pointing out that Jacob's arrangement would today require a different and likely untenable reading of Romans 13. The second sign, held up with both hands like a shield, said DO NOT SAY DONKEY AGAIN, in response to which Zeke — apparently incapable of leaving Ezekiel 23 alone — said donkey again, prompting the third sign, OH NO HE SAID DONKEY AGAIN, held aloft not so much as information, but as a kind of eulogy. Then, a caller wanted to know if tattoos were sin; Zeke explained their equivalence in Leviticus to polyester and shrimp with the calm of a man defusing something. Somewhere around minute eleven, the fourth and final sign went up — SALES DEPARTMENT IS CLAPPING. 

On the next commercial break, Dana said, “I expected some relationship calls, but oral sex...masturbation...donkey anatomy…and Greek verbs?”

"Bible's wild."

"..."

"..."

"The phones have never been busier. I'll mention the food drive again after the next traffic update."

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