Jesus and the corrupt official: The storm that greed creates
It was late in the evening when the rain began to fall again, the kind of rain that floods both streets and conscience. Inside his gated house, a government official sat before a half-finished glass of whisky, reviewing the numbers: campaign funds, contracts, and commissions. The sound of thunder mixed with the quiet hum of his air conditioner. He muttered, half in jest, half in guilt, “Lord, forgive me, but this is how things work here.”
Then someone knocked at the door. He opened it, startled, and there stood a man drenched from the storm, barefoot, his robe clinging to his skin. “Peace be with you,” the stranger said, smiling.
“Who are you?” asked the official. “I am the one you pray to before meetings,” the man said. “The one whose name you invoke when you sign the contracts.”
The official froze. “Jesus?”
The man nodded gently. “May I come in?”
They sat across from each other, the official awkwardly offering a towel. Jesus declined. The rain continued outside.
“So,” said Jesus, “tell Me about your work.”
The official laughed nervously. “I serve the people. I build roads, give relief goods during calamities, and even sponsor church repairs.”
Jesus looked at him kindly but said nothing. The silence was unbearable.
“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” the official said quickly. “Everyone does it. The system is broken. I can’t survive in politics if I play it clean. And besides, I give back. I help the poor.”
Jesus took the glass of whisky and stared at it. “You say the system is broken,” He said. “But you build your comfort on the cracks.”
The official frowned. “It’s not that simple, Lord. You’re not from here. This is the Philippines, where honesty gets you nowhere.”
Jesus smiled faintly. “I was from Nazareth,” He said. “We also had our Herods, our Pharisees, our Judas.”
He leaned closer. “Tell Me, when you bow your head in prayer before the cameras, do you speak to Me or to your voters?”
The official looked away. “I’m not a bad person. I just adapt.”
“Adaptation without integrity,” Jesus said, “is corruption baptized as survival.”
The official sighed. “But I built roads, schools, housing projects.”
“And how many bridges collapsed?” Jesus asked. “How many classrooms remain empty because teachers have left for abroad? How many families still wait for homes that exist only on paper?”
The official’s hands trembled. “Lord, please, I’m doing what I can.”
Jesus stood and looked out the window, where floodwaters lapped against the walls. “Every year,” He said softly, “the same floods return, washing away the same villages. You call it a disaster. I call it a revelation. The water rises to expose what greed has buried.”
He turned back to the official. “You pray for protection, but what you need is purification.”
The official was silent.
“You wear my cross,” Jesus said, “but do not carry it. You build chapels in my name, but not justice in my spirit. You call Me Lord, yet you serve Mammon.”
The rain grew heavier. The lights flickered.
“Lord,” the official whispered, “can You still forgive me?”
Jesus placed a hand on his shoulder. “Forgiveness is easy,” He said. “Repentance is harder. To repent is to rebuild what you have broken, to return what you have stolen, to tell the truth even when it costs you everything.”
He paused. “Do you want forgiveness or transformation?”
The official wept. He wanted to believe that tears were enough. But as the water rose outside, he saw his reflection trembling in the glass, a man drowning not in flood but in himself.
When he looked up, Jesus was gone. Only the towel remained, folded neatly on the table.
Outside, the rain finally stopped. But in the silence that followed, the official realized that the storm had only just begun inside him.
Prince Kennex R. Aldama,
aldamaprince@gmail.com
