The year of justice is nigh!

Bishop Lazarus

The Bishop lives! Hallelujah!

And so, too, does sungura.

What a holiday!

Sorry, ndakazoenda ndisina kutaura. You see, this world is corrosive, especially for men of the cloth like Bishop Lazi.

You get to meet humanity in its variegated form – from the foolish to the stupid and every psycho in between.

You also get to meet a fair share of decent brethren and share their joys and pains.

As a man of the people, you cry, laugh and suffer with them.

You have to soak in all this like a sponge, and it takes a toll on you.

This is “the reason why” (somehow, I’m no longer able to say this word without thinking of Baba Harare) I often take a sabbatical deep in the mountains to un-soak and un-sponge all these experiences.

You have to start a new year on an equally clean slate, ready to mop-up new experiences.

Well, all said, the Bishop is back.

And he made it just in time for the festivities.

Before we go into this week’s homily, through which I will share with you some of the visions I received at the mountain, I think it will only be fair to give you a snippet of my fun-filled holiday.

Ahhh! Takazipigwa. We had fun.

Unlike most party animals, Bishop Lazi doesn’t revel in gastronomic delights, which, in this part of the world, invariably include unkempt morsels of sadza/rice and chicken.

All he needs is a play list, a good sungura playlist, and he is good to go.

There is nothing so sweet like gospel on a sungura tip.

It is music to the ears. Literally.

Forget Baba Sharo, this year you definitely have to give it to mupfanha wepa Chegutu apa, Obert Chari and the Hakireni Stars.

If you are hearing this name for the first time, chances are you live mutown, kuma yard, and you probably don’t know how the MDC-Alliance lost the elections.

But if you know him, yah, you are probably wekwedu kumajecha, where talent is printed like Zim dollars. You probably are a music connoisseur par excellence. You see, everything in the ghetto is about music. In the morning, unomutswa either by the ever-industrious and itenerant madzimai efloor polish who will be singing their tagline: Cobraaaaa ye reeeeddddd ne blaccck!

Or worse, you are woken from slumber by curiously energetic mahwindi: Heeee town yese, Copacabana iyo!

Its all song everywhere. Kugeza – dzimbo; kutsvaira – dzimbo; parufu – dzimbo; pamuchato – dzimbo. Ahh!

That’s why it is easy to be hooked onto Obert Chari’s “Mebo”.

The rustic and hypnotic feel, the deep and soul-searching lyrics, including the disarming and paralysing simplicity.

Take these lyrics, for example:

Ruzivo rwangu rurimusango; ndaivafudza mombe. . . Mebo. . .Mebo. . . Mebo. . . Mebo

Ndinongokuda wakadaro mufunge (chorus)

Kupfeka kwangu hakuna matchi, ndiri chipfeka bhero

(chorus)

Foni yangu haina app, chimbudzi – meee! meee!

(chorus)

Iyezvino handina changu, ndingori rovha

(chorus)

***

Zvamunoona zvinoita rudo, rudo haruone zvizhinji – moyo wemunhu!

Zvamunoona zvinoita rudo, rudo runobata pasina matchi. . . emeso

Zvamunoona zvinoita rudo, rudo runobhebha, runopfuta parunodziviswa

Va’mana zvinoita rudo, rwakanditora rukanditsweta kusingadzokwe

Pure class! Sungura, just as Bishop Lazi, is definitely still alive. Hallelujah!

Brethren, the year of justice is nigh!

Blessed are those who live within the four corners of the law.

Verily, verily, I say to you for some of you, you will wish you were a simple country boy like Obert Chari, you will regret not living on the straight and narrow, and you will rue your lust for wealth and vanity.

Mark my words! This will come to pass.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirah) Chapter 31 (verses 5 to 8) “No one who loves money can easily avoid sinning, whoever pursues profit will be corrupted by it.

“Gold has been the ruin of many; their coming destruction was self-evident, since it is a snare for those who sacrifice to it and stupid people all get caught in it.

“Happy the rich who is found to be blameless and does not go chasing after gold.”

Cursed are a people who cannot read the signs. They look but cannot see; they listen but do not hear. Hallelujah!

Bishop Lazi is quite troubled by people who say the fight against corruption in this Second Republic is nothing but a charade. They will drive good men to sin and certain perdition.

Being someone generously blessed with bulbous eyes and elephant-sized ears, Bishop Lazi sees and hears things.

The ground is shifting beneath the feet of the wicked.

The Grand Master is working silently and patiently, moving his pieces – as time has taught him – strategically.

Justice, like judgement, will soon come like a thief in the dead of the night.

Matthew 24 (verses 36 to 39) says, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

“For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.”

And so will justice be delivered in our time.

Time is running out for fat boys who use fat cheques to buy fat favours. No pocket will be deep enough to drown the resolve of this State. This time the dragnet will net in all creatures: fat and slim, tall and short, cheetahs and sloths, and animals that roar and whimper.

You see, corruption grows like that huge family tree, or muchakata wekumusha, which has been passed from generation to generation. The year you decide to get rid of it, you have to chop its branches, dig its roots and set them on fire to unclasp their hold. Only after progressively weakening it can you succeed in felling it.

As we speak, the arms of State are at work, cutting, chopping and setting fire on the unwanted tree. The criminal network that had become ubiquitous sehohwa will soon be felled.

Kikiki. Chegore rino.

While at the mountain, the Bishop had a dream of multitudes of wedding guests at the Magistrates’ Court. What is weird is that most of them had dangling, knee-length arms. Arms that probably had their fair share in the public’s cookie jar.

He had this dream again and again.

Well, upon reflecting on this vision, Bishop Lazi remembered that where he comes from, when you dream of a wedding, you expect a funeral, or to put it aptly nhamo. As you all know funeral and nhamo zvakasiyana.

Kuchaita nhamo ne besanwa kumaMagistrates’ Court uko.

Soon and very soon.

Bishop out!