God Can’t Hear You

My family went to church every Sunday when I was a kid. My wife cannot believe this. She’s like, “You went every Sunday?” “Yes.” “What if you were out of town?” I was like, “They have them out of town.” I don’t know if you grew up going to church and now you don’t, but it can be a weird existence. Because I like to make fun of it all day long, but then if someone like Bill Maher says, “Who would believe in a man up in the sky?” I’m like, “My mommy, so shut the fuck up! Stop calling my mommy dumb.” If you grew up going to church and you have adult friends that didn’t, they have a lot of questions. They're like, “Wait, so they forced you to go?” Yeah, I was five, I was forced to go everywhere. No kid is just going to church. Riding by on his Huffy, like, “Whoa! What’s this place? A weird Byzantine temple with green carpeting where everyone has bad breath and I wear clothes that I hate on one of the mornings of my two days off? Let’s do this.” But people get very suspicious. They’re like, “What did they say in there? What do they do? What did they tell you?” I don’t know, it was an hour. That should be the slogan for the Catholic church. “It’s an hour!” It’s a few stories, normally about a guy with a crazy name whose wife has a normal name. “In that town lives Zepheriuses and his wife Rachel.” How come she gets to be Rachel? “On their way to Galilee, Jesus met Enos and Barak and their wives, Kylie and Lauren.” And you’re like, “What? That’s the same joke twice.”

Then there’s the homily. If you’re not Catholic, the homily is when the priest does a book report that is also stand-up comedy. It normally begins with a charming anecdote that is fake and never happened. “A woman was at a shopping mall with her young son.” What was the woman’s name? Hey, Father, what was the name of the shopping mall? Your story doesn’t have a lot of details. You only had a week to work on it and you’ve had the book for 2,000 years. And then there’s some songs normally sung by an usher. One of these ushers that opens the door for you and gives you the pamphlet and they all look like Marco Rubio. That guy will get up and sing into the microphone. He’s not a singer ’cause he’s not good at it. But he tries. He sings the Psalms. Remember the Psalms? They’re not songs ’cause they don’t rhyme and they’re not good. They’re perfectly named, they’re not quite songs, they’re Psalms. It’s a word you’re meant to mishear. “I’m gonna sing a Psalm today.” What’s that? You’re gonna sing a song? “Yeah. It’s a Psalm.” And then these guys get up in front of everyone and they’re like…

[John Mulaney impersonates church singer]
The bread of God is bread
He will bring us bread
No one but the one from Jericho
Can bring bread to bread

And then the guy goes like this. And that means we’re supposed to sing our lines, except we don’t know our lines for shit. Where’s that pamphlet? Where’s that pamphlet they gave us? Move the jackets. Ah-ha-ha!

[John Mulaney impersonates congregation]
The bread of bread is bread
Bread is God is bread

It’s just dads singing so loud, thinking that’ll somehow get their kids to sing.

[John Mulaney continues to impersonate congregation]
Bread is God is bread
Is God is bread
Is God is bread…

“Sing, goddamn it!” My dad once grabbed me by the shirt and lifted me up during church and said, “God can’t hear you.”

Goodnight, New York. Thank you very much.

[Audience Applause]