There was a bishop who really loved golf. Whenever she got a bit stressed, she'd slip off to the golf course for a quick 18 holes. All she could talk about was reducing her score for one particular hole, and it got to the point where she was spending more time on the golf course than with her congregation.
One Easter the archbishop was visiting, and the bishop was getting more and more worried about getting everything right, the bishop's assistant just knew that it was just a matter of time before the bishop slipped off to the golf course on Easter itself.
In her daily prayers, she kept asking God to check the bishop's obsession. On Good Friday she sees the bishop slipping away leaving her work undone and she says to God "Good friday is just too bad, at least make her give up before Sunday", and is startled to hear a booming voice say "Very well, my child, if it means that much to you, I'll take care of it."
She's amazed, and can't resist following the bishop to see what happens. Eventually the bishop reaches the fatal hole, and tees up, and the ball sails into the woods behind the hole, then bounces off a tree, and rolls onto the green and falls into the hole. The bishop jumps up and down with elation.
The assistant is furious. She angrily calls out to the sky "How is a hole-in-one supposed to put her off playing golf? It's just made her more excited than ever!"
A quiet voice in her ear says, "Ah, but wait until she realises. Who can she tell?"
I always make a mental effort to translate jokes to be a bit more balanced. This one wasn't awful to start with, although I didn't think it made a lot of sense. I think it keeps the salient features, although most people don't think much of my versions of jokes, especially when I just explain "from an ethnicity stereotypically known for X" rather than giving an example :)
Examples I consider:
- can the genders be less stereotypical?
- is there an appropriate religion with (a) women bishops and (b) a tradition of praying for specific things?
- is fictional God being vindictive, petty, helpful, humorous, incompetent?
- is there an instigating incident? In many versions of the joke, God is arbitrarily angry about Sabbath-breaking, and St Peter urges him to take action. I think it works a lot better if the sabbath breaking is specified as the culmination of dereliction of duty, and a human prays for intervention.