“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one,” the lay reader said as she turned to light the solitary candle on the altar. She then turned with a smile, stretched out her hands and spoke once more. “Come on you people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”
For a minute I thought I could smell the faint odor of sandalwood wafting into the church. I fidgeted nervously in my seat, preparing myself for a reading from the Gospel of Janis and a recounting of how Jesus tripped out the four thousand by multiplying their acid tabs and doobies. I looked around at the zombies in their seats, each one riveted to the scene and completely unaware of the pagan doctrine they were hearing. I half expected the organist to break out some Iron Butterfly and take us into a chorus of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.
This actually happened in a Presbyterian church that I visited recently at the request of a friend. I inject humor into the situation even though there is nothing remotely funny about the absurd and perverse. To laugh about it now is probably a knee-jerk defense mechanism akin to going into shock and shutting down my mind to protect my sanity from being shattered. Perhaps the sarcasm is my way of making sense of what I had witnessed. After all, it’s not every day that I can hear the atheistic wisdom of John Lennon in the house of God, creator of all things. Trippy.
As the service went on, and I use the term service very lightly, I’ll admit that I started shaking with anger at how recklessly the word of God was being treated. The misinterpretation of simple verses was more than I could bear and I found myself weighing the pros and cons of standing up and challenging the pastor directly. Had it not been for my friend who had invited me, I would have done it. No question. But the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass him, especially since he had invited me as a guest.
She knew I was there. Of that I have no doubt. As I sat there scrutinizing every word coming out of her mouth, often shaking my head, she got more agitated. The sermon quickly descended into an unhinged and red-faced diatribe on social justice. She railed against those that attend tea party rallies. This pastor was coming completely unglued, fueled by something deeply personal that obviously had nothing to do with scripture. I began to wonder what she was hiding, what sin she was covering up that had made her speech (it had ceased to be a sermon by now) so personal. Not that I cared, I just wanted to know why was she so desperate to make Jesus into Tommy Chong.
So many people seem to be confused about who Jesus really is and what he taught. It’s much easier to project our fallen humanity onto the person of Jesus and try to make him more like us than it is to become more like him. Being more like Jesus involves a serious look inward at ourselves and our actions, putting to death those things in our lives that are contrary to his teachings. It requires being honest with ourselves and putting our lives up against the standard Jesus set in the bible. It requires the admission of biblical sins, however painful or embarrassing, enjoyable, or so deeply ingrained that they don’t seem like sins at all. The bible has a lot to say about us if we have the courage to see it and the obedience to do something about it.
At the Restoring Honor Rally in Washington D.C., Glenn Beck said “If you know who He(God) is, it will be the biggest blessing in your life. But it will also be the biggest curse in your life, because on some things you will then no longer have a choice, because you know what is true, you know who you serve, and you must stand there because you have no other choice”. He’s right. Discovering the true nature of Jesus will force a clear choice to be made. Jesus loves sinners, but not their sin. He never condoned the behavior of a sinner. When he saved the prostitute from being stoned to death, he didn’t say “gee, that was a close one. Be more discreet next time“. He said “Go and sin no more”. The prostitute had an encounter with Jesus, but it didn’t simply end there. She was left with a command and a decision to make. Would she continue her life as a prostitute, or follow Jesus’ command and leave that part of her life behind? While we don’t know which one she chose, a decision was made. An encounter with Jesus forces action. Whether it’s positive or negative is up to us.
The caricature of Jesus today is one of a hipster, a peacenik, a community organizer that not only tolerates sins but tacitly approves of them. Jesus is painted as one that judges no one, offends no one (unless he is a Roman white oppressor or a Jewish religious zealot) and has no interest in politics. He is viewed as a Robin Hood that condones robbing from the rich to give to the poor, and a fierce environmentalist. He is a multi-religionist, tolerant of all beliefs (thinking about this one for any period of time is likely to give you a nosebleed). There is no force of action with this depiction of Jesus, no decision that has to be made on the part of the sinner, which is extremely convenient if you happen to like sin and would rather change societal reaction to that sin than do the internal work to sin no more. Whatever the reason may be to make Jesus more like fallen man, not one of these descriptions of Jesus is accurate. All of them have basis in the flesh of man, not the Word of God.
Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). This is not a sword in the literal sense but the word of God, which will set father against son, mother against daughter. In other words, a decision will have to made to follow that word or not. And that decision will break apart friendships and families. Jesus wants us to love him more than anyone or anything else (Matthew 10:37). If we can’t put him above all else, he says we’re not worthy of him. For those peacenik hippies, that’s some pretty heavy stuff, dude. Maybe Jesus isn’t your homeboy after all.
There is an epidemic today of preachers that have strayed away from the true word of God, much like the one that presided over the circus of foolishness at the Presbyterian church I visited. The church is in a death spiral of apostasy, infiltrated by men and women that pervert the scriptures to achieve their own philosophical ends and further societal “progress“. Thankfully they are fairly easy to spot if you know what to look for. They’re the ones that spend more time commentating from the pulpit than putting their noses in the word of God. They’re the ones that use extensive studies and exhausting resources to explain simple verses because their blindness has made the bible a stumbling block to be overcome. They’re the ones that approach the bible not as humble servants of God but as defense lawyers desperately trying to make their case to the jury. They’re the ones using terms like social justice, class envy, liberation theology, collective salvation and wealth redistribution to steer the church away from the true word of God.
It’s tragic that so many view Jesus as a t-shirt tagline persona, inclined to simply be your ‘homeboy’ and call it a day, but it’s really not surprising why that view is so popular. A new breed of pastor has emerged from the cesspool of political correctness and “tolerance“. This new breed of pastor embraces the fallen nature of man and downplays (softens) scripture to create loopholes for sin. Either in the grip of sin themselves, indoctrinated through sub-standard education and/or corrupted religious institutions, they create a cult-like environment that inspires no elevation to a higher standard. The result is a religion that accepts everything, condemns nothing and ultimately does nothing but lull congregations into apathy while the fabric of society is shredded.
