Jesus was a S&#@ Disturber!

Whether you believe that Jesus was a real man, or a re-incarnation of the myth of Horus, or some sort of hindsight amalgamation, or what have you…. No matter what you believe to be true of Jesus, one thing for sure, HE WAS A S@ DISTURBER!

For the sake of argument, we will assume that the biblical account of his ministry is historical fact. If it wasn't the concepts really, still apply. So let's go with it. Okay? Great!

As to Jesus and S@ disturbing, his favorite people to disturb were the Religious people. Once Jesus began his ministry, the bible only highlights two occasions of him going to what was in his day, the equivalent of what we would call church… a place where likeminded people of the same religious philosophy congregated together to learn the mysteries of God and to be SEEN learning the mysteries of God.

On the first highlighted occasion, Jesus went into his hometown synagogue, proceeded to piss the congregation off to the point that they literally mobbed him, and pushed him out of the door and all the way to the edge of a cliff where they intended to throw him off to his death. Welcome home Jesus! Were he not the person he was, it is likely they would have indeed thrown him over the edge.

On the second highlighted occasion where Jesus went to "church", he went to the temple in Jerusalem. This occasion was my favorite example of Jesus in Church. Some churchgoers are content to sit and listen and to pray. Jesus had other things in mind. He sat in the corner and wove a whip. When he finished, he began cracking it over the heads of the officers of the church and the moneychangers who were profiting from the sale of "clean" sacrificial animals…. Charging more than was necessary, making it harder for would be worshippers to place themselves at the feet of their God in worship. (pretty good system… "Oh.. You can't pay for your sins today… tooooo bad. Maybe try again next week. We'll be here. Buh-bye now")

People ask me why I don't go to church. The reason? If I do, I'm afraid I will have to weave a whip… and well… I'm sort of a coward where getting crucified is concerned. It's more than that though. The reason I am sooooo anti church…. The reason I pick on Christians, is that I think Jesus would have. I don't have to be a "Christian", or to believe that Jesus was a real man or even the son of God to have a great respect for the character represented by him in the Bible. At the end of the day, no matter what my religious conviction I am at LEAST convinced that I should hold Christians accountable to be LIKE Christ if they are going to refer to themselves as his followers.

While it is not true of all, the fact is that MOST religious church going people have not only not read the bible from cover to cover, but they fundamentally miss the irony of passing homeless people whose names they don't know on the way to church. Of course, at church that they can give their 10%, 90% of which is used to keep their buildings and internal programs going, 10% which goes to the organization with which their church is affiliated, and at the end of the day, MAYBE 1% actually goes to feeding the homeless. They lose sight of the fact that the "wino" whose name they don't know does in FACT have a name, and more often than NOT, it's Jesus!

Jesus wasn't found at Sunday and Wednesday prayer meetings. He was too busy visiting the homes of "sinners", having supper with society's outcasts, and calling religious people out for their religiosity. He called them vipers and hypocrites. He spared no opportunity to make a mockery of religiosity and legalism, while he simultaneously spread a single message: "The Kingdom of God is as hand". Modern day people mistake that to mean "the end of the world is near and you better get ready to go to heaven". 2000 years later, I think it can be safely assumed that "at hand meant "REACH OUT AND GRAB IT!". The Bible says that Jesus came that people might have life and have it more abundantly. Yet it does not mention Jesus putting conditions on who can and cannot be a child of his God. In fact, Jesus had no room for centralized hierarchal religious power.

I stay away from church because at the end of the day, I don't see a lot of value in going anywhere that Jesus wouldn't have gone unless he was there to disturb some S@. Paul said "Don't forsake the gathering together of one another." Modern Day Christians think that means going to church. Jesus and HIS disciples hung out together all the time. They just preferred the bar stool to the pew.

To be like Christ, whether you call yourself a Christian or not is to take a look at the character of the man and to emulate it. There is a striking disparity between the Christ of the bible and the church on the corner. There is a striking disparity between Jesus' idea of "gathering together" and that of the church. There is a striking disparity between demanding that people follow a moral code of ethics and pointing the way to relationship with the creator. Christians act like they serve an absent God who needs a few of his kids to look after the class while he's out of the classroom. Jesus served an ever present God who wanted the kid sitting alone in the corner to come over and climb into his lap.

I hope to GOD (no pun intended) that this isn't seen as a sermon, for I am not a Christian. I hope instead that it serves as an explanation for why I personally don't go to church, and don't think anyone else should either…. Unless of course, you are there to disturb some S@!