Matthew 23
So today I was hanging out in Portland. There was this big festival so a bunch of people were out and about. The day was beautiful. Perfect. Then some jerkoff religious nut had to ruin it all. He started going off on this huge diatribe about how awful pastors and priests and elders are. I’m a good Christian dude so I was seriously offended. I also felt bad for the guy. He obviously had a screw loose. Whatever he was, he was viciously angry. I wonder if he knows that anger is consuming. I wonder if he knows that the church should be united. I wonder if he knows that we should love one another. I wonder if he knows that it is sinful to speak out against God’s anointed. It sure didn’t sound like he had gotten the message. The following is what I can recall of his crazy hate-filled speech to the crowd:
Pastors want to tell you what the Bible says, and a lot of what they say is true on a level but you couldn’t tell it from their lives because most of the stuff they talk about they don’t actually do. They weigh their followers down with all these insane rules and ridiculous expectations, but they don’t make any effort to help anyone. At the same time they make it look like they are always helping people. They do things like hand out giant checks to charity on the local news like some corporate America PR stunt, and they do all this because they want people to think they are awesome. They want people to look up to them and follow them and recognize them when they are at the grocery store and tell them how awesome they are and what great examples they are and what powerful teachers they are.
You shouldn’t want people to think you are a great teacher or great example because Jesus is the only teacher and the rest of us are his students, we’re all just brothers and sisters. Seriously, you guys are always talking about the “church fathers” or calling your priests father. God is the only one we should call Father. You want people to see you as a leader? Why? You should know that there is only room for one leader, Jesus. Anyone who thinks they are awesome should be brought down. The way God works is to make the people who think they are awesome look like idiots and people who realize how pathetic they really are he will make strong through himself.
But pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because you keep everyone out of Heaven, the people who are following you, the people who were already on their way in, and even yourselves.
Also pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because you rob widows, and at the same time try to make yourselves look spiritual through fancy prayers and long tiresome sermons. This is just going to make you even more condemned before God.
Also pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because you make such a big deal about missions but the converts you make half way around the world are twice the children of Hell as you are.
You blind “leaders” are screwed because you tell people that the most important thing is giving money to the church. You fools and blind men! Money is worthless unless God chooses to use it!
You also tell people that the offering plate is only worth anything if you fill it with your checks. You blind men, paper checks are worthless unless they are used to serve others in Christ’s love!
So if you write a check to help serve others in Christ’s love, your check is valuable as an expression of that love. If you desire to grow in Christ with your brothers and sisters, no matter where you meet, it is special because of why you are meeting there. The only reason that even Heaven is important is because God is king there. I think you see the theme here!
Also pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because you always drop your check in the offering plate, but somehow miss what actually matters: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these things are the real point! It’s like you blind “leaders” are trying to get a fly out of your soup when there is a huge shit sitting in it!
Also pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because, to make things look good to others, you clean the outside of your cup, but inside it is full of spoiled milk, i.e. robbery and self-indulgence. You blind “leaders”, wouldn’t it make more sense to clean the inside of the cup first, you know, where you drink from, and then worry about the outside?
Also pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because you are like those fancy tombs in the graveyard that have all those cool carvings of angels and flowers and stuff and actually look really awesome, but inside they are full of disgusting rotten corpses. You are just like that; on the outside you look like real good christians, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Also pastors and priests, bullshit artists, you are screwed because you celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and cannot believe that anyone would have been stupid enough to kill the Son of God. You think ‘What a bunch of idiots. If we were around when Jesus was alive we would have followed him, only a complete moron would have killed him!’ But, what you don’t see is that you are just like his killers, so your criticisms of them are criticisms against yourselves! So keep it up, you are just digging your own graves!
You are just another generation in a long line of slithering venomous snakes, so how do you expect not to be damned to Hell? Jesus sends you people to show you the truth so, to shut them up, you kill them, and you torture them (even in your holy churches) and however you can get away with it you generally just persecute them everywhere. Your hands are stained with all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of those you are jealous of, to the blood of those that you killed supposedly in the name of God because they opposed you.
Seriously, you are condemned! You take on the name of his Church and then kill the people who speak the truth! God wanted you to trust him, he wanted you to depend on him, but you didn’t want any part in that. He will destroy everything you have built and the next time you see Christ will be when he is damning you to Hell as you cry out your empty words “BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!”
Finally the cops came and dragged him away for disturbing the peace. Thank God! What anger! What hurtful words! How could anyone speak this way? This is not redeeming. This is not restorative. This was an angry man, spouting off crazy hate, and ruining my, and everyone’s, nice relaxing afternoon. I wonder what Jesus would think of this guy?
