Moving Towards the Voice of Water

Christ or Christianity?

2012-01-15T10:17:00.003-05:00

I saw this the other day, and I loved it (Why I hate Religion and Love Jesus):

And then Jesus led me to Matthew 23 this morning. It's particularly poignant in the Message version I think.

"I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won't let anyone else in either.(v.13)

These were religious scholars he was talking to- these were the elders of the church, the pastors of the community. The teachers. Everyone looked up to them to point them towards God, and Jesus gives a very lengthy list of why they were doing the opposite:

"You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned...
If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious'? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make...

You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it...

You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee...
People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds...
You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count...."

That's pretty startling coming from God, wouldn't you say? I love Jesus' passion. He is not a quiet, meek and pushover type guy. He is not the guy from those sunday school pictures looking holier-than-thou and eerily calm. He is a charismatic, adventuring, brave, playful, and beautiful God. He's incredibly passionate, about the things that he knows are worth caring about.

The thing he gets most upset about, the thing he keeps trying to drive home throughout his entire ministry is the fact that religion keeps people from knowing God.

That's it.

The thing that angers Jesus throughout his entire ministry is not that people drink too much, that people aren't going to church when they should or creating new programs or choosing Bible college. What makes him angry is the teachers. The religious leaders. The people that should be revealing more of God's heart are keeping everyone from it with their holier-than-thou attitudes and oppressive rules.

Jesus calls them hopeless. And oh, how religion keeps us from the heart of Jesus. It's so much easier to stay safe in our rules of religion: don't drink, don't dance, don't ever stop working at the church, don't wear that outfit.

Jesus came for freedom and freedom only. Freedom for everyone. The religious rulers hated this; hey wanted to maintain their social status as better than everyone.

Does this sound familiar? Doesn't religion divide? Have you read anything political lately? Christianity has been boiled down to a list of rules, and worse even, a list of things God hates. And it keeps people from knowing God.

It's incredibly easy to dismiss God all together when we believe he is a distant, man-made being that has a naughty and nice list and we're certainly on the naughty one. It's also just as easy to miss God's heart when we go to church every Sunday, serve on every board, are involved in every ministry and are certain we are on the nice list.

All of this mess is caused by Religion. You're in and you're out.

Isn't religious zealousness what causes groups of people to terrorize other groups? A sense of entitlement and superiority that leads to such rage it drives people to fly planes into buildings, wave signs that say "God hates....(anything)" or a whole other list of terrible, un-Biblical, un-Godly things with God's name stamped all over it.

These are the things Jesus hates. He creates a weapon and runs yelling through the temple when he sees people making profit off of the suffering and shame of the masses. He yells at the Pharissess that they're keeping people out of heaven. He tears the veil between the holiest place where only the priests were allowed and the rest of the world. He came to destroy religion. To set us free from the things that oppress us, to release us into direct and beautiful connection with a God that adores us; o remove the things that trap us- our guilt, our shame, our fear and our sin.

Religion is as oppressive now as it was then. And he asks us to join him in his fight against it. Accept his offer of freedom, accept his heart, take a risk and follow where he's going. To join him in the battle for others hearts as well. To be his "ambassadors". To love unconditionally, to point people towards Christ and not just Christianity.

Maya Angelou put it like this: