What If Jesus Wrote a Letter to the Modern Mainstream Church Denominations? I Wonder What He'd Say?

If Jesus Wrote A Letter To America, I Wonder What He'd Say?

By Rev. Paul J. Bern

If Jesus wrote a letter to America, and particularly its ‘leadership’, I wonder what He would say to us? Would Christ give America two thumbs up for being the richest country in the world, or for having the most powerful military? Would He congratulate us for a job well done when it comes to race relations in our country? Would He praise America's business community for its shrewdness and cunning for shipping all our middle class jobs overseas, leaving its constituency destitute, or in some cases homeless? Or, how about the fact that 1 in 4 US school children goes to bed hungry each night? Would we receive accolades galore? On the contrary – my paraphrased letter would read something like this:

“Woe to you American Christians! You say I'm the "Son of God" and yet you bully the defenseless, shoot unarmed civilians, wage religious wars disguised as anti-terror campaigns, and trample the vulnerable underfoot in my name. Do you not understand the parable of the Good Samaritan? Allow me to refresh your memory using modern English, quoting from the Gospel of Luke:

‘One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: "Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus replied, "What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?" The man answered, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you will live!" The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus then replied with what I'll call a modernized version of the parable of the good Samaritan:

"A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Washington to New York when he was attacked by carjackers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road before driving off in his car. By chance a very religious man came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A rich man walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a Black man came along, one who had just been released from prison, and when he saw the man he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the ex-con soothed his wounds with hydrogen peroxide and bandaged them. Then he used his public transit card and took him by bus to the homeless shelter where he was staying, where he took care of him. The next day he paid for a single night, telling the folks running the shelter, 'Here is the money for a night's stay here. I'm going to work as a day laborer early tomorrow morning, so please take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here.' “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by thugs?" Jesus asked. The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same."

To focus in on the point of this parable from the Book of Luke (see chapter 10, verses 25-37), it was that the theologically correct, ‘evangelical’, ‘born-again’, ‘saved’ person who passed by on the other side of the road when confronted with a human being in dire need. Ditto for the rich man. It was the "unsaved", theologically incorrect, ex-convict that I used in my example (yesterday’s “Samaritans”), who are today's equivalent of agnostics, atheists, Muslims, gay people, minorities, people of color, the unloved and the outcast – it was one of that crowd who stopped and did God's will and took care of that injured man. To put it another way as only Jesus would have, ‘Did you miss the point when I said that those who come to me saying 'Lord, Lord we followed you and believed correctly' are the very ones that I will cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven, since they did not care for the least of my children, the downtrodden, the poor and the oppressed?’

Jesus continues, ‘Didn't you get it when I said that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the humble, and the outcasts; those who mourn and who are poor in spirit? Who do you think will inherit the earth: the wealthy leaders of your colossal mega-churches, or the downtrodden gay people, minorities and people of color, peace activists, “occupiers”, foster kids, ex-cons, the mentally ill, and others who are scorned and mocked by “society”? Whose side do you think God is on: the bullied and outcast or the powerful religious leaders with their false smiles? Who will qualify for calling themselves my sons and daughters: The meek who mourn or the proud who say: 'Lord, I thank you that I'm not like these gay men and women and these illegal immigrants, and these lazy poor people who deserve no health care, and these Muslims?' You hypocrites! Don't you get it?’

‘You say you take everything in the Bible seriously’, Jesus would say to us today, ‘and yet you ignore all the many verses about loving each other, divorce and adultery, and somehow paper that over. Since a majority of America buys into divorce now, does that make the sins of all OK? Not only that, half your pastors and religious leaders are divorced and remarried. But you stick it to gays, the antiwar protesters and minorities because they are easy to pick on while you sit perched in your watchtowers of privilege. Why wax moralistic about one thing that you call sin and yet stick it to minorities? You have forgotten one of the most important, founding precepts of your faith: You haven’t forgiven them and told them to ‘go and sin no more’.

Jesus continues in this hypothetical rant, ‘ Didn't you get it when I said that if you lust in your heart towards a married woman or man that it's the same as committing adultery? You twisted my words to make it seem as if I'm a moralistic "church goer" like you people are, but I intended the exact opposite. What I meant was that since everyone lusts anyway, the difference between how we think and feel regarding temptation and what we do is painfully obvious in terms of how God sees us. The whole point was that we're not to judge other people because we ourselves think the same thoughts. So no one is better than anyone else. Remember what I said in my Sermon on the Mount? “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7, verses 1-2)

All these kinda-Christian judgmental holy rollers are like banks always making a mistake in their own favor. Why do so-called religious conservative Americans always pick on the little guy, the disenfranchised, the handicapped, Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants, women or gay people? Because they are bullies. They are like the Pharisees of old passing by on the other side of the road. They are so sure they're saved because of some nonsense that they were taught in my name. Wrong! You wealthy western Christians utterly deface the name of Christianity with your racism, your economic slavery (capitalism) and your discrimination against women and minorities. And now you're doing it again in your bogus, hypocritical drug war, and in your economic war against the poor and working class people.

Do you think God does not see that your poor people have no health care and die because your greedy (lying) insurance industry and your lobbyists has your so-called ‘Congress’ in their pockets? You hypocrites and liars! You say you're preaching my gospel when my Gospel never was about correct belief or correct behavior. My gospel was about loving God, not judging others, making room for everyone at the table, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. If gays and minorities are your enemy then, as you know, I commanded you to love them. And if they are asking to be allowed to marry I commanded you to give to him who asks of you. Besides, you don't own America. This is a democracy and yours is just one opinion. How did it come to this? Remember what Jesus said about taking the beam out of one’s own eye before removing the splinter from your brother's?

Quit all your worrying about gays and minorities and start worrying about your so-called churches, those ash heaps of stinking bigotry and hate. The way you hated your first Black President is all I need to know about you. So is the fact that your courts dish out life sentences to people who trade in the marijuana plant our heavenly Father created (see Genesis 1, verses 11-13). So stop worrying about other people's "sins" and start worrying about all the lies you are telling your children in my name. And all your talk about patriotism will do you no good unless you love every American as you love yourself – including gay Americans, poor people, the mentally ill, the disenfranchised and yes, women who have abortions and the “illegal” immigrants. And who do you think you are – criminalizing my Father's creations in the first place? They ask mercy of you. Give to them. Or did you miss that part of my teaching too?

You are so religious on Sunday mornings, and yet you all turn into selfish, demonic pigs during the week. So depart from me, come up with a new name for whatever you are, and drop the word "Christ" out of your name. You've destroyed Jesus’, and the church’s, reputation!