Jesus Holds a Town Hall Meeting
Jesus had a little sit-down with his disciples. It was story time.
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left."
"Hah! Good place for the goats, on the left!" said Judas. The other disciples told him to shut up.
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
Judas nudged the disciple next to him. "Right, like a king would ever be hungry, sick or naked. They have PEOPLE to do that FOR them." The disciple ignored him as Jesus continued.
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"
Judas stood up and raised his hand. "Whoa there, Jesus. Hold on a second. Who's supposed to PAY for all this food and drink and clothing and medicine? US?"
The other disciples tugged at Judas' robe and told him to sit down. "OK, maybe he'll get to that later," Judas said. "I mean, this GUY and his STORIES!"
Jesus continued.
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'"
"Swell, here it comes," Judas muttered. "The old liberal guilt trip..."
"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Judas jumped to his feet. "What a bunch of socialist CRAP! You want US to give OUR money, OUR food, OUR clothes to these SLACKERS? You want US to pay for HEALTH CARE for people who are obviously too LAZY to get a job like GROWNUPS and pay for their OWN health care?"
The other disciples tried to shush him, but Judas continued.
"I mean, JESUS! Do you realize how HARD we have to work for every shekel and drachma?" He pulled a 20-shekel note from his pocket and waved it at Jesus. "Here, Jesus! You wanna come steal my hard earned money? COME TAKE IT! If these "brothers" of yours -- wink, wink -- had an ounce of GUMPTION or WORK ethic, they'd HAVE their own food, their own drink, their own clothes, their own health care, and they for DAMN sure wouldn't be in PRISON in the FIRST place..."
Jesus held up his hand to silence the uproar and repeated.
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"
"Socialist, Communist, Fascist bullshit," Judas said. "You keep preaching that kind of stuff and watch what happens. Now if you don't mind, there are some folks I gotta see about a job that will pay 30 pieces of silver -- in ACTUAL MONEY that I will EARN! Later, 'Comrades.'"
Judas stalked away towards the high priest's residence.
Jesus wept.
So Jesus was Hitler too, huh? Who'd a thunk?
Great job, DBD
September 6, 2009 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, that silver. Do you have any idea how many christianist mega-churches are teaching "Prosperity Doctrine" now? Yeah, you probably do. Would Christ be weeping?
September 6, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe so, yes.
September 6, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well done.
There are those who wear their "faith" on their sleeves for everyone to see and like to point out the flaws in others. I don't get that.
We should be "subject to one another"
Ephesions 5:21.
There's our universal health care.
September 6, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very good post, and I recommended it.
Please don’t everybody get all bent out of shape about what I’m going to say. I’m with you. I cried when I heard this passage read at Ted Kennedy’s funeral. It always makes me wonder about the Christianity of some Christians.
But... The thing is these conservative Christians don’t usually object to charity. They’re willing to let people make charitable contributions. They won’t object if you donate old clothes. They probably won’t object if you tutor children who need help. They may not object if you set up a soup kitchen or even a homeless shelter (not sure about this one). They just aren’t willing to let the government do anything to help people in need. This is what I have a problem understanding. The government is how a large group of people (a nation) organizes things. Taxes are collected to pay for things the people of the nation need. Laws are enacted and enforced. Services are provided that are better organized and coordinated on a larger scale than a family or neighborhood (fire, police, highway systems, etc.). I just have difficulty understanding where these people draw the line. Fire departments are OK. Police departments are OK. Public highways are OK. Public schools aren’t so OK but may be tolerated. Public health care is completely not OK.
Can anybody explain this to me? What is it that makes government so unacceptable to these people? Where is the line between tolerable government and intolerable government? I just find this so incomprehensible. To me, if you have a problem on a large (national) scale, the government is a logical place to look for a solution. It may not always turn out to be the best place, but it’s at least a logical possibility to look at. At least, to me it is. Otherwise if you want to provide a national solution you’re reinventing the wheel (some kind of national organization); or you’re setting up piecemeal solutions that may turn out to be unfair to people in some parts of the nation. At least the government is in some way responsible to the people of the nation; private organizations are not. We may have imperfect control over our government, but at least there is a legal possibility of control.
I don’t know, sometimes I just feel if I could only understand how these people think maybe it would be possible to figure out a way to communicate with them or work with them. Or maybe not...
September 6, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to broad-brush all conservatives or Christians by any means, but with some of them, their hatred of government is directly proportional to who is running it. Witness a GW Bush town hall meeting.
September 6, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think part of it has to do with the fact that, since the government runs it, there's no chance for preaching. Which often translates into converts, which bring more people to the faith and more to the church coffers. (This only applies to the HC debate.)
The only thing I could think of for things such as the fire department or the police is that those functions either do or potentially could serve the people in question, and they rather don't like the idea of the house they live in burning down due to no firemen to put it out.
September 6, 2009 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The preaching idea is intriguing, I’d never thought of it that way. And your idea about fire and police departments is pretty much the way I’ve been thinking. At first I started thinking that they accepted government entities that protected things (property) but not that protected people. But fire departments also rescue people, and police departments protect people from assault or murder. So it turned out not to be that easy.
(Sorry for the delayed response, library was closed for holiday.)
September 8, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember that they also like to decide who is worthy of charity. These same people who fight against abortion also want to limit public funding to unwed mothers (Mitt Romney); they don't want government funds to go into contraception; they also don't want to help the very unwanted and unplanned children they insist must come into the world with ten strikes against them. Health care for them? "They could have it if they really wanted it."
"Charity begins at home" has a very special meaning for the christianistas. Kinda like Barbara Bush who donated (with a tax deduction for herself) to post-Katrina efforts -- only thing is she stipulated that all of her money had to go to buy educational materials produced by -- wait for it -- Neil Bush, her spawn!
Yes, that is what "charity begins at home" means to these sick bastards.
September 6, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is what I think it is about Lavender Lightning:
History tell us t is about control, social control. It is the oldest conflict in western civilization. The battle between the control of society by the organized religious institutions and the monarchy for ultimate power.
Religion and any hierarchy of elite power are a symbiotic relationship that rise and fall together (they often forget this). The aim is to control a society to protect the religion's and the elite's wealth, power and status.
The Vatican was at the forefront for centuries sitting today on its own city state under a pile of gold in Vatican vaults, flying pedophile priests under diplomatic immunity to the Vatican to avoid prosecution.
Pedophiles and investment banking? The "Institute for Works of Religion" - the Vatican Bank... God's work?
As we moved to universal suffrage and republic forms of government, control is still being sought by elite wealth and power. The church is side by side in the reaction and repression to keep the status quo. The richest 1% and their lackeys and control institutions on top... the rest of us on the bottom getting a few crumbs.
Right wing fundamentalists see this as a sacred and satanic struggle for control. The Falwell and Haggard types want the big money of the government human services programs flowing through their coffers to cement the control.
Local churches and nut ball ministries like Hagee and Haggard see dollar signs and power. Mormons want grants to "help" the needy.
It is all about wealth, power and control...
All the things Jesus preached about right?
September 8, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wonderful Job.
We're just a little over 100 years past the publication of a book by a Baptist minister and Theologian, Walter Rauschenbusch, entitled A Christianity and the Social Crisis. (Yup, there was one back then, too). HarperCollins has recently published a new edition, but the original is online at the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/christianityand01rausgoog
The Table of Contents alone is worth a read:
One hundred and two years old...imagine that. Take a read, maybe. The language is Edwardian, but the thought not too far from modern.
September 6, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
LavenderLightening, your comment is excellent...it's a great explanation of the general liberal position as I finally deducted recently (I've always been a liberal, based on my witnessing of the Civil Rights movement, but I never could explain it well to my kids). Government is us. Government is the way a large group of smart people find methods to solve large problems with group support and contribution. It really doesn't have to do with being a "do-gooder". It is just our philosophy of the best way government should work. Right wingers have made Government sound like an "other". It must be difficult for them to effectively "govern" once they are put in such a position.
September 6, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for the kind words. (Sorry for the delayed response, the library is closed on holidays, catching up today.)
So, if this is the liberal position I guess I need to figure out what the conservative position is. I hadn’t really thought of it as specifically liberal (maybe it just seemed self-evident to a lifelong liberal). My first thought is that our Constitution is then a liberal document - “we the people” form that “more perfect union” and so on. So how would conservatives live with the Constitution? Many of them are so insistent on strict interpretation of the Constitution and so insistent on their constitutional rights.
I haven’t noticed that conservatives have a particular difficulty governing. Myself, if I thought that government was something awful I couldn’t take part in a government. Conservatives don’t seem to see it that way. They just govern their own way. Sort of like people who support states’ rights until a state wants to do something they disapprove of or who don’t want government to interfere in private lives and decisions until it’s something they disapprove of (Terry Schiavo comes to mind here).
Thanks for giving me some things to ponder.
September 8, 2009 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well done!
My query is this...
Where the hell were we when the Republican machine took us to war to KILL?
Democrats are 'trying' to move us toward healthcare for all and people are up in arms...???
War=bad
Healthcare=good
I don't understand why it doesn't make sense.
September 6, 2009 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cannot stop laughing. Be back later. hahhaah
September 7, 2009 3:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Christianity preached by modern day fundamentalists has little in common with the Christianity preached by Jesus Christ.
September 7, 2009 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink