Sock Puppet Jesus

I was in a staff meeting for a secular job once, and our company was exploring ways to help us “get in touch with ourselves spiritually”. An enthusiastic young lady was leading the session. As she began, she asked us to relax, open our palms upward, and try to “center ourselves”.

Already, I’m lost. When you say “center yourself”, all I can think of is the center of me.

Which is my stomach.

Which means you’ve now made me hungry by the power of suggestion. So it’s your fault if my stomach starts growling during your little calming exercise.

I actually should have been offended that they are using a meditation technique uniquely associated with eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. They would have freaked out if I started praying “in Jesus name”, but I’m supposed to sit through them promoting another religion. But instead of being offended, I’m fighting off drowsiness.

What you call “meditating”, I call “a nap”.

Suddenly as I’m trying not to dose off, I’m startled by an odd sound…

“Dooooooooonnnnnng…dooooooonnnnnng…”

I look behind me and the young lady is playing what looks like an old fashioned bedpan. I later discovered it’s actually called a “handpan”. It is a bowl that is covered on the top with metal, with indentions going around its circumference. 

It actually sounds a little like one of those steel drums the guys play on ocean cruises to the Bahamas. I half expected someone to pass a tray of margueritas around the room.

The good news is I kept my job, thanks to the fact no one can see your eyes rolling when your eyelids are shut. But the bad news is a whole lot of junk like that masquerades as being “spiritual” these days. Much of it gets popular when it tells people what they want to hear.

There’s a big temptation when you’re a pastor to “preach to the choir”. Only a masochist wants the congregation mad at him all the time. So you’re tempted to do “feel good” sermons. While there’s nothing wrong in itself with a sermon that makes people happy, people also need to swallow some spiritual vitamin pills occasionally. But lazy pastors avoid that medicine.

For instance, you preach on the wonders of heaven… without ever mentioning who God says will get there, and who won’t. 

You focus on group therapy topics like “Strengthening Relationships” and “5 Steps to Success”. What you don’t preach on is turning from sin, dying to self, or the need for personal holiness. You never leave people feeling they need to let God change their lives. 

But for every comforting passage like “in my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14), there are probably 3 or more passages where Jesus told us we desperately need to change. The same Jesus who said, “Suffer the little children to come to me” also turned over some tables in the Temple when crooked priests were cheating the poor who came to worship God. Jesus loved people, but Jesus could also get angry at people.

Just as much as God is love, He is also holiness.

The greatest verse that speaks of how “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) warns we must believe in Him that we might not “perish”, but have everlasting life. 

You can’t preach heaven and ignore hell.

You can’t preach God’s love and ignore His righteousness and justice.

If you do so in the name of Jesus, you are tacitly telling a lie.

If you wonder why most of the recent polls of self-proclaimed Christians show an amazing ignorance of Biblical teachings, you only need to look to hundreds of “Hallmark Card sermons” that preach only happy thoughts and ignore God’s tough love. And if you want large crowds and lots of money, this is the successful pastor’s “secret sauce”.

To many people Jesus has become a sock puppet they can make say anything they want. They ignore His actual teachings and put whatever words in His mouth that make them feel good.

However, the actual Gospel of Jesus Christ was supposed to be a call to action to save the entire world: 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…” – Matthew 19-20

Instead, we’ve turned it into morphine to make the patient comfortable as the end nears. Too many churches are nothing more than “spiritual hospice care”.

The Apostle Paul bristled at one church that turned away from the true Gospel only to replace it with their own:

“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” – Galatians 1:6-8

But folks don’t like it when you don’t repeat back what they believe is truth. People even got mad at Jesus for not parroting back the teachings they wanted:

“But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; We mourned to you, and you did not lament.’ – Mathew 11:16-17

So here’s the deal, Myrtle. You can believe that when we die, we all get angel’s wings. You can tell folks Jesus taught, “God helps those who help themselves” even though that’s nowhere in the Bible. You can say all religions are simply different paths to get to the same God. And if you want to believe “all dogs go to heaven”, go ahead. That is your right as an American and as a human being.

Just please don’t call what you believe “Christianity”. Because it’s not.

That’s not what Jesus taught, no matter how much we want to hear it. You don’t get to pull His strings, and you don’t get to put your hand where it doesn’t belong and move His mouth to your own words.

Christianity is what Jesus said it is. Only Jesus gets to define it. Anything else, or anything less, is just a bad puppet show.