An(other) Open Letter To A preacher

March 2, 1997

frank, frank,

        My dear, willful, disobedient child...

	I really thought, last week, watching the church services,
that there was hope for you and the church you represent, that
group of people who mostly do believe in their feeble way
that there is a God, that group of people who make up what you
so often and happily and proudly refer to as "the body of Christ".

	Now, having suffered through your sermon today, I feel
compelled  to write again, to point out the error of your ways.

	Since you didn't respond to my letter dated February 17th,
I am not really expecting a response to this one; for that reason
I won't be waiting a week for your reply before posting this to
the Internet. Still, of course, it is not merely your privilege to
respond to this based on my largess, but your duty as such a
highly-ranked representative of this organization which claims 
to be the body of Christ to respond to what constitutes, anyone
would have to agree, a reasoned, logical, (spiritually-based,
though I can only claim this in the same manner you do, hence
I make no claims) explanation and exploration of what constitutes
the amazingly complicated mass/mess that is God's word to us.

	I found the choice of songs in the service interesting;
"we will love the king of kings" and Praisong, which went 
something like "the mission's still the same, proclaiming the
truth in Jesus' name". I still maintain that you know nothing about
love and less about grace; to that short list I now will add that the
truth eludes you enormously. (click here to see Open Letter #1)

	"SAFELY HOME" you humbly proclaimed in all caps on
the screen as the title of your sermon. John 10:27-30 was the
scripture you read; I'm starting a little earlier:
24  Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make 
    us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
25  Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do 
    in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
26  But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28  And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall 
    any man pluck them out of my hand.
29  My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able 
    to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
30  I and my Father are one.
31  Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
     (emphasis mine) 

	You missed the main truth of His sheep pen parable,
and instead worked hard at driving home the point that the
people in the audience who were "members of the church"
are in fact His sheep. This is a strong delusion, the product
of ordinary mind ("ordinary mind is the enemy", frank,
ordinary mind is the devil himself), and you do yourself
and the members of the church a great misservice in
trying to further this delusion. The main truth illustrated
by His parable of the sheep simply is that the members of
"the body of God", the organized religion of the day, the
Jews (of which Jesus was counted a member) did not
believe Him because they were not His sheep; the lesson
to be gleaned from this parable I will leave to your
discussion group, frank.

	The scripture reading for the service was in John
15, verses 9-17; I finish a little late:
 9  As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept 
    my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
11  These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, 
    and that your joy might be full.
12  This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14  Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
15  Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not 
    what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I 
    have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
16  Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, 
    that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: 
    that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
17  These things I command you, that ye love one another.
18  If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19  If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because 
    ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, 
    therefore the world hateth you.(emphasis mine)

     Love one another, frank, and there's nothing more
important in the sheep pen that is the world than the sheep.
(You hammered this point home hard, frank, about how
important the sheep are. Remember?) Okay, so that's a couple
of things that we can learn from your service today. 
And what do we do with the knowledge?, is the question
you should ask. We see that Mexican children who get an
egg a week to go with their beans and tortillas no longer
are considered "fortunate". Really you do strain at gnats
and swallow camels; apparently you don't believe the truth
when you hear it because you don't hear it because you are
not of God. (It grieves me to say this, frank, and I really 
mean that.)

	You obviously overlook that this passage in John 15
was spoken to His disciples, not to the members of the
(organized?) church, and you probably have to swallow a
camel to reconcile verses 18 and 19; in the eyes of the
world your congregation is fat and happy and, yes, proud.
("Now we call the proud happy" is an Old Testament 
proverb that might be in Isaiah from which you might 
learn something if you had any spiritual discernment in
you.) I am talking successful, well-dressed, educated,
nice cars (no wonder you have to have guards in the
parking lots), beautiful homes. The self-esteem is enough
to take my breath away, frank.

	"Do you see yourself as belonging to the Lord?",
you asked. Do you know you'd go to heaven if you died
today was the focus of the sermon, and you tossed around
words like faith and believe like you know what they're all
about. "The faith of a grain of mustard seed" was His standard,
His parable to the world, His acknowledgment that He just
didn't see any saving faith around. And that's what I see.

	His sheep are dependable and teachable, you said;
others will seek their own will. And right after that you
had the audacity to throw out II Corinthians 5:17 to your
(humble, willing, learning, obedient [NOT]) congregation;
"new creatures" in Christ . . . SHOW THEM TO ME frank.
Show me people with enough love for their neighbors 
that they are willing to commit, to take a stand, to 
sacrifice, to band together and work for change. I just
don't see them in your congregation. Ask me about the
Sunday school class I've been attending, and what kind of
faith and love and devotion I see. I see people so deluded
that they can cry about their humility and think that makes
them humble. I see people who give large sums of money
to what they hope (and, yes, believe and know) to be a 
worthy cause and then go eat at a fancy restaurant in their
fancy new cars and go home to their fancy houses and 
pray to their god in gratitude for all he has done for them
and it's all empty and abomination because we don't
care enough to try and change things.

	Yes, I'm including myself in your group, frank.
I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to speak the
truth as I see it. I guess time will tell who's right and who's
wrong, but I'm through trying; from now on it's all rhetoric.

	How anxious are you to hear Jesus' voice?, you asked.
How anxious to obey? "I think you are, or you wouldn't be
here," you answered for that (humble, willing, obedient [NOT])
audience. Jesus had hard sayings, frank, and He asks a lot of
His sheep. If you were one of  them, you would realize this.
"We're here to listen to what Jesus said," you said; the sad
thing is that you don't realize that you don't really hear it.

	I made a lot of notes today, because you got a lot
of things wrong. Maybe later I'll continue this.

	My prayer (the effectual, fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much, frank; the Bible tells us that;
only it also says there is none righteous, no, not one) for
you and everyone caught in the devil's trap of ordinary
mind is that you might renew your mind and be transformed
like Romans 12:2 says; and that you might prove that
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God of which
that verse speaks. 

	You said at the end of your sermon that Jesus always
gave people the opportunity to respond to what He said; I'd
appreciate you giving me the opportunity to respond to what
you say the next time I'm at church. You see, frank, I 
realize that you think you know me; I'm giving you free
access to my pulpit, and it seems only right that you
reciprocate.

	In Christian love.

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