I Love Jesus But Not The Church

It was a west coast preacher by the name of Dan Kimble who wrote a book entitled “They like Jesus but not the church.” He was interviewing millennial's about their thoughts on Jesus and the church. Along with this book, they had research from what was known as the Barna Research Group, which bares out some of the same research that Dan Kimble found with the millennials, the 20-somethings he was working with in his congregation. Upon doing my own research within the Barna Group, and having finished this interesting read, I paraphrased what was discovered when interviewing the young and old, but especially those who were considered to be millennials: that there is a deep disconnection between Jesus, and what the church has been called to do. Everyone that they interviewed agreed that Jesus was perceived one way, but the church is viewed in a totally different light. Jesus has always been viewed as loving, inclusive, compassionate, and a noble leader. An advocate for the poor, homeless, broken and bruised. Jesus is viewed as admirable, affirming, and a paradime to be emulated. Jesus ranks high among young people who don’t even believe in church or Christianity. Whether they’re Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or even Atheist they view Jesus as a positive, progressive, prosthetic person whose influence and teachings will improve the world around us.

What I found to be disturbing and borderline tragic is when the same question is asked about the church you get a completely different answer. When they asked the same millennials what they thought about the church, the answers ranged from judgmental, hateful, racist, homophobic, prone to violence, corruption, and a negative force creating barriers supporting the worst attributes of human nature. Jesus, the son of God, the word that becomes flesh, the incarnational activity of God’s agape is seen as the bright morning star. But the community gathering of people who worship and follow Jesus now have a reputation of being antithetical to the ideals of Jesus. Having read this and standing in front of the church, I must make a confession today. I know that confession can be good for the soul, but it can be bad for your reputation. But I must confess, I was not surprised or taken back by the research or the statement that there’s a huge disconnect between Jesus, and the church. To be completely honest with you, having grown up in the church all my life, I am in complete agreement with the statements that many of these millennials made. How can a preacher, a man of God agree with such egregious claims? Here I am admitting that I love Jesus, but sometimes I can’t stand the church. As an author stated in his book “God’s Graffiti,” he said that “crips have nothing on the church, thugs in the pews, and the gangsters in the pulpit.”

The church should be a place of forgiveness, faith, fidelity. The church is called to be a place of hope, healing and humanity. The church should be a place of laughter, love, and liberation. The church should be a place of power, protection, and prayer. The church should be compassionate, caring, and of comfort. The church should be acceptable, and approachable. But as result of human error, folly, and foolishness, the church has become dissonant, dismissive, anti- revolutionary that does not move in the manner in which Christ has called us to move. But if I may speak on it a little bit more you have to be careful, because there are some people that are in the church but are not in Christ. You have to be careful of the folk who are known as “church folk.” I didn’t say “Christians,” I said “church folk.” There is a difference between church folk and people who You’ve never seen judgment until you’ve been judged by some church folk. They have a unique ability to smile in your face, and rip you apart as soon as you walk away. I’m just talking about church folk. As a matter of fact I went and did some research about the top 10 ten saying that church folk say, and you know they have a knife behind their back. One of the top 10 saying used by church folk is “I prayed whether I should say anything to you.” Another one is “we never did it this way before,” “I prayed over this.” Another one is “I say this in love” or they say “you know I love you.” The most famous church quote of them all “I’m not trying to get in your business.” (You know these church folks.) Church folk are a trip. There is nobody like them, their love always has a conjunction. Church folk have the distinct honor of running more people away from Jesus than anyone in history. I have no data to prove it, but growing up in the church, being an adopted pk, I have seen it with my own two eyes that the self-proclaimed church folk have ran a great deal of people away from the church. I also believe that there are many people who have been hurt by church folk but deeply love Jesus. While I do not have time to explore the entire church history, I do want to lift a few things that we see in this text, and I will take my seat. Jesus, if you look in the book of Mark the 11th chapter, and Jesus has had several conflicts with church folks as he has been marching his way to Calvary. You all remember that Jesus had a conflict in the Synagogue because he was healing somebody and they said “you’re healing on the wrong day.” They told Jesus if he wanted to heal, don’t do it during worship. If you want to heal go ahead on Friday or Sunday, but please don’t do it on the Sabbath. Anytime Jesus has a conflict there are church folk involved, there are religious scholars who don’t like the fact that he’s doing what he was called to do. I think that we can all stop right through here and testify that even today we have people that hate on us for simply doing the work that we have been called to do. I also want to encourage you. “Keep on going, cause haters gone hate.” Jesus was doing the work that he was called to do. When we move to the 11th chapter you will see historically what has happen here.

According to a theologian, Jesus was operating like a Navy Seal. He is moving into a territory that nobody expects him to move. Because it is the Synagogue that has been taking over by Rome. The reason that it has been taken over by Rome is because several years ago there was a fight between two groups of people known as the Maccabees and those who were Persians. As a result of that they made sure there would be no revolutions in the church. The revolution started in the worship center. So it was Rome that figured out that in order for us to make sure there is no revolution in the church we will pay off the preachers, and buy them out so they will preach what we want them to preach. They will preach on the personal but never on the prosthetic. They will tell you that you’ll get your house next week, they will tell you to spin around 3 time and you will be loose, they will tell you that all you have to do is catch me in 3 days, but they will not tell you about the poverty, racism, and problems that are happening in the world. The moment that begin to speak about that they would be speaking against the emperor Cesar, and according to Roman theology Cesar is God. If you speak against God, then therefore I must kill you as someone who speaks against Cesar. So, in this particular text you must understand that the synagogue is under Roman control. They had to be sure that everything they said was approved by Roman authority. They did not have the space to say what they wanted to say to the people, they just had to say a message to the people that made them feel good not necessarily do good. So here comes Jesus. Jesus who is on a journey, has just left Bethany and Bethpage which are 2 poor communities on the outer parts of Jerusalem. Now Jesus has made his way into Jerusalem. Read the entire 11th chapter. Bethany and Bethpage are poor communities, and then he goes into the busway network of Jerusalem. Before he makes his way in the busway community, he deals with the poorest of the poor as he is making his way to Calvary. Now, here He is in the 11th chapter, and a conflict happens as a result of religious leaders who have now taken over the church. What I see here is Jesus is trying to let us know that the church is the problem, but it is also the solution. See we are our worst enemies, and we are our best hope. At the worst we are irrelevant, foolish, and petty. At best we are transformative, loving, and liberating. Over my life I’ve seen the church at her worst. I’ve seen her scrape the depths of depression, and brush up against the walls of human cruelty, whether in sexism, racism or just being petty. In the same manner, the church can do some great work. The church is the place where there were 326 slave revolts, 321 of them started in church. Out of the 106 HBCU’s, 101 of them were started in the church. I think some of you know what the church means to you. You can testify to the fact that you would’ve lost your mind had it not been for somebody in the church. When you were about to give up on everything somebody called you at the right time and said “baby I’m praying for you.” “Hold on a little while longer” or “don’t throw in the towel just yet.” I want to encourage you and let you know that God has his hands on you. If we did not have the church as a community we would not be where we are as a community, because it was the church that was fighting our battles. Doesn’t matter if it was from Jim Crowe or even in the so called post racial experience of today, it is still the church that is lifting up the blood stained banner of Jesus, and being prosthetic and speaking on behalf of those who are hurting and poor. I’m glad that the church is still the church. We may not be perfect, but we serve a perfect God. When the church connects with the power of Jesus the church can do some amazing things. I don’t know if there’s anyone in here that has ever had an experience within the church that you’ve met someone who knew Jesus in the church, and because of their relationship it kept you on the path. Because of their relationship you were able to get through your troubles. As a matter of fact, the real reason that many of us are even sane today is because somebody prayed for you, and I bet you didn’t even know they were praying for you. When they had you on their mind in the middle of the night when you were wherever you were, all hell was about to break loose, and you were acting a fool all over town. I’m glad that we had sisters and mothers in the church who were about 80 years old would come to the church on Tuesday night just to lift up your name. I’m glad we had deacons who would sing songs that didn’t know what they were singing, all we knew is they were singing praises unto God with a common need of him. I’m glad we had people that recognized the power within the church. There is power in the church, and here in this particular text you know that Jesus is upset. He comes into his house, and when he comes in he sees that there are people who are making money in his house. Jesus sees this, and now he is upset with the church. He is upset not because he dislikes the church, but because he loves the church. You’re not that passionate about something or someone unless you have deep feelings about them.

So, Jesus is upset at this moment, and watch what Jesus does. I like what he does right through here. Jesus walks in see’s what’s taking place, and decides to turn over some tables. When he flips over the tables he gets everybody’s attention, and says “Look here, you’re in my house, and you’ve turned my house into a din of faves. Here you are selling stuff in my house.” What the text is trying to tell us is that sometimes our ministry has been replaced with a market mentality. Whenever you have a ministry that’s replaced with a market mentality you lose your Holy Spirit power to do transformative work within the community that God has placed you. Walk with me for a moment, if the Holy Spirit will allow it. Here in this text you will notice that Jesus is in the temple, and people are making money in this temple. It says here in the text that there are people who are money changers, and people who are pigeon merchants or dove merchants depending upon your translation. What dove merchants simply means is if you didn’t have enough money to be able to bring something to the temple for sacrifice you could always find a pigeon. You could find a pigeon just about anywhere. So poor people would bring a pigeon to the temple. But wait a minute, there are people selling pigeons. You can find a pigeon anywhere, but they’re selling pigeons to the poorest of the poor. BUT, it has a pigeon interest rate connected to it. This pigeon interest rate is higher than any other rate. So, now you’re indebted to the individual. Now, if you were a woman, and you did not have a family, meaning you were a widow then you had to go to this gentleman, and you may not have enough money. He would give you this pigeon, but you had to pay him not with money, but with other things (going to go over somebodies head). Here it is, you have people in the church who are exploiting those people who were in need, and Jesus wanted to get the pigeon merchants out of the church. The funny thing is it doesn’t stop there. Not only did you have pigeon merchants in the church, you also had money changers. Those are the people who would take Palestinian coins, and they would make them into Roman coins, but they always want to charge you a high interest rate when you want to make the change. Because you don’t have enough money for a bank, so therefore you go to a check exchange place so that you can change your money. So there were check exchange people who literally within the church. Let me try to make it plain. Here you have pigeon merchants who have these pigeon loans. You have these money changers who with these high interest rates. If you didn’t pay your money you ended up going to jail. So the pigeon merchants and check exchange people were connected to incarceration within the community. The reason people were going to jail is because they were making money off of these “poor colored people” who did not have enough money to be able to have a public defense, so therefore they were putting them in jail (went over your head). I’m here to let you know that there are people who are making money in our community. We have pigeon merchants, there are money exchangers, and they are making money in our community. When we cannot pay, we end up in jail. Not because necessarily they’ve committed a crime, but the most people who go to jail is based upon their income, and also their educational attainment because of the war on drugs. The war on drugs started under the Regan administration. If you were caught selling crack you went to jail for 5 years. If you had 500 grams of powdered cocaine you were given 6 months’ probation. (Let me drop a nugget) People on Wall Street used cocaine, while people in the poor used crack. What it is, it’s not a war on drugs. It’s a war on black, brown, and poor people. My point is, the church has to open up her mouth, and let everybody know that all of God’s people deserve a fair shake.

SO, JESUS..HES UPSET. They have turned the church into a place to make money. They have the latest outfits, and they are preaching in LA, and they’re having a good time. Jesus is mad that now they are making money in the church when they should be serving the poor. As a result of this something happens, and it’s so amazing. Jesus says “wait a minute. Because I love the church so much, I want to see the church be the church that it’s supposed to be. So since it’s messed up I’ve got to do an extreme makeover, and do some renovations.” That’s why he kicks over a table because sometimes you’ve got to turn over some stuff if you want to change some stuff. You can’t keep everything the same. You’re going to have to turn over a table or 2 if you want to change something in your life, and in your community. Don’t look at me funny, because your mama kicked over a few tables with a switch to turn you butt around. You have to kick over a few things. So he does a radicle renovation. I’m going to turn over the tables. None of y’all can bring them dove and sell stuff. Give me your checks books, and things because this is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations. (You missed it) For ALL NATIONS. This is not an exclusive club for a few people. This is a house of prayer for all nations. As a matter, there ought to be a special seat for the poorest of the poor. For those who are vulnerable, because the last shall be 1st, and the 1st shall be last. Somebody is still missing what I’m saying. Jesus was radically renovating the church, and there is a gentleman in Philadelphia by the name of Shane Claiborne who understands this idea deeply. Shane Claiborne grew up in Tennessee as a Pentecostal, and graduated from Eastern Baptist Seminary. He came up under teaching of a man by the name of Dr. Tony Campolo. Working with Dr. Campolo, he realized that having a relationship with Jesus isn’t always about your personal relationship with Jesus. It’s also about how you live that personal relationship in relation to other people. So after Shane graduated instead of starting a church he decided to move into a poor community in Philadelphia. This young man being from being from Tennessee, not looking like anybody from the community he moved into started a radical renovation. He decided that he would start a program that served young people in the community. They became mentors to these young people, made sure they stayed away from gangs, and started a homeless ministry in conjunction with a Pentecostal church on the corner. They took over an old building, and decided that they would turn that building into a homeless shelter. They had over 35 families who had a roof over their head. They thought they were doing the work of the Lord. Wasn’t until the city came by and notified them that they had passed an ordinance in city hall that says “You cannot build a homeless shelter unless you have a unanimous vote from the city council to say that you can do it.” Effectively they were shutting down the shelter because there were some developers that wanted to come and buy the land. As I mentioned, Shane Claiborne was working with some Pentecostals. You don’t mess with Pentecostals because Pentecostals know how to pray. The sisters in the prayer group of that Pentecostal church said “that’s alright, they can say whatever they want. But we are going to start and go into a season of prayer. We’re going to fast and pray, and we gone pray and fast. And God’s gone give us an answer, and work this thing out.” So prayed and fasted for 24 hours every day. They were passing it over to someone else, and they would come out on Wednesday. Shane Claiborne and the rest of the community would ask them “Did the Lord speak?” The sister would say “Not Yet.” And they would go back on in, and start praying and praying. Next Wednesday a sister would come waddling out about 89 years old, and Shane Claiborne would say “Did the Lord speak yet?” She said “Nu uh, Not yet.” And they would go back inside another week. One time a sister came out. The eldest sister came out and said “THE LORD HAS SPOEKN TO US!” Shane Claiborne said “Well, what did the Lord say?” The sister said “The Lord said this is what we’re called to do. They said we can’t have a homeless shelter. That’s fine, but God just told us that we should turn the homeless shelter into a church. Because they can’t shut down a church. Anybody can set up a church. This will just be a 24 hour/7 day a week church. Where we live in the church, where we serve in the church. And so to this day, that church is still feeding, and serving homeless families. I’m telling you when you renovate the church God will do great things. God will turn it around. This will be a house of prayer for all nations. But as this happened, and it always happens. When you have radicle renovation be ready for a ruthless reaction. There are always people that don’t like things turned over. They want to keep everything the way it’s been because they can’t handle the changes. Sometimes the change means they are no longer in power. The real issue they have is power. Not anything else, but the power. So when I looked at this it says they were looking for a way to kill Jesus. They started plotting with other people to kill Jesus. Watch this, they were plotting with other preachers, and other religious scholars. The people who should be supporting Jesus are the people who are plotting on Jesus, why? Because Jesus is messing with their money. As a result of this they are plotting against Jesus, but they are afraid to do anything. Why? Because the people are following Jesus. The church has been turned around, and the people can now say I remember when I could not see. But I met a man named Jesus who allowed me to see, and now I can be productive in my community. I remember when I couldn’t walk. But then, I met a man by the name of Jesus, and he took me from a place where I could not walk, to where I can walk now. As I try to close today, I recognize what the church is supposed to be. This is what God said. The church should be a house of prayer, a home of hope, a citadel of compassion, a haven for the hurting, a hospital for the sick, a refuge for the ruined, an abode for the broken, an inn for the injured, a residence for the rejected, a domicile for the dejected, a mansion for the mane, a roost for the renewed, a habitat for the homeless. When the church connects to Jesus it can do something ridiculously amazing. I’m in my seat but I have 1 question for you. What side of the church are you sitting on? Remember what the bible says. “If my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves, pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” I don’t know about you, but I want Jesus to heal this land. I want Jesus to stop by the church and do a radicle renovation where he flips the church every way but loose, and the “church folk” wither away, and the “Christian” in us all come on out. Then our walk will be different, our talk will be different, our way of thinking will be different, our love for one another will be different, our ministry will be different. How do we get there? How do we get to the right side of the church? How do we get this radicle renovation in our heart? In our minds? In our living? In our giving? In our service? You got to put your hands in the hands of 3 people. When you put your hands in the hands of these 3 people something will happen on the inside. If you put your hand in their hand. 1’s called the Father. 1’s called the Son, and 1’s called Holy Ghost. They will change what happens on the inside.