You Will Know

Back a few years ago, a news story appeared regarding a lawsuit between Phillip Busch and the tele-evangelist Pat Robertson. Mr. Busch asserts that Pat Robertson used his image in the promotion of his protein shake without his permission. Busch had contacted Robertson’s show and informed them that he had lost 200 pounds using the protein shake. CBN used his before and after pictures some twenty times on the air to promote the shake. Busch claims he was not informed his images would be used and was not compensated by Robertson for their use. So Busch filed suit. According to Busch, when Robertson entered an office for a deposition prior to the trial, he threatened him saying, “I am going to kill you and your family.” Robertson denies making the threat, but it is not the first time he has been accused of threatening someone. A former business partner claims that Robertson threatened him as well back in 1997.

When I look at the actions of some of the people who claim to be followers of Jesus it is easy to understand why there are so many people who do not accept the message. Some of Jesus’ followers seem to be kind of insane. I recently saw the documentary “Jesus Camp”. This film documents how the children of some “born again” Christians are indoctrinated (translate brainwashed). Most of these kids are home schooled in order to keep them away from dangerous outside influences. I watched as a mother explained to her young son that creationism is the only doctrine that answers all the questions.

And that’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t that why some people like religion? It answers all the questions. Some folks can’t stand to have unanswered questions. And that’s the thing about religion. It can answer all the questions. There’s no need to think about anything. All the rules are clearly delineated. All the rights. All the wrongs. Every sin is neatly outlined. Every question is neatly answered…unless you choose to dig a little. And that’s where most dogma breaks down. As soon as you start asking questions about issues of faith, things can quickly fall apart. That’s why so many religious people refuse to allow any questioning of their faiths.

This was the world into which Jesus was born. There were so many laws. There were all so confusing. How much work CAN you do on the Sabbath? How far CAN you travel? Is it okay to do this? Would that be a sin? Will God be angry at me if I do business with a gentile? And the priests of the temple had an answer for everything. They had answered all these questions so neatly that it was possible for a person to live his or her life in complete accordance with all the laws and never give one thought to God or to any other person. Just like today. Look at all the “good” Christian people who go to church each and every Sunday, and then treat every person in their lives like crap all the rest of the week.

This is why I always tell people to quit religion and go back to God. Because the truth is that there is a big difference between the message and what people have done with the message. Religion is very complicated, filled with very complicated rituals and very complicated theology. People, over the course of the past two thousand years, have taken those few words that we have from Jesus and turned them into a college curriculum. And after dissecting every passage from the Bible, in original Greek and Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, they have managed to move far away from the original meaning of those words.

Jesus told us to do two things, love God and love one another. That’s it. Two things. He never outlined a list of ceremonies or rituals. He didn’t give us the answers to every question we might ask. There is only one answer that really matters. How does one be in harmony with the universe, the Tao. How do you attain perfect balance? How do you find that center? Nothing else is really important. We all want to be happy, and the way to happiness lies in that middle path. And we find that path in those two simple instructions. Love God and one another.

Jesus told his students that he had some advice for them before he left, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So THAT’S how you know if someone is a Christian. Well if that’s the case there are a hulluva lot of people who claim to be Christians who obviously aren’t what they claim to be.

All you have to do is look around and see how people behave to know that. Clearly, all those people in Northern Ireland who have been killing each other for the past 700 years have missed that little commandment somewhere along the way. Either that, or they have a funny way of showing how much they love one another. The crusaders showed a lot of love when they slaughtered all those Muslims a few centuries ago. And our dear president, Mr. Bush, who claims to be a born again Christian, when he made that pre-emptive strike on Iraq, clearly missed the point of that instruction.

It’s easy to point out people that fail to live up to the message of Jesus. The truth is nobody can live up to that message all the time. Some of us try, but even the best of us fail time and time again. That’s why you don’t judge the faith by its followers. Look to the message. People make the same mistake when look at the followers of Mohammed. Islam is not a violent religion. The concept of Jihad refers to the struggle within each individual to do what is pleasing to Allah. And what is pleasing to Allah? To love God and to love one another.

It’s easy to get bogged down by a lot of rules and regulations, rituals and dogma, and it’s easy to let those rules and regulations, rituals and dogma push you away. Jesus told people specifically “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He didn’t talk about a lot of rules and regulations. He didn’t talk about rituals or dogma. He said love one another. And that is a tall order. Love each other as he loved us. He died for us. Whether or not you believe that was a divine requirement or not, it’s clear that Jesus believed he was dying for us. That’s how much he loved humanity. And that is what he said was the secret of a happy life. Love on another. That’s it. That’s how you know his followers.

There will always be some people who like rules. They want clear and simple instructions for salvation. If they could, they would download the directions to Nirvana from Mapquest. It’s a lot easier when you don’t have to think about things, when you let people tell you what to do and believe. Jesus understood this too. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to love people. It doesn’t take a lot of thought to serve people. Is this guy hungry? Yes? Then feed him. That seems pretty simple.

Both Jesus and Siddartha knew there are a lot of questions to which we can never know the answer. And there are some concepts we could never understand because those concepts are far beyond our ability to comprehend. We will probably never know exactly how people came to be for sure. We can only guess at the history of the world before we came on the scene. And why a creative force and power in the universe does anything will probably always be a mystery. And what have those questions really have to do with the big question anyway? Somewhere, deep in our chests, there is an empty feeling, a desire. We want something. We spend our whole lives trying to figure out what it is. We try to fill it with everything under the sun. We try romance, drugs, sex, alcohol, money, power, art, friendship, and in some cases compulsive hand washing. And in the end, none of that seems to fill that empty space. And I suspect that even finding all the answers to those questions wouldn’t fill that space either. The only thing that will fill that space is love. John Lennon was right. Love is all you need.

So pay no attention to all those people who claim to be Christians and then fail to behave in a very Christian way. The truth is, if you look close, most of us are poor ambassadors of the church, even the best of us. And based on what Jesus said, a lot of people who are those most Christian are not Christian at all, Ghandi, for example. The best thing is to pay attention to the message. It’s easy to find fault in the various churches. It’s difficult to find fault in the message. Love one another.