Christian Living

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It’s My Party
by Patricia Backora, author of: Tough Love in Christ’s Millennium
order online from: http://www.publishamerica.com

Jesus was beginning to feel like an outsider at this particular church. But His main concern was the oppressed minority out in the pews. A huge man in a gray suit was wrapping up a heated sermon about civic duty and freedom.

“Come up front and repent of being a liberal jackass,” he put it bluntly. “Any bleeding-heart liberal can bray peace and love and gobble granola for breakfast every morning. Be a real man. Talk tough like a man. Eat sausage and bacon for breakfast, right in front of your liberal son-in-law who campaigns against the war. Have a triple bypass cheeseburger for lunch. Eat a rare steak for supper, not tofu. Those fake veggie meat substitutes were invented by the devil to weaken Christians so they can’t fend him off.

“Don’t listen to them dumb donkeys and don’t be one of the pinkos who vote for them. lf God hadn’t meant for animals to be eaten, He never would have made them out of meat. Join this holy crusade for freedom from taxation and big government. The Lord needs red-blooded men and women in the church of Jesus Christ, not limp-wristed sob sisters who want to give a handout to every lazy wino on every street corner. It’s satan’s business to confiscate wealth from sharp-suited businessmen who have fought hard to claw their way to the top. If you see anybody out there in the gutter, it’s their own fault for being there. Only left-wing commies dole out free food to lazy bums who won’t work for it. God prospers His own, and if those bums had learned the ABC’s of Prosperity He would have lifted them up from their dunghill and set them among princes, as the Scripture promises. And who are God’s princes, but us?” Pastor Green pointed at himself.

“We are a nation at war, and satan’s people are out to destroy us. If any of you dare to question the course our leader has taken, let him or her come up front to repent of their rebellion. A few dissidents moan about all the collateral damage that’s been bombed, and the fact no WMD were ever found in their heathen land. A few towel-heads have been nabbed in their own country and detained in POW camps without charge or access to legal counsel, and those bleeding heart liberals moan about it, but that’s the price we have to pay to protect our own liberties. But why make a mountain out of a molehill? Remember, ours is not to question why. Ours is to obey and submit to earthly authority at all times, as the Scripture admonishes us.”

He beckoned to a woman sitting on the front row. “Becky, please play Onward Christian Soldiers. Now I’m gonna give you guys one last chance to purge out the rebels from among you. If you’re a Peoplecrat you can’t be a Christian. All those who have voted for the Peoplecrats or belong to their party come forward and confess this sin to the Lord. Then go out and register with the Plutocratic Party. Everyone in their right mind knows Jesus would be a Plutocrat if He were here among us, and He would have the bank account and gun rack to prove it.”

As the age-old hymn groaned out of the organ, two older men went forward and solemnly tore their party registration cards up. But Bud Bolger, a college student, sprang out of his pew and hurried to the altar, shouting: “Yes, we have sinned! All of us! And that sin is laziness!”

Pastor Green was mighty pleased. “What a wonderful young man we have here. Bud, it takes a lotta guts to admit you’ve been a lazy liberal who lobbies for bigger welfare programs and rebels against authority.”

“No, Brother Green, our biggest sin is this: Instead of digging into the Word of God to find out for ourselves what Jesus is truly like, we’ve let YOU tell us what to think and how to see others! Jesus said: Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, but sell all you’ve got and give it to the poor! That’s about as liberal as you can get! All the rest of us Peoplecrats are here, but where’s Jesus? He runs the biggest welfare program in the universe. He feeds the birds and clothes the lilies free of charge, and what’s more, He said, why won’t the Father feed us too, if we’re so much more important than the birds of the air? Peoplecrats feed homeless people in the park and Jesus fed a big crowd a free lunch of loaves and fishes, so Jesus must be a Peoplecrat too!”

“Blasphemy!” cried the local Plutocratic Party chairman. “You can’t call Jesus a left-winger! That’s the same as calling Jesus an abortionist, or, worse yet, a Communist!”

“All right,” said Bud, as a large deacon stepped in to referee and give each man a chance to speak clearly.“Two can play at that game. If you insist Jesus is a Plutocrat, why don’t you follow the same biased logic you did when you said it was a left-wing commie thing to feed the poor, which is exactly what Jesus did? The Nazis were right-wingers, only even more so than you. That’s what my history book said!”

“That’s the unpardonable sin!” one man hollered. “Calling us Nazis and Jesus one too!”

“I did no such thing!” retorted Bud. “You called us Communists because we hand out free food to those who didn’t work to earn it, so it follows that you’re calling Jesus one too because He did the very same thing! What’s more, my Bible says in I Corinthians 6:17 that if you are joined to the Lord you are one Spirit with him. You, Brother Green, are throwing out some good Christians who love Jesus with all their heart, whatever their political affiliation! So you’re throwing Christ out too! And you’re bearing false witness against us Peoplecrats, accusing us of being deviates and abortionists just because we’re against an ungodly war inspired not by Jesus, but by Big Oil!”

“That’s a lie!” someone shouted. “We’re only defending our country!”

“Against what?” cried Bud. “All those little babies who got blown to bits by our bombs? Kids as poor as Christ was as when He was born in a stable? He sure wasn’t born at the Plaza Hotel. You call us weirdos and pinkos and brag about being pro-life. But how many babies would Jesus bomb?”

“Well, we’re living in different times!” shouted one woman. “We’re all under threat!”

“Give me the name of that threat you can’t see, sister, and if I see him coming at you or your family, I’ll fight to the death to defend you myself,” said Bud. “Jesus said that a strong man armed will defend his home from attack, but beware that you don’t pick a fight with the wrong people, or the Lord will hold you personally responsible for shedding innocent blood. Jesus said: Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Whatever our party affiliation, we should honor our service men and women and pray for them daily. They’re the heroes of this country. Think you businessmen have got stress when your stock nosedives on Wall Street? Those brave soldiers are under stress 24/7. Even those who make it home safely after laying their necks on the line are getting their service benefits cut by rich and powerful politicians trimming the fat off the fiscal budget. That’s money poor soldiers or wounded soldiers needed to survive on and rebuild their lives.They’ve got a job few of us would want, and even when it really is necessary to take the life of an enemy combatant to defend your homeland, you should do so with a heavy heart, because when that so-called alien dies he usually goes to hell instead of being won to Christ.”

“Amen!” shouted one of the men who had torn up his Peoplecrat Party card.

“Jesus would never go to war against anybody!” shouted another man.

Bud sighed. “I wish I could agree, brother, but you’ll find plenty of verses in Revelation which say He’ll return to earth to wage war against evildoers who refuse to repent. I’m sure Jesus won’t enjoy having to do that, though.”

“So if you love Jesus you’ll back our leader and vote for him!” cried Brother Green. “If you don’t join in the fight against infidels you’re a coward!”

“Coward!” Bud shouted. “It’s easy to just go with the flow so you don’t step on toes, but it takes plenty of guts to go against majority opinion and let Christ be Lord of your conscience. And the day our people are no longer free to follow their own sanctified conscience in deciding what constitutes a just or an unjust war, that’s the day we live under totalitarianism!”

“Liberal leftie!” someone shouted.

“Liberal!” cried Bud. “There you go again! My Bible has lots of good things to say about the word ‘liberal’! James tells us: God gives to all men liberally when they ask him for something good! And we’re to be a liberal giver too! That’s what my Bible teaches! But about the only time some of you give liberally is when you want God to multiply it back 100-fold! And even then, you give it to the rich!”

General chaos broke out. Somehow Bud was able to finish his point when his the deacon hollered for everybody to hush up.

“When Jesus mentioned giving, it was always to the needy, not to big shots with lots of money to throw around! And there’s one verse in the Bible I’ve never heard preached from the pulpit. In fact, almost nobody knows it’s in there.” Bud flipped open his well-thumbed Bible. “Here, I’ve got it marked. It’s in Proverbs 22:16: He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich shall surely come to want. Who wrote that verse? None other than King Solomon, one of the richest men who ever lived. The very same guy some of you use to justify your love affair with money!”

“So who gave YOU the right to hijack my pulpit!” cried Pastor Green. What’s more, Bud Bolshevik, you can take your sorry bunch of jackasses and go hold your own church out in the park with your homeless freeloaders!”

“You’re right about that, Brother Green. This is YOUR church, not my church, and it sure ain’t Jesus’ church. And it’s really no church at all. It’s nothing more than a political soap box, a place where the shady business of this world goes on as usual. The Bible says: No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. I’m a soldier too, Brother Green, only I’m fighting to bless people into heaven, not blast them into hell. And Jesus said the same thing: “I have not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”

“Get out!” the pastor hollered. “If you were a loyal citizen of our country you’d shut up and submit!”

“My citizenship is in heaven,” said Bud, and “someday all of us who love Jesus are going to sit together and feast at Jesus’ big banqueting table in our Heavenly Father’s House. Right now me and my friends are going out to the park to find more people who want to join our party.”



















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