The Seven Woes, a Timely Warning

In Matthew 23, we find Jesus going on a long and vicious tirade against the legalists and powerful - the very religious, but evil ones, and Jesus spoke extremely harshly of the Pharisees and others in power who were hypocrites and abusers. Speaking of these religious leaders who pile law upon law upon law on the backs of people, Jesus said:

"They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them."

He then addressed these powerful abusers, delivering seven "woes..." The famous southern preacher, Clarence Jordan, translated "woe" as "It will be hell for you, Pharisees!" as in

“It will be hell for you, theologians and preachers— phonies, because you lock people out of God's Way. You not only won’t enter yourselves, but you slam the door on those who do.

It will be hell for you, theologians and preachers— phonies, because you send missionaries around the world to make one convert, and when you win him you make him double the devil’s son that you are."

And wrapping up with...

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"

Da-yum.

And at the end of that tough take down of the powerful religious abusers, Jesus said:

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing."

Fire and anger and bittersweet love.

I think many of us have a sense of this, today.
 

Jesus Wore a Pride Flag

"Jesus wore a Pride flag like a cape

like some sort of gay superman"

is not an historical fact,

but it is an image that appears

faithful to the biblical witness.

Jesus, it is noted in the biblical witness,

famously was asked to support the religionists

and join in with them

to stone an adulterous woman

to death

to kill the woman "caught in the act"

until she was dead as a stone

...beating & battering her bloody, bruised body

with stones until her heart quit beating

her lungs no longer able to exhale

her Self, shattered and shapeless.

Jesus was asked to join in with the religionists

and brutally murder her

righteous, in their rule-following

("rules" defined by them...).

...Jesus did NOT join in with the religionists.

Indeed, Jesus said

the ones with no sins

should cast the first stone

and while the religionists

no doubt

may have considered themselves

damned near sinless

couldn't bring themselves to say it out loud

and so they shuffled away

dropping rocks as they disappeared

in the sand

Jesus wore a Pride Flag that day

like a cape

like a gay superman