Trinity 5 - Not how it goes

(The Gospel for the upcoming Sunday is Luke 5:1-11. What follows is not quite how it goes.)

One morning, when jesus was preaching, He became sad because he noticed that no one cared. So instead of preaching, he decided to head on out to the lake. There was a fisherman there named Simon, and Simon said to jesus, "jesus, I have a most successful business, let Me share with you My 5 secret strategies for growth. It will only cost you $500 per session."

jesus then said, "Um, i don't have that much cash, what can I get for a buck seventy five.'

Simon then said, "Okay, the first one is free. You've got to strike when the iron is hot. See Me, I'm not fishing now cause the fish aren't out. I'll wait until later. you need to do the same thing - don't have a church, have a trendy club looking place - people like going there. They'll show up if you get a DJ spinning an awesome beat."

jesus then was happy and said to Simon, "Well, i'm not afraid of losing my job now. Thanks to Your awesome strategy Simon, i'll be catching men!"

Simon smiled and said, "It's not that easy, but if you ever need to hire a Consultant, call Simon Peter, and I'll help you out."

The Gospel for Trinity 4

(The Gospel for the 4th Sunday after Trinity is Luke 6:36-42. This isn't how it goes)

Remember that God in heaven is really super mean, so you have to be nice to make up for this.

Never say that anything that anyone does is wrong - that would be "judgmental". If you don't say that anyone has done anything wrong, then you can play dumb if God is mean to you. And if you can find it in your heart to forgive someone, that will earn your own forgiveness. You see, if you just work the system with your savvy, you can make God stop being a meanie and be nice to you.

Here's a parable. The smarter blind man has to let the other blind man lead - that way you'll have something soft to fall on when he leads you into a pit. And a good teacher will make sure that a student feels as though he has grown, but keep him down enough so that the student has to keep paying the teacher. You must be smart - if there is something in your eye, there has to be something much worse in your neighbor's eye, so go dive in and get it out of their eye - just dig around until you find it. Again, this will show how good you are.

So, to sum - never say anyone is wrong, just use them and try to fix them without speaking to them first or thinking about fixing yourself - cause you're an awesome person.

Hymnal Suppliment Number 1002

(Any anyone in the in knows, you don't have a real, hip, awesome "ministry" unless it's a team ministry - so my wife, whom I'm sure will soon be on a billboard with me, gives us this wonderful ditty)

Hymn 1002 - Save Me Jesus

Oh Jesus Jesus

Oh Jesus Jesus

Oh Jesus Jesus

Oh Jesus Jesus

How was I supposed to know

That somethin' wasn't right here

Oh Jesus Jesus

I shouldn't have let you go

And now you're right out of site yeah

Show me

How you want it to be

Tell me Jesus

'Cause I need to know now

Oh because

My loneliness

Is killing me (and I)

I must confess

I still believe (still believe)

When I'm not with you I lose my mind

Give me a sign

Save me Jesus one more time.

Oh Jesus Jesus

A reason I breathe is you

Boy you've got me blinded

Oh Jesus Jesus

There's nothin' that I wouldn't do

That's not the way I planned it

Show me

How you want it to be

Tell me Jesus

'Cause I need to know now

Oh because

My loneliness

Is killing me (and I)

I must confess

I still believe (still believe)

When I'm not with you I lose my mind

Give me a sign

Save me Jesus one more time.

Oh Jesus Jesus

(A ooooooooo)

Oh Jesus Jesus

(A yeah yeah)

Oh Jesus Jesus

How was I supposed to know

Oh Jesus Jesus

I shouldn't have let you go

I must confess

That my loneliness

Is killing me now-

Don't you know I still believe

That you will be here

And give me a sign

Save me Jesus one more time.

My loneliness

Is killing me (and I)

I must confess

I still believe (still believe)

When I'm not with you I lose my mind

Give me a sign

Save me Jesus one more time.

I must confess

(My loneliness)

That my loneliness

(Is killing me)

Is killing me now

(I must confess)

Don't you know I still believe

(I still believe)

That you will be here

When I'm not with you I lose my mind

And give me a sign

Save me Jesus one more time.

(Yes, this Britney Spears - Baby=>Jesus, "hit" => "save". . . and. . . well, it might be more theological correct than what your gray haired guitarist is rocking out to. . . not that it means that this is good)

Hymnal Suppliment Number 1001

(What you may not know is that there is some dissagreement whether hymns like the following should be allowed in the Church. That's why it is in the Supplement)

Hymn 1001

I remember all my life
Raining down as cold as ice
A shadow of a man
A face through a window
Crying in the night
The night goes into

Morning, just another day
Happy people pass my way
Looking in their eyes
I see a memory
I never realized
you made me so happy, oh Jesus

Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Jesus
well you held me and stopped me from shaking
I need you today, oh Jesus

I'm standing on the edge of time
I Walked away when love was mine
Caught up in a world of uphill climbing
The tears are in my mind
And nothing is rhyming, oh Jesus

Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Jesus
well you held me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Jesus

Yesterday's a dream I face the morning
Crying on the breeze
the pain is calling, oh Jesus

Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away, oh Jesus
well you held me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Jesus

(Yes, this is just Barry Manilow's "Mandy" where Mandy=>Jesus and "kissed"=>"held". And sadly, it's probably got more theological depth than what your praise band put together for tomorrow)

Hymn Number 2 - Chief of Awesome

(This week 1 Timothy 1:12-17 is the Epistle, which gives us the classic hymn Chief of Sinners. This is not quite how it goes)

Chief of Awesome though I be
You can come to Church with Me
Just don't come into my pew
I don't want to talk to you
Let me have my holy time
Telling god I am so fine

Oh how worthy of his love
Are My works for god above
They have earned his favor now
I'll be blessed by him and how
Cause God knows I am so cool
See My stuff and start to drool

What is this you're still around?
Get back to your side of town.
You don't belong here with Me
I'm too good for you, you see.
Maybe when you make some cash
You'll be welcomed here at last.

Chief of awesome though I be
I'll chat condisendingly
with the folks who stop on by
unless their cash flow is high
Then eagerly bid them join
and donate a bit of coin

And so then My Church will grow
Filled with high and not the low
Just the best in town will do
Hoity-Toity through and through
See now how full are our vaults
In My own self-righteous cult

Not Quite Hymnal #1

Number 1 - Man Himself

Man himself is present
Let us now appease him
And with slick songs please him
Friendly stylish music
See the crowds now gather
This is what they'd rather
Like to hear in their ear
For their Sunday chill time
Soothing sounds are so fine.

Now it's the Gen X'ers
They want rocking music
Something that is "fresh, dope, and trip"
Thumpa, thumpa, thumpa
Hear the bass line driving
Mosh pits multiplying
Holy grunge, so much fun
Head bang now for Jesus
Man does this **** please us.

Then Chicago Folk mass
See the grey haired hippie
And the "peace-love" chicky
Did they light some incense?
Man it's kind of smokey
And now we've got the munchies
Flower child running wild
Trapsing down the aisle
Just another style.

What we do in worship
Doesn't really matter
If it's God we're after
Anything will work here
On a Sunday morning
Just don't make it boring
If it's not relevant
From my point of view
Then its day is through.


(The real hymn is God Himself is Present - a wonderful opening hymn for a Church service)

3rd Sunday of Trinity - The Prodigal Son

The Gospel for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity is Luke 15:11-32. This isn't quite how it goes.

A man had two sons. The younger son said, "Dad, I wish you were dead so I could have my half of the estate." The father backhanded the boy and said, "There, you got one of my two hands. Be content with that." However, this younger son was clever, and he robbed his father of what the father would never have given and stole away in the night.

The younger son then basically blew through the money (it was over after he ran into Lindsey Lohan - just all down hill from there), and as he was scrounging away in an L.A. coffee shop, slinging Joe to skinny rich girls, longing to have their decaf lattes, he thought, "Wait a second, I should be sponging off of my dad like these broads are. . . how can I weasel my way back into his good graces?" So the younger son took remembered all the dirt he had experienced in his wild days and wrote a tell all book and appeared on TMZ. When the father saw his son on television, he said, "The boy is famous" and called him back home, where he welcomed him and his royalty checks.

The older son, heard this and was very upset because he had convinced his dad to drop the younger boy out of the will, and now the older son was worried that unless he did something neat, the younger son would get everything. So the older son went out wildcatting for oil, and his father sent him an e-mail and said, "You better find something, because your younger brother is earning his keep. Otherwise, don't bother coming home, cause you aren't worth my time" And the older son finally got sick of everything and moved to Europe to write lousy self-help novels, completely estranged from his family. Then when the father died, he celebrated because his foolish father had forgotten to change the will, but the younger son was okay because he still had his money from the Tabloids to live off of.

2nd Sunday of Trinity

The Gospel for the 2nd Sunday of Trinity is Luke 14:14-24. What follows isn't quite how it goes.

There was a man who was giving a feast, and when the feast was ready, he sent his servants inviting those who were invited saying, "Come to the feast." But they all alike made excuses. One said, "I have bought a field, please have me excused." Another said, "I've bought 5 yoke of oxen, please have me excused." And a third said, "I've just married a gal, and we ain't showing up."

When the servant returned to the master, the master was sad and said to himself, "I must be doing something wrong with my feast, otherwise more people would want to come." So he sent his servant to ask each of the people who refused the invitation what they would want in a feast, and the one said, "Pork" and the next said, "Shellfish", and the last said, "I'd like cheeseburgers." And the master said, "Even though we are Jewish and these are horrible things, I will make them - come to the feast." And still, they blew off the feast.

So he said to the servant, "Go, hire entertainers to wander around my feast, minstrels and jugglers, and then they will want to come." And so the minstrels sang bawdy songs and jugglers juggled and there was much spectacle, yet they still did not come to the feast.

So the master said, "I know, we will offer a nice, new cart to one of the people who arrives - the chance to win a cart, that will draw them in." And a few people looked in, but once they realized their ticket wasn't a winner, they left.

While this was happening, the lowly servants told their fellow poor and miserable of the wonders at the feast, and so the poor and the lowly showed up at the door and said to the master, "Might we partake of your feast, and we will do for you what we can." The master looked at them with disdain and said, "Um, this is a good feast for good people. Sorry, there's no room for you."

While the cooking continued, the wondrous smells of the feast drifted out to the highways, and strangers from a distant land smelled the feast, and so they came to the masters house and inquired of him what the feast was. But the master of the feast said, "You aren't the target demographic my feasting committee had in mind, so I don't think it would be good for you to be here - why don't you figure out a feast-team-leader from amongst yourselves and do whatever he tells you - maybe we'll even give you some scraps later on." And still the master pined for those who would not come, and he spent ever more time and effort trying to entice them to come, and soon his feast became a carnival, then a cart wash, then a tavern, then a finnancial advice center, then a social justice center that ignored the poor, all in the hopes of bringing those three in. And the master was well pleased with all his efforts at reaching the lost.

That's Not Quite How It Goes

Let me be honest and direct (for perhaps the last time on this blog). False doctrine always butchers the Word of God. False doctrine always takes and twists what Scripture says, always perverts the teaching of the Church, always guts and perverts the liturgy.

In this blog, you will find what the false teachers apparently want you to believe what the Scriptures say. Enjoy - just remember what the Word actually says.