Bad Religion, Pt 6: Leader Guys and the Limelight - Audio
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So this is the end of our series, named after legendary LA punk band Bad Religion, headlined by Greg Grafen, atheist and professor at Cornell. He's had a crazy career. If you browse through the Bad Religion catalog of songs and you're looking at how the critiques of religion at what Greg really gets upset about, it's almost always a leader, guys. Greg Grafen hates leader, guys. And it doesn't matter. He takes particular shots at preachers, like myself, but he also doesn't like leader, guys, of any stripe. Whether you're a leader, and it could be a leader girl, but he tends to focus on the leader, guys. Whether you're a leader, a guy of a major corporation or a small business or a politician or a preacher, Greg Grafen and Bad Religion are like, you are the worst. And then to be fair, he's not totally wrong. Gosh, like how many times do we experience these just awful things that happen because some leader guy does something to somebody, and it's really exploitative and abusive. Well, Greg might be surprised to find out that there is one person in history who can't stand leader guys more than him. And his name is Jesus of Nazareth. And so today, we're gonna hear Jesus. This isn't his like meanest that he is towards leader people, but this is pretty close. And so this is from Matthew 23, let's read it together. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and Pharisees, that's the religious elites, and also by the way, political elites in Israel is the same thing. So the lawyers and the Pharisees, they sit on Moses' seat, they're representing Moses to us. And so do whatever they teach you and follow it, but don't do what they do. For they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, we'll explain that in a second. They love to have the place of honor at banquets, the best seats in the synagogue, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, to have people call them rabbi teacher.
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Today we'll finish our Bad Religion series with a Christmas-themed message from Matthew 23.