OMG! My TFR License Has Been Revoked!!!

One of the neat yet crazy things about Grace is that sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest places...the mouths of people, and more especially religious ones! Now take for instance this post on Facebook just tonight:

Any pastor that would okay his youth to attend something like this should be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. No Child of God would listen to this kind of nonsense at home; much less expose our youth to it at a concert. This is Satan at his best!
This diatribe was apparently aimed at a pastor who had suggested his youth attend some sort of "funky" Gospel Rock concert or something or the other of which the poster did not approve. Come to think of it I saw no attached invitation or suggestion from the poor unnamed, unknown pastor to whom the was aimed.

Well anyway, either the writer has no idea of the history of tarring and feathering and railing out of town, or he has just a downright mean spirit that would have gone over well with Attila the Hun! I prefer to believe that he was just being a little tongue in cheek, and very little knowledge of what he is suggesting.

Tarring, feathering, and railing (usually not out of town, but around the town) in history was a mob reaction toward some either deserving or undeserving soul. Hot tar was poured over the "rascal". he was either rolled in feathers or they were thrown over him, and then put on a rail and carried about town. Good old Wikipedia says: In a typical tar-and-feathers attack, the subject of a crowd's anger would be stripped to his waist. Hot tar was either poured or painted onto the person while he was immobilized. Then the victim either had feathers thrown on him or was rolled around on a pile of feathers so that they stuck to the tar. Often the victim was then paraded around town on a cart or a rail. A more brutal derivation, called pitch capping, was used by British forces against Irish rebels during the period of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Sometimes only the head was shaven, tarred and feathered; other times, a match was held to the feathers to light them on fire (as well as the tar) to inflict pain.

Now that sounds like a nice, neighborly Christian response to a pastor who invites his youth to just about anything, doesn't it?

Well sir, I ain't bagging my feathers or heating my tar, for the truth is I don't have any! In fact I had my TFR License revoked years ago! I was young, full of fire and brimstone...and just knew I was the answer that God had been looking for all down through the years to set the ungodly people in His church straight. I tarred and feathered lots of folks on Sunday morning between 11 and 12. I was in the business of shearing the sheep, if not skinning the saints! I could lay it down brother and had just enough in the "amen corner" who said I couldn't preach it straight enough for them, to urge my passion on!

But as always I made the mistake of reading the directions in The Book! I wandered over to the book of Romans and lardy lardy, look what I found: Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. --- 14:4
To make matters worse I had just read: Therefore thou art inexcusable O man, whoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things --- 2:1
(Pardon the KJV: that's what I memorized it in as there was no NIV at the time to replace the thees and thous)

The Pharisees had what they wanted, it would finally put Jesus in the hotbox they had sought so long...they had it all, A Woman, An Adulteress, and caught in the action! "There she is Master, we caught her, yeah we saw it all...what are you going to say? After all Moses said.....Stone her!" Now He didn't say, "Don't stone her," but if we could have been there I think we just mighta seen an upward curl on his lip, as He said, He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her --- John 8:7

It was at that moment that my TFR license was revoked!!! In the moment that I realized that Christ mission was to seek and save, to love and care, to give and forgive! That was the moment that GRACE first overwhelmed me!!! The self-righteous says, "Stone," He says, "Yeah, you without sin go ahead!" The most dis empowering statement Christ ever made!! He simply said no one is entitled to stone or to TFR anyone, because we are all completely dependent on His sacrifice and forgiveness! I wonder if sometimes that is why folks want to add to the salvation requirements because then they feel like they have gone, "the extra mile." There is no extra mile, IT IS GRACE AND GRACE ALONE! It is not earned, not added to, nor selective...you see if it were then it wouldn't be GRACE!
In fact absolutely the only thing that negates grace is judgmentalism and unforgiveness. Now you can call that funky or whatever, but those are the facts!!

Anybody out there still have a stone in your hand, or maybe a tar bucket, a feather pillow, and a rail! Don't ask me for any on anyone, I dropped mine, "Way back when!' This far into the game I just won't risk missing going to where lots of folks think they're headed!! ---Hmnn, change that to where we all going by GRACE!

Love, Mercy, and GRACE to all!!
Old Len