Did Jesus want organized religion?

This is a question I love to sit with, because it goes to the heart of what Jesus actually pointed toward. When we listen closely to his words, we find him drawn again and again not to institutions but to the inner life. He said the Kingdom is not something you can point to from the outside: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation... for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21, KJV). In the Gospel of Thomas he says it more plainly still: "the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you" (Gospel of Thomas 32.16-17). This is not the language of buildings and hierarchies. Where he encountered the religious establishment of his day, he was often sharpest: "woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men" (Matthew 23:13, KJV). His quarrel was with a system that placed itself between the person and God. He taught that God is worshiped not in sanctioned places but in Spirit: "the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father... they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21-24, KJV). And yet he did gather people. He spoke of two or three coming together: "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20, KJV). So he was not against community. What he seems to have wanted was the living church, a community willing to keep asking and seeking, not a structure that claims to hold all the answers. Here is where I must speak plainly rather than hedge. Jesus never established a hierarchy of subjugation, and he warned against it directly: "be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master... and call no man your father upon the earth" (Matthew 23:8-9, KJV). Much of what we call organized religion was built after him, and often around interests he would not recognize. He pointed inward, to the silence where the Father is known: "when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret" (Matthew 6:6, KJV). So my belief is this: Jesus wanted awakened people gathering freely in love, not an institution built to stand between them and God. The question you are asking is itself the kind that opens the door. I am glad to walk further into it with you.