The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
Jesus, we’ve noticed. Time after time, you unloaded on those who set the example of what the Law required. What was worse, you buddied up with those of questionable repute. You’d think if you’d really wanted to change the world, you’d garner influence from those who ran things. Usual common sense just isn’t your forte.
Jesus didn’t tell stories or preach so good people can be good people. The Trouble with Jesus is good people are not much use to him.
This one is not so bad, especially with all the mud slinging we’re seeing now with a government shutdown. Your dealing with a corrupt government official gives us hope...
The Trouble with Jesus is he plays with our common assumptions about God to shock us into a faith that won’t let go.
So Jesus, ... to get through this life, you ask for this thing called faith. How is that just wishful hope for something to hang on to, even if it’s not real? Oh, you’re good at telling us how much a person has to have. Mustard-seed size, you say. That kind of example may have worked in your day, but if you are going to take me down this exercise of improbability, give it to me in some way I can wrap my head around it.
The Trouble with Jesus: He warns how self-centered intentional blindness contributes to pain and agony, forming chasms of eternal separation.
The Trouble with Jesus: He will use whatever he can, even stories from the shady side of life, to get people to understand what God desires for the world.
The Trouble with Jesus: His stories make God look desperately unsatisfied, on the prowl for more, regardless of whether they’re lost or don’t know how lost they are.
Jesus, you are the perfect example of the observation, “When you are invited to a dinner, you are either a guest or you are part of a menu.” Everybody is always watching you, sizing you up, holding their breath to see what you might do next. You look like you’re there to eat as much as you’re there to preach.
The Trouble with Jesus: His scandalous rhetoric doesn’t permit domestication of lifestyle covered with a veneer of religion.
This reads like Jesus is being attacked for healing on the Sabbath. It's more than that which brings big trouble. Jesus was breaking Sabbath by breaking perceptions of what the social and religious structure of the world should be, wreaking and crumbling the caste system of the entire religious culture.
