Blog Layout

 The Trouble with Jesus

by Constance Hastings

Busted Drama
August 15, 2022

The Trouble with Jesus is in how he brings upheaval into how the world works,

even when it hurts his own cause.

Oh, Jesus, you have this way about you. There’s that thing where you can’t look the other way, even when it’s for your own good. No, you have to make a scene, stir up drama getting everyone all excited on both sides of aisle. Sorry, but you sometimes bring all this trouble on your own.


Very true. Read it like a drama with stage directions left out. It plays very well.


The Set Up

While religious leaders had real problems with this “Teacher” who was less than diplomatic in the system, they were smart enough to know that “you keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Shrewdly, they set him up to fail. Their goal? Let him sink himself right in front of people. This Teacher who had said he did not come to do away with the Law would have to live within it, and if they could find a way to show he was a violator, well then, all the better.


The scene is set: Jesus is teaching in the synagogue. He takes center front stage. All eyes turned on him. He stood with authority, not of his own, but of someone invited to speak by the leader, the ruler of the synagogue. He was given his chance to trip himself up.


Act One

Drama is written by taking the familiar and charging it with the unexpected. In the gathering is a woman described as so bent over she could not fully straighten herself, and she had been this way for eighteen years. But what is not said, yet fully understood by the first readers of Luke’s Gospel, is Jesus cannot see her sitting in the congregation. No, this seating was reserved only for men, with those of most prominent status and power sitting in the front.


Where were the women? In the back but outside the main seating area, behind a screen, probably a lattice. They were not easily seen, nor could they see clearly or probably even hear well what was being preached. The screen helped to maintain a caste system, and women, along with others who were sick or mentally challenged, were segregated. They were among those who regularly, monthly were unclean.


Act Two

That’s when Jesus does the unforgivable. He calls and recognizes her above the important guys in the front. Mistake number one: in speaking to her, he connotes that she is a person of worth. Mistake number two: in order to speak to her, either he had to move behind the screen to where she was, or she had to come into this place reserved only for the men. Once born into this system, you stayed in this system. There was no such thing as upward mobility. Jesus’ actions challenged it, not a good idea.


Mistake number three: He says, “Woman, you are healed of your sickness,” and then lays his hands on her. In that culture, touching the ill risked contamination. He not only connected with her physical illness, but also connected to this evil spirit that had robbed her of her health and her life. The sense of contagion was not just physical, but spiritual. Jesus was really crossing some lines on this one.


So what happens next? She’s healed and can stand up straight. So what’s so wrong with that? Her status is changed; she’s not unclean. If that happens, maybe the whole system is going to be changed; maybe this synagogue is going to look a lot different soon. And they were right because of what happened next. She praised God. A woman was speaking out loud and loudly in a religious assembly. One who had no rights over the better part of her life was speaking in this place reserved for only men and only the most powerful among them.


Act Three

What ensues next in this drama is an exchange between the ruler of the synagogue and Jesus. In a way it is reminiscent of the dialogue Jesus had with the devil when He was tempted after fasting forty days in the desert. Both the ruler and the devil lean on Scriptures to make their point, and Jesus’ answer demonstrates how much they get wrong in their use of God’s Word.


The ruler accuses Jesus of breaking Sabbath law, but to whom does he direct his charges? To the people, not to Jesus. Jesus was standing right there. Why not confront Him face to face? It’s triangulation, a tactic that those who cannot stand on their own use to sustain themselves when their support is weak. This ruler felt the full pressure of the conflict that was going on here. If Jesus could heal, and they had just seen his power to do so, and could heal a woman, one who was not just on the bottom of the social system but one who was so low she couldn’t even look up physically, emotionally or spiritually from the bottom, and could heal a woman on the Sabbath, a confrontation to the ruler’s leadership, and could heal a woman on the Sabbath upsetting the very configuration of the synagogue, this ruler was going to lose and lose big.


The synagogue leader was indignant because this conflict was centered in control and power. 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. His actions fractured and shattered a bondage which kept her and those like her pressed and beaten down all their lives. All the men in the synagogue benefited from this system at the expense of women and any others who had been suffering for years without any possibility even to ask for relief.


Jesus showed them the function of Hebrew law never was intended to oppress people. Instead, as the central story of Exodus declares, it is about setting them free for praise and service to God and neighbor. No wonder the people rejoiced at all the glorious things Jesus did. But after this incident, Jesus never taught again in a synagogue. He “shamed his enemies,” done with them and their systems for good.


The Epilogue

Well, Son of God, we like where you’re going with this. This is something we can get behind even as we’re not all that ready to fully fall in step and follow, as you call it. Glad you got the heck out of there. Now, just set your tent in your own place, and we’ll call it yours. See then what these Jews do when all these people they trample on go another way.


Sorry. That’s not the plan. He will not walk away from those he loves. Abandonment is not in his rule book. Jesus won’t be run off by these small-time tetrarchs. He’s headed to the Temple in Jerusalem. He knows it’s the site of his worst trouble. He’s ready for it.



Luke 13:10-17

The Trouble with Jesus is he would not be intimidated into answering a trap.
By Constance Hastings November 18, 2024
Truth is the spotlight on humanity. Find it, wrestle with it, run from it but know truth tells much, sometimes too much. Just-the-facts, video footage, eyewitness testimony, subpoenaed emails and documents only color the canvas. Anything can be made to say anything; it’s all in the spin. But truth reveals the greater story, and the direction life gives.
The Trouble with Jesus is he never made the future look totally rosy. He told it real.
By Constance Hastings November 11, 2024
Jesus, what makes you think this Doomsday portrait you give here is helping? Why even talk about it? We’ve been through a hell of a lot, and this end-of-the-world talk isn’t doing us any good. Besides, who’d ever get behind you if this is where you’re going. We’re just not going to listen to this kind of thing. Yeah, well what galaxy do you come from? If talk of apocalyptic endings bother you, why do you watch so much of it from streaming movies to video games to best sellers? Listen guy, there’s money to be made from this genre, and the makers of these stories play right into the basic fears of futurists to preppers to predictive prophets with megaphones shouting, “The End is Near.” Why is this ok for everyone else, but Jesus can’t say anything beyond Love Your Neighbor and Bless the Children? Get over that, and listen up.
The Trouble with Jesus is his teaching was sometimes meant for what he had to do more so than others
By Constance Hastings November 4, 2024
Brief musing here: November 5:2024 Today, tonight, this week we will wait. Apply whatever importance you prefer to this date. Take your side expressed by your vote. Hope for the best. Yet in the marking of your ballot, also bow your head. Pray the hardest prayer ever spoken. “Your will be done.” Accept what will be. Then move into your space, your world, and see what God will do. Shalom.
The Trouble with Jesus is he doesn’t want to fight as much as he wants to lead in Love.
By Constance Hastings October 28, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus is he doesn’t want to fight as much as he wants to lead in Love.
The trouble with Jesus is healing happens in reversal to one’s willingness to see.
By Constance Hastings October 21, 2024
What do you want me to do for you? One’s answer reveals the beggar in one’s soul.
The Trouble with Jesus finds you have to convert more than the world to change it.
By Constance Hastings October 14, 2024
Jesus, if you don’t mind, we’d like to talk with you about what you just said and ask a favor. Sure guys, what’s on your minds.? About your plans, when it all comes about, if the two of us could be seated next to you, one of your right and the other on your left? (long pause…) You have no idea what you’re asking....
The Trouble with Jesus was he didn’t tolerate anything getting in the way of full devotion to God.
By Constance Hastings October 7, 2024
True Story: A husband told his wife he was going the next day to possibly buy a Corvette. (Disclaimer: this did not happen in my house…) She read to him these words of Jesus: “Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” “Now, how do you think you’ll get to heaven if you buy a Corvette?” she challenged him. After a short pause, he smiled, and said, “Fast!”
The Trouble with Jesus: He doesn’t speak from a legalistic mindset. He speaks with the mind of God
By Constance Hastings September 30, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus: He doesn’t speak from a legalistic mindset. He speaks with the loving mind of God.
The Trouble with Jesus is he used graphic and exaggerated devices to teach his slowest students.
By Constance Hastings September 23, 2024
In some ways, Jesus, your radical messages are just what we need. You just said that welcoming children is just like welcoming you. Nice image there. But this time, it’s like you’re pushing radicalization, sending your followers off the deep end. Cutting off one’s hands or feet, gouging out the eye so you’re good enough to get access to your Dad’s Kingdom? Calling people to self-mutilation isn’t going to garner many likes on your page with this kind of talk.
The Trouble with Jesus is a radical reversal of ambition and status in God's love.
By Constance Hastings September 16, 2024
Jesus, oh Son of Man, you gotta lay off this. If you want to get your message out there and have everybody behind you, you have to play to what they want. All this talk about dying and staying in last place is going to destroy you. But no, you just keep repeating it over and over again. Take some good advice even those sorry followers of yours seem to realize. The only thing that needs to raise from the dead is your rhetoric.
More Posts
Share by: