The Trouble with Jesus

by Constance Hastings

Be My Assistant
August 30, 2021

The trouble with Jesus sometimes means we need to offer our collective voices

 to begin to understand what it means to follow him.

This week I’m taking a break from The Trouble with Jesus Blog in order to move into another space. In a couple of months, I will be speaking on a Sunday morning (yeah, it’s a sermon but that sounds preachy, not me.) The lesson that week has its challenges. (So what else would I ever say when I write all the time about The Trouble with Jesus?)


Let me get straight to it. The passage turns on Mark 10:21. “Jesus felt genuine love for this [rich] man as he looked at him. ‘You lack only one thing,’ he told him. “Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’”


Here’s your chance to bring your voice to this passage. And this is where I need your help. In 50 words or so, what are your thoughts about what Jesus meant or was saying in this verse, especially the part I have italicized? I would like to use your (as in, collectively your) responses in this message. No one’s name or any identifying information will be revealed. Just email what you think by October 1, 2021. constance.hastings@constancehastings.com The message will be recorded in YouTube, and a blog posting with the link taking you to the recording will be made available.


Why am I asking for this help? Let me admit two things right now. I don’t have all the answers to the challenges Jesus brings. It’s only in faith and after much thought and emotional/spiritual wrestling that I offer this blog or whatever message I’m asked to prepare. That being said, I do want to hear your thoughts, beliefs, hopes and fears about Jesus. Only when I have your perspectives, even when based in the tension of doubt, can I speak to you with affirmations or directions you could choose to move.

Together then, we can learn.


In this company of voices, let’s give an answer to The Trouble with Jesus.


“Then come, follow me.”

The Trouble with Jesus is how he drags his identity through diverse filters.

Filters to Faith

By Constance Hastings • May 5, 2025
Jesus, just for the record, tell us again, are you who you say you are? Or maybe who some say you are? Give it to us straight, in plain words, no dodging the question like a politician in prime-time cable interviews. Lord have mercy, the question never goes away. Jesus heard it face to face, answered it so many ways hoping to connect people’s heads to their souls. For some, it worked; for others, not so much.
The Trouble with Jesus goes deeper than what rationally should be required.

Soul Nets

By Constance Hastings • April 26, 2025
The love Jesus required was a love that would leave everything behind again, to leave one’s net and all that is held vital in life. It was a God-consuming love that meant nothing could be in front of it, not one’s security and safety in life nor one’s understanding of all God meant nor even one’s right to oneself.
The Trouble with Jesus: Faith must be linked with doubt to become belief.

Holy Doubt

By Constance Hastings • April 21, 2025
Could it be that faith is not actually a fully convinced mindset? Could it be that to truly have faith an element of doubt, perceptions that rest in possibly not as much as in possibly so, is necessary? Do faith and doubt exist not as opposites but as integral parts of each other?
The Trouble with Jesus: No god does this sort of thing. Wonder.

Dark Morning of Wonder

By Constance Hastings • April 19, 2025
How do you get out of bed in the morning when the day is still shrouded in darkness? How do you rise when grief, anger, and anxious fear sink deep into your soul? Why should you open your eyes to a pain that pierces whatever faith that is left? Somehow, they did.
The Trouble with Jesus: He wasn’t betrayed by just one guy.

The Deepest Part of Hell

By Constance Hastings • April 18, 2025
Before Jesus even got into town, they lined the road, spreading a carpet of coats and shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” Expectations were high. If only he had come to fulfill them....With too much popularity and too many attacks on the powers-that-be, Jesus wasn’t making it easy on himself. Sooner or later, someone was going to put a stop to this. As it was, it wasn’t just one.
The Trouble with Jesus: His love is counter-cultural, an intimate, dangerous act of shared power.

Do As I Have Done to You

By Constance Hastings • April 13, 2025
It’s hard to allow the less attractive parts of ourselves be exposed, let alone the parts which stink, with warts, bunions, and fungus embedded in the nails. Equally difficult is to accept it from one of whom we think so highly, even worship.... Worse yet, maybe they know us better than we think, better than we know ourselves. Their goodness shouldn’t be sullied with our mean stuff, the secret knowledge of ourselves. Why does God have to come so close?
The Trouble with Jesus is by a power misunderstood, not a parade, might people realize his purpose.

Along for the Ride

By Constance Hastings • April 7, 2025
The Trouble with Jesus: Only by witnessing a power often misunderstood, not a parade, might people realize his purpose.
The Trouble with Jesus: extravagant love comes with extravagant sacrifice.

Death's Aroma

By Constance Hastings • March 31, 2025
Judas wasn’t your best guy. Why you brought him in, we’ll never understand. How he ever became treasurer for your disciples’ accounts must have happened with mastered manipulation. As it is, though his intentions weren’t the best, he may have had a good point here. And saying it might have been the mic drop of the night.
The Trouble with Jesus is his teachings go places we never see coming.

Of Prodigals, Pigs and a Party

By Constance Hastings • March 23, 2025
Frequently when Jesus was teaching, those of ill-repute were in the crowd, tax collectors and “other notorious sinners.” Reputations are made by who your friends are. True, so why did Jesus seem to prefer, maybe even have a better time with the likes of these? He answers with parables about what gets lost.
The Trouble with Jesus is he advocates for more time by grace while not denying judgement.

Figs for the Figless

By Constance Hastings • March 17, 2025
The Trouble with Jesus is he advocates for more time by grace while not denying judgement.
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