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The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
Loaded Words
Jan 02, 2020
It's always about the relationship.
“Our Father…” he taught them to pray. Not Holy God, or Dear Lord, or Almighty Creator, or such appellations. “Father.” When you call on him, when you want to know him or need that which is beyond your control, go to your Father. Loaded words for sure. (Matthew 6:9)
Admittedly, this is hard for all of us at least at some times of our lives. Youth rebel as they seek their own individuality, and it is almost a rite of passage to want to reject what heritage carries on. But more so, for those who know family dysfunction, the overlay of neglect and/or abuse of whatever form further distorts the image. Jesus please, let me choose how this is done. Take away the parental moniker, let me have a God with less emotional attachment, or rather, stay detached. I don’t even need the masculine gender, wipe out the personal. Just be God out there; don’t come close.
But God does get close and whatever we attach is of our own. Another story tells how it works: “A man had two sons.” Loaded words, again Jesus? Right away there’s the hint of dynamics and it’s going to get complicated. Families always are. Can’t you just tell us the basics without dragging us into relationships?
No, it’s always about the relationship.
So the younger son asks for his inheritance. You know this is heading for trouble; dear old Dad hasn’t even given up the ghost yet. Sure enough, the kid takes off and heads out for a distant land and wild living. Just get out of Dodge and live your own life. Things end up as expected when the jerk wastes it all and winds up destitute, no money, friends, and the only work he can find is in a pig sty. Serves him right. Also serves the father right. What was he thinking when he let the kid have too much more than he could handle? Spoiled kids come from irresponsible parents.
So the kid “finally comes to his senses”, realizes what he had at home and starts back repentant enough to only want a job with the servants in his father’s business. But Dad sees him coming from a distance and runs to embrace him. So sweet when the prodigal comes home, isn’t it? Dad calls for servants to get him some new clothes and throws a shindig complete with a “fatted calf”. The lost is now found, so let’s party.
Jesus, that’s so nice. We love to see people reformed and that’s what you’re about. Really though, how often does this happen? The bad kid comes home, all is forgiven, and that’s it? Don’t we wish.
“Meanwhile…” Loaded words again. Don’t forget, this guy had two sons. To be fair, Jesus tells the other side. The older son was doing what he should’ve been doing all long and comes home after a long day of work to find this celebration all over the slacker who blew threw his father’s wealth and now has come home. Sibling rivalry doesn’t come near explaining what made the big brother’s blood boil. “All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to do. And in all that time you never gave me even one goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the finest calf we have.”
Furious anger aside, maybe he does have a point. Partiality shown to children will sooner or later result in bad feelings and separation in relationships. You don’t have to be a psychologist to figure out how that’s going to end. So the dad had that coming to say the least.
Dad defends himself. “Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours.” In other words, the younger son has nothing coming to him after the party is over. He not only blew threw the money; he wasted his whole life’s chances of having it good. He’ll get a second chance, but he’ll start with nothing. But Dad won’t let go of what one thing the failed son does have; this lost kid now had his relationship with his father, one that is undeserved certainly, but for which the father celebrates. That’s what was found again. (Luke 15:11-32)
The younger son won’t have it good, but maybe that’s the good in this. Possibly he’ll come to appreciate hard work and family having walked away from it before. But he’ll have to live all his life with how he one time rejected it.
Jesus ends the story there. Once again, neat endings are not his aim. The ball is now in the older son’s court. What he does in relationship with his brother and father, and more importantly, learns from his brother’s lesson about his father’s love, is left untold.
A story that is left untold; that’s loaded.
They had no idea what they were getting into when he had recruited them for his purposes. Some say they weren’t the brightest bulbs on the street. The only attribute which spoke most for them was they were teachable…
You Christians! If ever there a more divisive movement in history, it’s yours! You people just can’t stay together. You guys just keep fighting among yourselves and splitting up and moving off in different directions. If you don’t like what’s going on in your church, you take your money and walk. Sometimes, a whole group of you jump ship and make your own deal somewhere else. There’s enough of this kind of thing going on; why would we ever need religion to show us how it’s done? May your God help you.
No greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for friends, is to daily relinquish the right to one’s self in service for others.
The Trouble with Jesus: His words grow like a vine, thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Awww, so sweet. A story about a good shepherd and his sheep. I can see now the old, faded pictures of this Jesus-figure carrying his lambs. Like really, what does this have to do with today? We left this kind of thing in the nursery with Mary’s little lamb. Baa-baa to you.
Every single one of them did it. When they heard the news, they didn’t believe it. Don’t blame them. We are no different. To be honest, it helps. It helps a lot, for if the report was swallowed hook, line, and sinker as the fishermen they were, it’d be pretty evident this story was falsified with some ulterior purpose in mind, like fashioned to make themselves into some kind of holy heroes. Not how it happened. They didn’t believe it, plain and simple.
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 possibly so, is necessary? Do faith and doubt exist not as opposites but as integral parts of each other?
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.
. 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.
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?
