The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
Promise Fulfilled
October 23, 2021
The Trouble with Jesus is his words challenge our perspectives on things like money and how God would have it used for others.
Thank you and bless all those who sent in their thoughts on this passage from Mark 10:17-31. I brought this message on October 10 at Isle of Faith UMC . If you'd like to hear it, the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiChoSJU5nc&t=2714 (I start speaking around 42 minutes into the service, but if you skip the praise music, you'll miss a good thing.) Or you can email me (constance.hastings@constancehastings.com ) and I'll send you the sermon as a document.
Again, blessings to all who responded and especially to Pastor Will Clark for this opportunity to speak and share God's word.
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 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.
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?
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?
The Trouble with Jesus: Only by witnessing a power often misunderstood, not a parade, might people realize his purpose.
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.
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.
