Monday, August 22, 2016

The Insensitivity of Jesus

“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.’

Then the disciples came to him and asked, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?’ He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.’” (Matthew 15:7-14 NIV)

In the minds of many, Jesus was a very gentle, soft-spoken, always nurturing and approving man.  As they picture Him, He was very sensitive and would never be one to hurt people’s feelings.  Tender and kind is how they always think of Him.  

But like so many things from the Scriptures, this view has been “cherry-picked” from a much broader description of our Lord.  It is always a human tendency to conjure up the picture of reality that we most prefer. If we are about “law and order,” then we will more likely view God in the terms of judgment and punishment of wrongdoing.  If, however, “tolerance” is more to our liking, we will tend to lean toward a benevolent view of the Almighty, One who is non-judgmental and accepting.  And we can always cite Scriptures to prove our position.

As a result, the modern-day view of Jesus is a caricature of the real One.  “Inoffensive” would not be an accurate description nor would our understanding of being sensitive apply well to Him.  Consider these encounters Jesus had with people:  He confronted a lonely woman shunned by her community with the sin in her life (John 4).  When Peter was trying to be encouraging and supportive, Jesus responded by equating him with Satan and calling him out as a “stumbling block.” (Matthew 16).  When a woman was set up by religious leaders as a tool to trap Jesus, He told her to leave her life of sin (John 8).  And after healing a poor invalid man, Jesus warned him that if he didn’t get his life straight, something worse would happen to him (John 5).  And, of course, there were His encounters with the Pharisees.  

If we look at the whole of the Gospels, what we find is a very different picture of Jesus than many in our society today try to paint.  In fact, if the real Jesus were alive in human flesh today, He would be hated by many for His offensiveness and insensitivity.  If you find this difficult to believe, just imagine He said some of things today that He is recorded saying.  

The one thing that can clearly be said about Jesus is He always spoke the truth.  And, if God is indeed love (I John 4), then we know when He told the truth, it was from the motivation of love.  He loved the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery.  He loved Peter.  He even loved the Pharisees.  And if He were walking among us today, you can be sure He would not let our society’s fear of being offensive or insensitive to stand in His way of telling the truth.  

Today, recognize the Jesus of the Gospels is different than how He is often pictured.  He was willing to be offensive and insensitive if that was what was necessary to truly love people.  He understood, as we should as well, that the best way to love people sometimes is telling them the truth and not worry so much about their feelings.  

© Jim Musser 2016

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