Bent Oak Church

Jesus's disciples were concerned he had offended the pharisee leaders from Jerusalem. The Pharisees feared Jesus was not keeping proper traditions of appearance and cleanliness. In the middle of their dispute, Jesus spoke one of his most difficult words to a gentile Canaanite woman. But in the midst of the conflicts, she possessed what the others couldn't. She had great faith and easily avoided christ's obstacle to display it. Jesus honored her above all the respectable and recognized leaders of the day. 

Jesus's first miracle was quietly done to save a social embarrassment at a friend's wedding. At the center of that first miracle was a strange conversation with his own mother.  A conversation that risked offense. Jesus often risked offense when talking about family and relationships. He pushed his followers to recognize that he must come first and only then could they steward the relationships of earth. 

The rich young man that came to Jesus had everything we respect: youth, wealth, influence, and morality. He came with a deeply spiritual question. But Jesus saw through it. The young man collected good works like he collected possessions. He could not follow Christ without abandoning his need for control. It was an obstacle he couldn't overcome and he left grieving. 

That Jesus would talk privately with a Samaritan woman at a well shocked not only his disciples but also the Samaritan woman. Immediately she brought up the divisions that separated them. he was a Jewish man, and she was a Samaritan woman. But Jesus didn't take up her language. He never used the world's labels. Instead, he pushed her to ask a different question. Who was he? It was Jesus's identity that mattered. To follow him, she would have to set down the identities of this world.

That Jesus would speak one of his harshest words to one of his closest disciples is a surprise. But Jesus recognized that Peter had shifted his eyes to things of this world and it had pulled him out of his position as a disciple. It's a reminder to all of us to fix our eyes on Jesus and his willingness to correct those he calls. 

Jesus came to judge. Those were his words but most of us don't understand them. The judgment of God is a revelation. Jesus described that he would make the blind to see and those who see blind. Jesus's judgment is an act of revelation, for in his judgment, Jesus exposes what is true. Jesus exposes our hearts. One of the tools Jesus used to reveal was his words of offense. If we are willing to hear them, offense can be a clarifying word of revelation. For what offends us often reveals what is most important to us. 

When our idols fail us, we usually look for someone to blame or we look for someone to encourage us and reaffirm our desire. We want people who will tell us what we want to hear. That has long been a temptation for people and the church. Increasingly we trust our feelings as the measure of truth and collect teachers to affirm us. But the church must steward the full revelation of Christ, even when it is a word of challenge. 

As we each pursue our desires hoping they will solve our insecurity, the consequences grow worse. Not only do we become more insecure, but a spirit of accusation turns us against one another. There is nothing like a finger pointed at someone else to draw our attention away from ourselves. When our idols fail us, we go looking for someone else to blame. We take a closer look at the conflict that emerged from the garden and how Satan's tactic of accusation is still at work today.

Our insecurities always cause us to fixate on a solution. Imagining some idol as the salvation of our fears, we awaken new desires in our hearts. We take a closer look at the emergence of desire in the temptation of Eve and see how trusting our heart's desires has become our culture's guide to truth. Christ risks offending us to offer us a better truth than desire. 

As we continue our look at the Biblical topic of offense, we investigate how insecurity can lead us to feel offended. Before the serpent could tempt Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and divide the world into conflict, he first sought to awaken in them a sense of need. The serpent created insecurity and by that insecurity led them into sin. It's true for us as well, beneath our feelings of anger, outrage, and offense are lurking fears of insecurity which most of us live blind to.