This Sunday in church many of us are going to hear Jesus say some very strange and unusual things. He’s angry. And he almost seems to be shouting when He says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” He says family members and households will be divided. Then he yells at his audience for not understanding that this is a big part of what He is about.

The notion that Jesus came to upset me upsets me.

One reason I choose to follow Christ is because of the peace I’ve experienced – through prayer, meditation, and at church – after all, He’s called ‘The Prince of Peace.’ But there is a side to the Journey that is all about exasperation, irritation, and annoyance.

I’m annoyed when people ask me to give more. They need more time, more money, more of me. And I’d rather... not.

I’m annoyed when my friends get together to dish the dirt and just when I’m ready to chime in that little voice inside my head says, ‘Nope...’

I’m annoyed when I see that thing that I want finally on sale at that place that I love and I wonder if I really should be racking up more debt when there are hungry and hurting people all over the place?

The notion that following Jesus leads to annoyance - even division and strife - is no better seen than in the Civil Rights struggle, when Martin Luther King, Jr., locked up in a Birmingham jail wrote a long letter defending his struggle – and it wasn’t addressed to white supremacists, but to a different set of antagonists: his fellow pastors. The work Jesus wants to do in us and in our world cannot come about without upsetting our personal moral order, as well as the larger status quo. Jesus didn't get executed because he made too many fish sandwiches. He died because He was just too annoying.

How is Jesus annoying you today? And what’s it mean?

Reading
Changing the Conversation – Anthony Robinson
Rediscovering Values – Jim Wallis
Bodies at Motion and at Rest – Thomas Lynch