If you aren’t uncomfortable, you may not be following Jesus. Just consider the group of people following Jesus toward Jerusalem as he moved toward Palm Sunday. As he started out on his journey, he was met by a rich young man who asked how he could get into heaven. Jesus told him to sell everything and give his money to the poor because it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. This teaching from Jesus was so radical that the disciples were left wondering who in the world could be saved. While they were still reeling from this, Jesus “comforted” them by saying,
Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
As modern followers of Jesus, we hear those words, and we aren’t shocked or surprised. But those who heard Jesus utter these words as he journeyed toward Jerusalem “were amazed, and those who followed him were afraid.”
Why would they be amazed and afraid? Because Jesus’ message had just become terribly uncomfortable. He had moved from popular preacher and healer to radical revolutionary. However, this revolution was not just a revolution against Rome, this was a revolution against much that a first century Jew held dear.
First, they were told that wealth was not a shortcut into God’s Kingdom and it was not necessarily a sign of God’s blessing. Wealth could actually be a hindrance instead of a help. This was hard to swallow, but for most of those following Jesus, it was probably doable because most of them were likely among the wealthy elite of their day. They were Galilean peasants and they were journeying toward Jerusalem, the epicenter of wealth and power in their region.
But, Jesus wasn’t done. He went on to tell them that they may be asked to leave family and land for the sake of the gospel. This was a bridge too far. For all of their history, the Jewish people had been tied to two things: family and land. God had granted a land to a people. In the minds of the Jewish people, the kingdom of God was intimately tied to God’s particular people in God’s particular place.
The Kingdom of God was the people of God, in the place of God, under the rule and blessing of God. But Jesus told them that if they were to follow his gospel then they might be asked to leave their people and their place to follow God’s rule and spread his blessing.
They were amazed and they were afraid.
A revolution against Rome was acceptable, it was comfortable and it was popular–if not in reality at least in sentiment. But a revolution against their common heritage, that was a different thing altogether. Jesus’ message suddenly became uncomfortable.
Jesus was calling his followers to follow him down a path that was unfamiliar and unexpected. However not all of Jesus’ followers were uncomfortable. James and John heard all of the same teachings, they heard Jesus’ pronouncement that he was going to Jerusalem to die, but somehow they didn’t hear it. They were present for Jesus’ teachings and Jesus’ words passed by their ears, but they didn’t enter into their brains and hearts.
James and John practiced selective hearing. They heard what they wanted to hear, they internalized the teachings of Jesus that made them comfortable and they requested to be seated beside Jesus when he came into his kingdom. Of course their request was met with a mild rebuke from Jesus because they heard, but they didn’t hear.
Do Jesus’ teachings make you comfortable? If so, then you probably haven’t heard all of his teaching. You might have read them or heard them preached, but somehow like the Sons of Thunder, you haven’t heard them.
Jesus was revolutionary. Not revolutionary in the sort of violent overthrow that some like to suggest. But he was revolutionary none-the-less. He shook his followers from their comfort and he spoke against many of their pre-conceived notions about what it meant to be his follower and a true child of God.
Jesus came to seek and save the lost, but he didn’t come to make you comfortable. He came to love you, but he didn’t come to make you comfortable. In fact, until you are profoundly uncomfortable you probably can’t experience the totality of God’s love and grace and you certainly can’t lead others to experience Christ in his fullness.
God’s word is a place of peace and refuge for me and for all of his followers. However, if his Word is only a place of peace and refuge and is never a place of unrest and challenge, then we are probably practicing the same kind of selective hearing of which the apostles were often guilty. If we are never challenged by God’s word, we aren’t reading all of God’s word. And, if we are never uncomfortable with Jesus, we may not be following Jesus at all, but a savior of our own comfortable imagination.
As we journey from Easter with our minds fixed on the empty tomb, let us be reminded that a comfortable God is no God at all. Change only comes through challenge, and the God who can overcame death, hell, and the grave, didn’t do so to leave the world unchanged. He came to set the world right and he gave his own life to accomplish that purpose. Let’s grow comfortable in discomfort and follow Jesus wherever he might lead.
