In our final sermon of the serious, we look at Jesus's unwillingness to offend a tax collector and consider how Jesus calls us to avoid offending others. We are called to be stewards of his offense. Willing to risk the offense of the cross but never allow ourselves or our rights to become the obstacle of offense. 

The night Jesus was betrayed, he warned his disciples that they would stumble because of him. They would see his cross and be offended by it. The cross is the central offense of human history, for in the cross we are forced to see our own need and his call to take up that cross and follow. Jesus had been using offense to prepare his disciples. He told the about the suffering to come so that they would not be offended by it. 

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.