uncomforTABLE

Jesus is in the business of making people uncomfortable. We see this from the very beginning of his public ministry.

• He eats with people that others excluded and risks bringing their own uncleanness and stigma upon himself. (Luke 15)
• He heals people with illnesses and infirmities when healing and work are uncalled for. (Mark 1: 21-28)
• And most of all, the way he reads ancient Scriptures and the meaning in his interpretations and expositions make people feel downright itchy and uncomfortable. He is almost launched off a hill after his first sermon in his own hometown. (Luke 4: 16-30)

There's a point in Jesus making people so darn uncomfortable and anxious all the time. Without uncomfort, we don't experience the kingdom of heaven. We share nothing of the presence of God that Jesus lives in constantly. We miss the kingdom boat and wade on the shores of boring reality as it is.

Peter learned this through one of his many arguments with Jesus. Jesus, kneeling at Peter's feet like a no-good slave with a towel around his waist, hears how Peter thinks there is a better way. "You shall not wash my feet!"

Jesus responds, "If I don't wash your feet, you will have no part with me." (John 13 )

Peter hears that he will receive nothing of the coming kingdom. He will be left outside. He will receive no share, no part of the inheritance. When he hears that his uncomfort is attached to his share, he flips his script.

"Not just my feet, then! Wash also my hands and my head!" In other words, give me more!

We see in Jesus that we have an uncomfortable-making God. God shows us through Jesus how uncomfortable he is with--poverty, racism, sexism, violence, unjust suffering, injustice, a lazy people, lack of connections among his own people, poor stewardship, and on and on. In our lives and even in our churches, we exhibit day after day how comfortable we have grown to all those scenarios. When Jesus comes to wash our feet, we put out the same words of Peter, "Not my feet. I'm fine the way I am, and you ought to be as well."

But God isn't fine with dirty feet and comfortable people. God is concerned about making us uncomfortable SO THAT we too may experience the living presence of shalom, peace, justice, and everything that is a part of God's rule in our lives.

We may not have Jesus bowing at our feet these days, but we do have Jesus imparting his very life to us through his meal at the TABLE. This table is a table of discomfort, a table that witnesses to the very presence of God's discomfort with all that is sin. The table reminds us of how we too must become uncomforTABLE to experience the presence of God's rule in our lives. God works through the table to take down everything that makes us comfortable with dirty feet, and sets us free to be an UNCOMFORTABLE people in this world--a people who tie towels around our waists, scoot from knee to knee on dirty, dusty floors, and take the grimy feet of an comfortable world into our own hands. It's in that connection where God's kingdom comes rushing in like a football defense on a blitz.

How is Jesus making you uncomfortable today?