Was it Boneheaded or was it me?

Ok, yesterday at church our minister said something that I passed off as a little bone-headed. He was talking about the scripture where the prostitute came in to where Jesus was and washed his feet and used rich perfume on his head, to the offense of those present.  The preacher then said that to make a point he thought about having a prostitute to come up on stage a giving him a back rub while he preached this lesson!  When I heard it I thought of all the conservative people who would wonder:  Would he Do That?, Does he know prostitutes?, Why did he paint that image? And I thought: "He should have worded it differently."  I let it go and began to see the point he wanted to make which was: "Jesus came to seek and save the lost.  That is who was drawn to him because he was comfortable with them."  he went a head a challenged us to get out of our comfort zone.  

Today one of our leaders sent a text and asked me if  anyone besides him got any comments about paying a prostitute.  I was busy at work and simply responded that no one contacted me but that the comment was bone-headed.  The "paying" comment was a bad choice of words.

I thought about it the rest of the day.  While I still believe that his delivery of the example did not come off like he intended and did needlessly raised a few eyebrows about paying prostitutes, it, by mistake, made the point EVEN STRONGER.  It was a comment that did the same as if it happened. How else would you get a "prostitute" to do that?  

But more than that we are uncomfortable knowing that a prostitute would be there like that.  WE have for a fact had prostitutes in our presence and would not have wanted our kids and others to know about it.

His sermon was more effective than I thought  EVEN THOUGH.................... I now know how the pharisees felt!  Jesus, just makes us uncomfortable!

We aren't there yet.   We  will sometime learn to trust each other. I hope.  We do need to quit wanting our comfort level stroked.

We can't fire the preacher though, he already quit!