Are you avoiding inconvenient scripture? Are you mentally accepting truth, but doing everything you can to wriggle out of living it? Jesus was saddened by that kind of behaviour.
Perhaps you are justifying your avoidance by hoping that Jesus was using metaphor or hyperbole on the inconvenient sayings!
You might recall that the Hebrew law, the Torah had rules about many things. One rule said that when your parents get old and cannot look after themselves, you have responsibilities to ensure they are cared for. This could involve giving your time to look after them. Or it might involve you paying someone else to do it. The Pharisees had this clever scheme for avoiding all that, called 'korban'. Other rules in the Torah said that you could make a vow to give your time or your money to God if you wished. So the Pharisees said that if you devoted your time and money to God, it need not be available to take care of your parents.
But today, that kind of game continues. We are very happy about what Jesus Christ did - healing people, feeding people, dying on the cross for us, being resurrected, forgiving us, promising us new life. Everything he did is fine by us.
I am not so keen on what he said though. His teaching. And I think there's a chance you might be a bit like me.
So Jesus said I must love my neighbour the same way I love myself. Then he told a story indicating that my neighbour is anyone I may come across during the day who is clearly in need.
So if I feel ill, I look after myself more carefully. If I'm hungry, I make sure I've got food in the cupboard for tomorrow. If it's a cold day, I make sure I've got a warm coat on. If I'm away from home, I make certain I have a place to sleep for the night. And if I have insufficient food for my children to eat, I move heaven and earth to get some. And if I run short of money for necessities, I reconsider my spending to make sure I'm not prioritising luxuries over things I need.
I don't really feel anything like that kind of urgent personal responsibility for someone I come across who may be struggling with any of those.
So I don't like that teaching about loving my neighbour. Instead I find ways to avoid it. Deep down I would prefer it if Jesus had said 'help your neighbour a bit'. But he didn't. So my approach, and maybe yours too, is to try and do a bit so that my behaviour aligns with other Christians, but I don't want to go over the top.
Jesus also told a story about a servant who had been forgiven a great deal, who subsequently refused to forgive someone else. He got put into prison and tortured. Then Jesus goes on to say ...
Moreover, Jesus taught his disciples a prayer which included this idea. But I prefer my church's theology which says that I am definitely totally and completely forgiven irrespective of whether I forgive others. (They don't actually say that explicitely of course, but it is implied in almost all their teaching.) I'm comforted by the fact that you can kind of prove that from the Bible if you want to.
So although I know Jesus said that about forgiving, I've found a Bible-based way to avoid it. Again I try to forgive, but it's difficult in some cases, and there's just some people that are beyond the pale. If God gives me enough love then I'll be able to forgive, so maybe it's his problem?
Jesus also said that I have to love other Christians like Jesus loves them. And he said that the way the world would know that Jesus came from God, the way the gospel would be authenticated would be the evidence of this amazing new loving community of Christians who are totally no-limits devoted to each other.
Yeah. Right! I suppose this might be the reason why the gospel struggles to make an impact! Because I grew up in a church which drew a red line around a bunch of beliefs that you had to have in order to be considered a 'real Christian'. And that was sufficient justification for not wanting to be totally devoted to people who were outside my red lines. (And actually we were never totally devoted to even the folks that went to the same kind of church either.)
Sadly we have developed this amazing skill of gagging the truth - simply ignoring what Jesus said because it is just too hard to live that way. And then we redefine what it means to follow Jesus, so that we can claim we are. Am I being too harsh? Probably, but God says he has poured out the resources to enable us to follow Jesus, so let's address it now shall we, rather than wait until we are face to face with Father God. Otherwise things are going to get embarrassing.
