In today’s message, we ease drop on conversations with Jesus in Luke 4 and Matthew 5. In the first passage Jesus is reading from Isaiah in His home town of Nazareth. The town folk are enjoying His reading and teaching. But the smiles turn to gnashing teeth as He tells them that the scriptures are fulfilled! With urgency, they switch from adoring Him to trying to shove Him off a nearby cliff. Jesus challenged their assumptions about God. In Matt 5, Jesus is talking with another group of people. He begins to challenge the status quo regarding offense and conflict. Most, like us, were dealing with conflict by avoiding the other person, and by talking to others (behind their back) about the treacherous acts that were committed against us. They/we wanted revenge and payment for the wrong doing, not conversation and forgiveness. Once again, Jesus challenges the established norm. He tells the group/us to quickly resolve conflict, to talk with the person, one-on-one, to try to resolve things. Only if we cannot resolve the conflict, should we include others to go with us to attempt to resolve the conflict. Once again, Jesus changes everything!
