Irritating Scripture
Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion was talking about a Thanksgiving Dinner when he was young in Lake Wobegon. He had this uncle who was a "communist" but who also knew the Bible. At this particular dinner he got everyone talking. As Keillor put it:

There are a lot of scriptures that can be used to irritate other people- ane he knew every one.

Well, as I heard a Biblical scholar once say about the parables of Jesus- if they didn't make you uncomfortable, you didn't understand them. Jesus is not about making religious people feel better. He is not about making the establishment like themselves better. He is not about comforting the comfortable. He is about laying out for people the way of God and that way is not what we usually think it is.

Which is why I need to keep reading what Jesus said to make sure I am not getting too comfortable in my faith and am continuing to stretch my life and faith into those places where God wants me to go.