I'm haunted this morning by the line from Mark 6:20 to the effect that when he heard John preach, Herod was greatly perplexed, but he heard him gladly.
I have it fixed in my mind that complexity is offensive to the mind of my neighbor.
But what if it isn't?
What if I gave my friends and neighbors credit for being able to be intrigued?
So much of Scripture is written in riddles and obscure parables that it feels like a betrayal of sorts if all of our preaching is characterized by the insulting simplicity of advertising copy.
And if perplexing things make some walk away in disgust we must agree that no one can follow Christ for long without running into the perplexing things in time. When reading the gospels it often seems like Jesus is brusque and unneccesarily off-putting with strangers. He speaks to the woman at the well (a complete stranger) in a way that is both alarmingly direct and very mysterious. His talk of living water and true worship might have put her off with confused indignation, but it had the opposite effect. What looks like rude directness on Jesus' part is really a sort of noble consideration.
I have occassionally, to my shame, invited Christine on a hike where I declined to mention ahead of time some of the obstacles we would run into well into the hike. Jesus always had the courtesy to invite people to climb the mountain with him before he took them on any strolls through the meadow.
So here's to perplexity and mystery.
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