What I Meant to Say Was . . .: Learning from “Foot in Mouth” Blunders with Jesus

By Roger Jenks

Have you ever blurted out something you wish you could take back?As soon as the words left your mouth you realized they were the wrong words. They were offensive to someone in your presence, they came from a limited view of the world that, until that moment, you thought was normal. In those moments our words betray the neighborhood (world view) we grew up in is limited and in need of expansion. Jesus encountered multiple moments in which people revealed their neighborhood through comments or questions they asked. Learn from their blunders, which arent too different from ours, and his responses to them that might sting at first glance but offer a way towards a fuller life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512756333

Roger Jenks

Roger has over 4 decades of experience as a senior pastor and is currently a consultant to churches around the country looking for revitalization through an organization he and his wife started called Grace Institute. Roger currently serves on the teaching team of a church in Oswego/Naperville, Illinois. He has a background as a teaching tennis pro, a religious news reporter for CBS, and is a published composer. He and his wife, Michelle, have five children.

Book preview

WHAT I MEANT

TO SAY WAS …

LEARNING FROM FOOT IN MOUTH BLUNDERS WITH JESUS

ROGER JENKS

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Copyright © 2016 Roger Jenks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5634-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5635-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5633-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915006

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/14/2016

Contents

Preface

Chapter One

The Big Sleep

Luke 12:13-21 (NLT)

Chapter Two

The Nice Guy Mask

Matthew 26:6-16 (NLT)

Chapter Three

On the Cover of People

Luke 11:27-28 (NLT)

Chapter Four

A Missed Pat on the Head

Matthew 18:21-35 (NLT)

Chapter Five

Sorting Out Those Who Don’t Belong

Mark 10:13-16 (NLT)

Chapter Six

But, What About Him?

John 21:20-23 (NLT)

Chapter Seven

Show Us the Father

John 14:8-14 (NLT)

Chapter Eight

That’s not a party that should happen

Luke 15:1-2, 11-32 (NLT)

Chapter Nine

The Stage Mother

Matthew 20:20-28 (NLT)

Chapter Ten

You Do it For Me

Luke 17:1-10 (NLT)

Chapter Eleven

A Promise Not Kept

Matthew 26:32-35 (NLT)

Chapter Twelve

The Unwillingness to Receive

John 5:1-45 (NLT)

Chapter Thirteen

Protecting Your Best Friend

Matthew 16:21-28 (NLT)

Chapter Fourteen

Protecting the Nest Egg

Luke 18:18-27 (NLT)

Chapter Fifteen

Could you wait a little longer?

Luke 9:57-62 (NLT)

Chapter Sixteen

I Should Have Stopped While I was Ahead

Luke 10:25-37 (NIV)

Chapter Seventeen

Let’s Hear it for Hypocrisy

John 8:1-11 (NLT)

Chapter Eighteen

But, We’ve Invested So Much

Matthew 19:27-30 (NLT)

Chapter Nineteen

Too Much Information

Matthew 21:23-27 NIV

Chapter Twenty

Whose picture do you see?

Mark 12:13-17 (NLT)

Chapter Twenty-One

Let’s do a Selfie!

Matthew 17:1-9 (NLT)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Could he be the Christ?

John 4:4-30 (NLT)

Afterthoughts

Dedicated to my wife, Michelle

and children

Shelley

Angie

Brad

Amber

McClaren

How to Use this Book:

This book is not intended to be read from cover to cover in one sitting. Each chapter is designed to be read independently and allow time for reflection and action.

Pastors can use this book as a reference for sermon preparation or as a resource for a sermon series on the same theme.

Individuals can use it as a devotional, reading a chapter every other day for a month or a chapter a week.

Groups can use this as a study guide, utilizing the questions at the end of the book for each chapter.

Given the nature of the material, this book can be used as a resource during the Lenten season or for a summer of reflection.

PREFACE

It happened in the checkout line at a dollar store. My wife and I were going through the line and just as we were gathering the bags to leave the teen-aged clerk looked at my wife and asked, When are you due? My wife’s jaw dropped and she stammered out something and weakly finished with, I’m not pregnant. The irony of the question stemmed from the fact that not only was my wife not pregnant, she was also svelte and a well trained athlete, at the time teaching kickboxing exercise.

The bagger at the checkout line turned, perplexed, to the clerk and almost shouted, What’s the matter with you, girl? What made you think she was pregnant? As my wife’s face gradually grew crimson with embarrassment the clerk nonchalantly said, Her shirt wasn’t tucked in. Not willing to concede the moment, and becoming more and more defensive of my wife, the bagger simply said, "Only in our neighborhood does an un-tucked shirt mean someone’s gonna have a baby."

The clerk muttered a half-hearted, unrepentant, I’m sorry, and we left with me having to field the stream of questions about whether my wife really did look fat.

The clerk missed her chance to learn. The moment of potential embarrassment had also been a moment for her to begin to see beyond her own neighborhood. But, it came and went and she let it go. But, all of us have our neighborhood don’t we? We blurt out things regularly that betray our narrowness, our assumptions, our limited view of things, and our prejudices.

If I had a nickel for every time I put my foot in my mouth, even with good intentions, I would be a wealthy man. But I suppose that I am wealthy in some other ways because of them. Those moments highlighted my own narrowness, ignorance, prejudice, intolerance, pride, insecurities and the limitations of my own neighborhood. They are part of the highlight reel of moments I wish I could do over. But they all presented me with a chance to either entrench myself and proclaim that I was right or that I didn’t do anything wrong, or accept the grace of God and admit error, apologize, feel foolish for a while, and hopefully learn. It is my hope that in sharing these moments they will lead you to reflect on your own moments of embarrassment and learning.

In our average day, the question isn’t whether we’ll suffer from foot in mouth disease. It is when and how often. The smart people are the ones who appropriate those moments and learn something from them. The really smart people are the ones who pay attention to other people’s loose tongues, verbal gaffs, and off-the-mark comments. Those moments are filled with two important opportunities: 1) The desire to never repeat the same mistake you just witnessed, and 2) the discovery of truth that is often illuminated by the strange moment. Like the clerk, we often have a chance to look at what our neighborhood has taught us that might not be universal or even helpful. Since we all grow up in a neighborhood that is filled with assumptions, values, threats, hopes and dreams, our experience by nature is narrow and limited.

Our neighborhoods have often told us…

• Who the people are that we can trust

• Who the acceptable people are

• All the shoulds, oughts, nevers, can’ts, and always of life

• What our limitations probably are

• What we should feel guilty about

• Whether we should ever feel guilty

• What it means to be an adult

• Whether or not we really have to grow up

• What we will probably get rewarded for

• Whether life is worth living or not

This book hopefully gives us the chance to be really smart people. Over the course of the chapters that follow, I will share with you some reflections on moments of Jesus’ encounters with people who eventually have to take their feet out of their mouths along with some embarrassing moments of my own. For the most part, they are well-intentioned people, folks who are often trying to make a good impression. They mean well and sometimes are trying to rescue a deteriorating situation with a comment, only to make it worse. In some cases they don’t mean well at all and the things they blurt out are intended to trap, embarrass, judge, and put down. But in almost every case, they are everyday people who, in most cases, probably wished they could take back what they said. These red-faced individuals are great teachers though. In their bumbling way they have provided Jesus with a forum to instruct. By allowing their ill-timed comments to have a spotlight turned on them, they give us a chance to discover important things. They may not come across well in the story of scripture, but we can thank them for their gift anyway. Join me as we walk into their awkward moments.

CHAPTER ONE

The Big Sleep

One of the multitude said to him, Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, Man, who made me a judge or divider over you? And he said them, Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this; I will pull down my barns, and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the person who lays up treasure for self, and is not rich toward God."

Luke 12:13-21 (NLT)

When I was in grade school, my best friend was Farrel. One of the things I admired about Farrel was his hair. It was combed a certain way that was cool and flipped up in front like the guys in the movies of the day, like Ed Burns on 77 Sunset Strip. It didn’t matter that he used about a pound of Butch Wax to hold it in place. I wished I had hair like that. I didn’t actually want Farrel’s hair, but I wanted hair like his. That is envy.

Farrel also had a baseball glove that was broken in, was well oiled, and seemed to catch everything. I didn’t want one like it. If I had my choice I actually wanted his. That is covetousness. But I never had the guts to ask him for it and I never thought of stealing it. It also never occurred to me to ask someone to suggest to him that he hand it over to me, unlike the man in the story who laid his covetousness out there for everyone to look at. Right there in front of the multitude, the guy asks Jesus to intercede on his behalf, probably wishing later that he never opened his mouth.

Ironically, the interruption by the unnamed man comes in the middle of a sermon on character. It’s sort of like someone calling for a vote to dis-fellowship someone after a sermon on grace. In one sense he is not asking something inappropriate of a rabbi. Rabbis were often asked questions of this sort. He is not asking even for a judgment. He just wants someone with authority to persuade his brother to divide the inheritance. But Jesus won’t have anything to do with the request. In no uncertain terms, Jesus asks who appointed him to work out this problem. This is probably not a bad thing for us to remember when people want to put us squarely in the middle of a conflict that is not ours. It’s called triangulation. But there is a larger problem and Jesus knows it. The problem is not the request, but the reason for the request and the ensuing consequences.

Sometimes we ask for things without realizing the cost involved. It is like sleepwalking and not having any idea about the consequences of the things we are doing. We sometimes ask for things and don’t realize the things we could potentially lose in a big way. Underneath what appears to be a simple request, Jesus sees the drive of covetousness at work and he won’t ignore it. The nature of covetousness is that it is a desire walking through a minefield: you’re never sure when things will blow up.

At this point, the foot in mouth experience begins to set in. Instead of pulling the guy over to the side and privately scolding him, Jesus bellows out, Take heed, and beware of all covetousness which we would translate as Watch out! (At least he didn’t say, You greedy little creep) Jesus then takes the request and turns to the crowd to make it a teaching moment. This is sort of like not having your homework done and the teacher deciding to use you as exhibit A of what will happen to anyone else who doesn’t get it done either. All you want to do is crawl under your desk and start digging through the floorboards.

In typical fashion, a story is told. Also in typical fashion, it is about a farmer, which most of them understand because farming is a part of their lives. This farmer is successful and has the difficult problem of trying to figure what to do with all the extra crops. Don’t we wish we all had that kind of problem?

At this point we have to be careful, because it is easy to assume some things inaccurately. The problem is not that the farmer is rich. The problem is not that he is successful. The problem lies in his attitude and assumptions. In many ways he sounds like he is straight out of the 1980’s: the Me Decade. At least seven times in the short parable the words I or my" are used by the farmer. The self-satisfied comments sound like the motto that came from the movie, Wall Street, Greed is good. The most telling thing about this farmer’s language is that it gives away that this issue is all about him. There is no larger picture. There are no people to be helped. No charities to assist. There is no long view of things. There is no sense that the future can be fragile. He is in the moment and what he knows is what he wants. You might say he has entered into the big sleep; it makes it obvious that he’s clueless, lost, and insensitive and doesn’t