It can be tempting to confuse Jesus’ kindness and goodness with passivity, mistakenly imagining him as a person who would never ruffle any feathers because he was so concerned about being “nice.” This one-sided image of Jesus can lead us to excuse our own passivity about the falsehood and evil that surrounds us. We can justify our silence or inaction by convincing ourselves that we shouldn’t upset anyone. But the fact is that Jesus upset people on a regular basis. That wasn’t his goal but he was willing to deal with resistance for the sake of truth and justice. And we should be willing to do the same. Our world is growing more and more hostile to the message of the Gospel. When we live our faith authentically, it makes some people angry. But we should not recoil from this reality. Jesus’ witness made people furious too. But when they got mad, he didn’t cave in. Whether people like it or not, the truth does not change.
Adults: What do you do when a message you are trying to deliver “falls on deaf ears”?
Children: Are there times when you have not listened as well as you could to what someone was telling you? Why didn’t you?
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