He also taught his disciples to break Shabbat.
Since you were bored and are interested in responses to these, I'll give it a shot, as I'm filling some time having my morning tea.
He taught them that the "Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." This was to teach that those who think "loving God" means obeying dietary laws and days of observance are missing the point. The sabbath isn't something you observe because it's important to God. It was made as a day of rest for humans. If circumstances, such as his disciples having no food and being hungry, means they cannot eat because it's the Sabbath day and they can't pick wheat, that's a wrong application of what the law is for.
It's not because it matters to God, and just as David got sacred bread from the high priest on the Sabbath to feed his men on the Sabbath, Jesus was illustrating common sense and
grace over
legalism. He wasn't teaching "disobey the law", but rather using a little common sense and not having the incorrect idea that these laws are to please God, as if someone God is concerned about days of the week
as God.
And if that wasn't enough, the author made it clear it didn't matter to God by having Jesus then say, that as the Son of Man, he says it doesn't. In other words, the Lord of the Sabbath was there and said its okay, don't worry about it. He gave them permission, since he was the author of the law anyway, just in case someone was still worried about it and not understanding why it didn't really matter under the circumstances, based on the logical rationale he had just explained.
The story was to teach the foundation Christian principle about love and grace, over law and legalism as the path to God. Days of the week are important to man, not to God. Don't bend the rules in a religion, into making them about the nature of God. Religion is for man, not for God. God has no need of religion himself.
He taught his followers to abandon their livelihoods and love him more than their parents.
And of course there are principles here that are being trodden underfoot by a strained reading of the text. Anyone who is truly on a path to the Divine, in fact does need to place the love of God ahead of all other interests in life. If you are to love your parents and your neighbor as yourself, as Jesus cleary teaches, then you have to love God first before all else, because God is the Source of Love. It's like going to the well for water. If you don't care for that well before all else, you'll soon all suffer and dies from a lack of water.
To "hate" your parents is not an actual injunction, as that would violate his teaching that Love is the fulfillment of all of the law and prophets. It's meant as a 'by comparison'. It's hyperbole, 'as wide as the oceans, as high as the skies," not
literalism.
He called his mother 'woman' and effectively abandoned them; his family thought he was crazy.
So, you wish to take modern American, relatively recent and barely practiced cultural norms and impose them upon an ancient culture and its authors writing in the language and customs of its day? Was he really speaking disrespectfully to her? Would that be consistent with the rest of the image of Jesus the authors were showing, or is that maybe reading something into it? Did they intend to make Jesus out to be a dick to his mom? Was that their intent?
You see, I do not believe that these authors were "recording history", as some careless reader of scripture might like to assume. These were crafted stories to teach Christian principles. Hating your parents, nowhere is found as a Christian principle. It's more than highly unlikely they penned Jesus to be acting like a dick to his own mother. Why would they? For what purpose? Did Jesus teach one day to love others as yourself, and then kick little puppies and scorn family on another?
Were the authors trying to say Jesus had some unresolved emotional issues and still dealing with his own inner landscapes, not practicing what he preached? I highly doubt that's what the various authors intended to be communicating with that story. I do not believing the authors were stenographers, merely recording events as the unfolding without any reason other than recording history in their minds. That's a highly unrealistic, and modern notion about them that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
He went on a rampage with a whip.
A rampage? The whip, first and foremost, was not used on humans. The story says he took the cord and drove the animals out, like anyone who was trying to chase a herd of animal out to clear and area would. In other words, he was using a tool for that specific purpose. I don't read an uncontrolled, raging rampage there.
Overturning the money changers tables? Why call that a rampage? He was very controlled and intentional in targeting the activity they were engaged with. Chasing off wolves and dogs out of a sacred place, is not "out of control", as the word "rampage" suggests. Nothing in that story suggests a Jesus out of control.
He possibly practiced sorcery.
Huh?
He allowed himself to be put to death - also a sin if it can be prevented.
If you allowed yourself to be struck by a car and lose your life in order to push your children out of the way and saving them, is that still a sin in God's eyes, or just yours?
