Why do you think it was okay for Jesus to use degrading terms, but not us?
We stubborny cling to images of a powerful Jesus associated with redemptive or apocalyptic violence because:
1.We want him to be powerful enough to insure life after death.
2.We want him to defeat (or exclude) enemies.
3.And because we ourselves are weak and vulnerable we famtasize a god who will punish evil and establish justice.
Like many of Jesus' contemporaries who hoped Roman and sectarian rivalry would soon be subjected to God's violent judgement, many believers today reject the mustard seed and Jesus' invitation to be subversive weeds. And, too, it is hard to turn away from the Bible's violent images of God because they are pretty prominent--especially in the Hebrew Bible. You have been led from an early age that if it is in the Bible, then it somehow must be true.
I believe Jesus invites us to live according to his alternative vision and his experience of a nonviolent God whose real power is invitational, not coercive.
so if god is nonviolent and incapable of imposing justice now or in the future, how then are we to live?[