A pity that you haven't paid attention to the various threads on this topic that there have been over the past couple of years, Shakes.
I haven't been here for the past couple of years, but it's precisely and exactly because I've paid attention to aforementioned threads since I have been here (and elsewhere) that I'm aware that the answer you get to the issue varies from one Christian to the next - which stands in stark contradiction to the my-way-or-the-fry-way of the Gospels. This suggests that rather a lot of people who call themselves Christians appear not to know what to believe and seem to be making it up as they go along, quite contrary to what the manual says. That's OK by me because in good people who claim a religious adherence you see good, kindly beliefs which are essentially humanistic views with a thin patina of Christianity quite needlessly laid on top - that inherent goodness remains should all the Jesus baggage fall away (as it often does), because it's an intrinsically human quality and not a religious one. From the point of view of simple, basic human kindness, goodness and decency this is fine; but it's not what the supposed instruction book says.
Contrary to your assumption that Christians are suffering from 'embarrased coughing, shuffling of feet and general shiftiness', they are suffering from uncertainty as to exactly what Jesus meant by such teaching.
Why would they be uncertain? Are the Gospels straightforwardly clear or are they not? And if they are not, why are they not? Is this god that you claim to believe in, the same one capable of creating a universe and all within it out of nothing according to your belief system, apparently unable to get its message to humankind across clearly and without ambiguity, thus obviating unclarity, confusion and the need for so many conflicting, mutually contradictory interpretations? Does this god have a message for humankind, and does it want humankind to see, know and understand it clearly without ambiguity or confusion, or does it not? Does this deity actively seek unclarity, confusion and ambiguity, or not? It's patently obvious as to why anyone disposed to believe in a god might think so. Interpretation only comes into play when the text in question is sufficiently unclear to allow for it; and unclarity is not what one would reasonably expect from an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity (though you remain as coy as ever as to whether the god you purport to believe in actually possesses these attributes. The reticence is understandable, but cowardly). There are so many denominations of Christianity because every sect chooses to interpret the words as contained in the Bible in a manner that suits them - all claiming their own interpretation to be the only right, true and correct one, of course - and nobody can credibly refute any other interpretation because there's no correct, definitive
Ur-text with which to compare them in order to prove them wrong.
Good writers try to say whatever it is they want to say as simply and as clearly as they can in order to communicate their point(s) effectively, which means doing everything they can to minimise ambiguity and maximise clarity, so that 'interpretation' (which as already noted is subject to the vagaries of individual whim over time) isn't even an issue. Can your god do this? If so, why didn't it? If not, why call it a god? Why is this god supposedly powerful enough to speak creation into being by its will, but such a bad writer that the Plain English Campaign would give it an almighty bollocking for being unable to communicate what it supposedly needs to effectively? This seems to make your god the Almighty Creator of All That Is when it comes to a cosmos but all of a sudden with the writing skills of those people who construct the instructions for flat-pack furniture. Do you or do you not consider that any god worthy of the name would
want to do better than this, would
know how to do it and furthermore
would be able to do so? Yet this is not what we see when we look around at the real world.
I feel the Incredible Shrinking God coming on again.
