Posts Tagged ‘offense’

The price of following Jesus

September 6, 2025

Pentecost 13 – 2025

Luke 14:25-35

Marian Free

In the name of God, who stands with the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed and who asks that we do the same. Amen.

Decades ago, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. At the time I was struck by his courage and by his clarity of vision. He has remained for me a hero of faith and an example of Christian witness in difficult times.

Bonhoeffer was in his twenties when Hitler was installed as Chancellor of Germany, yet despite his relative youth he perceived the danger of the cult of the Fuhrer and publicly warned that the leader might become the ‘misleader’. He was among many church people who resisted the incorporation of Nazi ideology into the church’s theology (a compromise many churches were willing to make in order to keep peace). Bonhoeffer consistently critiqued both the government and the church and was part of a break-away movement which formed the Confessing Church – a coalition of those who refused to accept the Nazi influence in matters of faith.

Bonhoeffer’s willingness to criticize the government led to his being forbidden to speak in public and having to report regularly to the Nazis but, ironically perhaps, through the influence of his brother-in-law he became a member of the Abwehr (the German military-intelligence agency). It was through his connections there that he became part of a group who plotted to kill Hitler. He said of this decision: “If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.” 

His involvement in this plot led to his arrest and imprisonment.  He was sent to Tegel Prison for 11/2 years. Then, as the Allies advanced and defeat became inevitable, the Germans moved Bonhoeffer and others east to Buchenwald and then to Flossenberg concentration camp. He was executed there on April 9, 1945. He was only 39 years old. It is reported that as he was led away to the place of execution he declared: “This is the end—but for me it is the beginning of Life!”[41]

Many of Bonhoeffer’s overseas colleagues understood the dangers he was facing by remaining Germany and offered him sanctuary in both Britain and the USA, but he refused both offers believing that he: “should live through this difficult time with the German people.” To fail to do so, he believed, would prevent his having any part in the rebuilding of that nation.

Bonhoeffer, along with Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King and the many martyrs of our age understood clearly that following Jesus and living by gospel values sometimes comes at a cost. Speaking truth to power, resisting Empire, standing with the poor and the vulnerable, seeking justice for the oppressed, confronting corruption and exploitation is not always welcomed by those who do not wish to rock the boat, or by those who want to maintain their power, protect or build their wealth, or to shield themselves from suffering.

Today’s gospel is a stark reminder that following Jesus is not just about accepting God’s love, but means living by gospel principles and, if necessary, dying for them. At this point in the gospel story Jesus is being followed by large crowds who may be caught up in the excitement of the Jesus’ movement, who may be hoping to witness a miracle or to be cured of an infirmity or disease. Jesus needs to let them know that discipleship is much more than comradeship and miracles. Discipleship demands that followers are true to the principles of justice, integrity and compassion – no matter how uncomfortable that may make the society around them. 

Jesus wants to know who among the crowd has the sort of commitment that will see them to the end.  “Whoever comes to me and does not hate life itself cannot be my disciple.”   Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?” In other words: “How many of you have truly considered the price of following me and asked yourselves whether or not you have the capacity to meet the cost?”

Ever since Constantine made Christianity the faith of the Empire, the church has been entwined with the state and the establishment. As a consequence, except for brief occasions it has often been difficult to distinguish Christian values from cultural values. Times are changing, the community in which we live is becoming increasingly fractured and the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow. Homelessness is on the rise and those who can afford homes cannot find homes to buy, food insecurity is a very real issue for too many families, and too many young people are finding themselves on the wrong side of the law. 

It is time to reclaim our role as a voice for the voiceless, a supporter of the weak and protector of the vulnerable. It may be that we will be called to critique the power that would exploit the vulnerable, take advantage of the weak and enrich itself at the expense of the poor. 

It is time to remember Bonhoeffer’s words of caution:  “Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offence, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christians should take a stronger stand in favour of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.” 

We must remember and teach those who come after us that following Jesus is not a crutch but a cross, not only a comfort in times of difficulty, but a challenge to act when to act is costly and it is not a defence against harm but is sometimes a call to put oneself in the path of danger.

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate life itself cannot be my disciple.” 

Do we, with all our privileges and advantages really understand the cost of discipleship and, if we do, are we willing, if called upon, to pay the price?

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Does this offend you? Eating flesh and drinking blood

August 24, 2024

Pentecost 14 – 2024

John 6:56-69

Marian Free

In the name of God who shakes us out of our complacency so that we might always see the world afresh. Amen.

“Does this offend you?”  Jesus ask the disciples in today’s gospel.  

Unfortunately, the church/Christian faith in our time causes offense for all the wrong reasons. In the minds of many, religion is associated with warfare, often with good reason. The Crusades were a cynical attempt not so much to restore Jerusalem to the Christians, but to secure the trade route to Asia; and throughout the ages professed Christians have used their faith to defend aggression against others. An apparently closed mind towards science and innovation has meant that in some places and in. some minds the church has been left behind or has slipped into irrelevance. In recent decades the prevalence of child sex abuse and domestic violence within the church have caused many to react with revulsion and disgust towards the church – which, at best ignored perpetrators, and at worst protected them. Holier-than-thou attitudes towards and the exclusion of those who didn’t fit the narrow definition of “good” Christians – divorcees, single parents and members of the LGBTQI+ communities have led to great hurt and confusion among those who would be part of the church if only they were accepted. 

As a consequence of such behaviour and attitudes, many would-be believers have voted with their feet, have abandoned their faith and left the church.

As we come to the end of Jesus’ discourse on bread, we come face-to-face with the confronting imagery of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. According to the Gospel this teaching is so difficult that “many of Jesus’ disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” In the early church this teaching, expressed in the language of the Eucharist, continued to cause offense to the extent that early believers were accused of cannibalism. A second century document The Octavius of Minicius Felix[1] describes a debate between a Christian and a pagan. In it, “Caecilius The Pagan states: You Christians are the worst breed ever to affect the world. You deserve every punishment you can get! Nobody likes you. It would be better if you and your Jesus had never been born. We hear that you are all cannibals–you eat the flesh of your children in your sacred meetings.”

It is good that the church is no longer accused of cannibalism, superstition or any of the other false charges levelled against it in the first couple of centuries. What is sad is that in general the church has lost its capacity to shock and to offend, the ability to encourage people to think, to reevaluate their values and their ideas and to radically challenge injustice and oppression. In the minds of many (at least in the West) the church seems to have sunk into irrelevance.  It would appear that there is nothing about the church, its teachings or about our lives together that makes it stand out as different from almost any other not-for-profit organisation or that suggests that it has anything to offer a world that is suffering both from consumerism and from the current cost of living crisis. In many ways the church has become so bland that there is little that it says or does to draw the interest of the press or the attention of the public. Over the centuries Jesus’ radical teaching and behaviour has gradually been softened or has been modified so as not to draw attention. 

“Does this offend you?” Underlying Jesus’ shocking claim that; “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” is the promise that faith in and an intimate relationship with him is the gateway to life – both in the present and for eternity. In contrast to the church and the state of his day, Jesus presented to a world that was hungry and thirsty, a gospel that was satisfying, life-giving and life-affirming. He was crucified in part because he dared to cause offense, because he refused to conform to the life-denying norms of his time or to the stultifying, out-dated, and restrictive teachings of the church in his time and place. Jesus drew people to him because he dared to critique the laws of church and state that oppressed, divided and excluded and that imposed unnecessary limitations and. which prevented people from being fully alive.

In the centuries that have followed Jesus’ death, the church at times has been guilty of colonising and appropriating Jesus’ teaching. Instead of celebrating Jesus’ radical inclusiveness of those on the margins and those already condemned by society, the church has from time to time weaponised Jesus’ teaching to exclude those who do not conform to a narrow definition of who is acceptable and who is not. Instead of rejoicing in Jesus’ loosening the strings of a restrictive and deadening law, the church has at times imposed limitations and created laws of its own making. Jesus’ relaxation of the Sabbath rest has (certainly in recent times) given reign to a culture in which rest can be seen as a weakness rather than a source of strength. Jesus’ liberation of the law surrounding divorce was used to keep abused women and unhappy men and women in marriages that were already dead. And so it goes.

“Does this offend you?” There is so much to takeout of today’s gospel, but let this be the year when we focus on the offence that Jesus caused and ask ourselves why we are no longer offensive. Are we content to blend in with the society in which we find ourselves or are we courageous enough to challenge those structures and institutions that are failing the poor, the refugee, the first nations people of this land and to preach a gospel of life abundant for ALL. Do we also “want to go away” or have we truly grasped the radical, uncompromising, life-giving potential of being Jesus’ disciples? 

[1] https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/why-early-christians-were-despised-11629610.html#google_vignette

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A cause for offense?

August 25, 2018

Pentecost 14 – 2018

John 6:58-69

(Notes while on leave).

Marian Free

In the name of God who is disconcerting, challenging and confronting. Amen.

Speaking to a journalist from The Huffington Post about his work ‘Piss Christ’ the artist Andres Serrano stated: “The only message is that I’m a Christian artist making a religious work of art based on my relationship with Christ and The Church. The crucifix is a symbol that has lost its true meaning; the horror of what occurred. It represents the crucifixion of a man who was tortured, humiliated and left to die on a cross for several hours. In that time, Christ not only bled to dead, he probably saw all his bodily functions and fluids come out of him. So if “Piss Christ” upsets people, maybe this is so because it is bringing the symbol closer to its original meaning. There was a time prior to the 17th century when the only important art, the only art that mattered, was religious art. After that, there were very few contemporary art pieces that were considered both art and religious, and “Piss Christ” is one of them.”

When the photograph ‘Piss Christ’ was displayed in Melbourne it was greeted with horror by members of conservative Christian groups who demanded that it be removed from the exhibit because it was disrespectful and offensive to the Christian faith. Even though Serrano is a Christian and even though the work was intended to make a powerful statement about the Christian faith, the protesters could not be appeased.

It is not the first time (and will not be the last) that theatre, literature or art has offended the sensibilities of good Christian folks. For example the musical Jesus Christ Superstar drew crowds of protesters when it was first performed in Brisbane for example.

Of course, the protesters believe that they are defending the Christian faith against attack, protecting it’s purity and it’s innocence. From their vantage point any story except their own is misleading and heretical and any presentation of Christ that dares to critique the domestication of the Gospel is seen as disrespectful and offensive. Those who are sensitive to the ‘offense’ believe that it is their task to defend the faith, to protect the image/the reputation of God.

From my vantage point there are two problems inherent in this way of thinking and behaving. The first is the presumption that God needs human beings to protect God’s reputation and the second is that this who are so offended seem to have forgotten how offensive and scandalous Jesus was. The Greek word ‘σκανδάλων’ (to scandalize, to cause offense) is used of Jesus on more than one occasion. Far from trying to maintain or conform to the status, Jesus appears to be constantly causing offense to the good religious people of the time. Jesus offends the Pharisees by breaking the Sabbath, eating with tax-collectors and, most seriously, by claiming to be one with God. His behavior is so scandalous that those who associate with him are threatened with expulsion from the synagogue and those who are so offended plot to kill him.

Scandal is at the heart of today’s gospel. Crowds, including the Pharisees and disciples, have been captivated by the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. They have been happy to have been caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowds that follow Jesus. However, as Jesus expounds on the meaning of the bread, as he reinterprets traditional views and challenges the crowds to have faith, their enthusiasm wanes. Following Jesus, they realise, will take effort on their part. It will require a depth of understanding and a willingness to change and grow. Many are not ready for this kind of commitment. They are not willing to challenge their cherished belief systems or to expose them to the scrutiny of a new teaching, a new day. Even the disciples complain that the teaching is difficult and many of them abandon Jesus.

The photograph ‘Piss Christ’ challenges all of us to consider how we have domesticated Jesus, to recognize the ways in which we have removed the scandal and the offense of the cross.

We follow a crucified Christ, a man who was condemned to death and executed as a common criminal, who scandalized the religious authorities and even his own followers, who was anything but a comfortable conformist.

The question we should be asking is not whether something offends us, but – whether by our godliness, our lifestyle, our passion for justice, our concern for the marginalized our tolerance and compassion – we are a source of offense to those around us.

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