Readings: Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11
“Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
But who would ever take offense at Jesus?
Who would ever take offense
at the blind being given their sight,
at the deaf being given their hearing,
at the sick and suffering being made whole,
at the dead being raised,
at the poor being given good news?
Well, apparently, quite a few people.
Though it is perhaps unseemly to mention it
as we prepare to celebrate the arrival of baby Jesus,
but he did, after all, end up on a cross.
This is the stubborn fact over which we stumble
whenever we try to make Jesus inoffensive.
Sweet baby Jesus grew up
and made a lot of powerful enemies
who saw him as offensive
and even dangerous
and, certainly, worth killing.
Who would take offense
at the blind seeing and the deaf hearing?
Maybe those who are worried about
what they might see and hear.
Who would take offense
at the sick and the suffering being made whole?
Maybe those whose own power
is derived from the weakness of others.
Who would take offense
at the dead being raised?
Maybe those concerned
about the tales the dead might tell?
Who would take offense
at the poor receiving good news?
Maybe those who fear
that good news for the poor
might be bad news for them.
Who would take offense at Jesus?
Maybe those who want to use him
for their own agendas—
agendas of personal reassurance
or national greatness
or ecclesiastical power—
and who are surprised to find
that he comes with his own agenda,
an agenda that is not about
reassurance or greatness or power
but seems to involve
a radical remaking of our world.
And this remaking of the world
is offensive to those who benefit
from business as usual,
from the way the world ordinarily runs.
“Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
Who, then, are the ones who take no offense at him?
Presumably it is those who do not benefit
from the way the world ordinarily runs.
It is a multitude that includes the disabled and destitute;
it includes those who await God’s vindication;
it includes those whose knees are weak,
whose hands are feeble,
and whose hearts are frightened;
it includes those poor waiting for good news,
those whose lifeblood is spilled
to grease the gears of business as usual.
These are the ones for whom
Jesus’ promise of radically remaking the world
holds out hope that one day justice will prevail,
that the desert will bloom,
that those made mute by suffering will sing.
These are the ones whom Jesus calls blessed,
whom he comes to comfort,
who will join him in his kingdom.
I do not presume to know
who here is among those blessed ones
who take no offense at Jesus.
I can only speak for myself.
And, if I’m honest, part of me wishes
that Jesus had remained a voiceless infant
rather than growing up to be
the offensive, inconvenient character
who said a lot of difficult, dangerous things
that strike my conscience and trouble my prayers.
Who would ever take offense at Jesus?
If I’m honest with myself and you,
I take offense at Jesus.
I take offense because he can make someone like me,
who by virtue of race and sex,
of social class and structural inequality,
has benefited so much
from the business as usual of the world,
suddenly begin to worry:
could God not be entirely happy with me?
The letter of James warns us,
“Behold, the Judge is standing before the gates.”
And how will I be judged?
Could the blessings I have received
be a sign not of divine approval
but in fact the basis of divine condemnation?
The very idea offends me,
and my offense troubles me,
because I believe that Jesus is in fact
the one who is to come,
the saving God who comes to rescue his people.
But what can I do?
I cannot undo the benefits I have received
from being who I am,
from living the life I have lived.
But I can let Jesus’ vision of the world transformed
set the agenda for how I use those benefits.
I can try to see the world from the perspective,
as the martyred theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it,
“of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated,
the powerless, the oppressed and reviled.”
I can try to make their cares and concerns
my cares and concerns,
to stand with those on the underside of history,
so when Christ comes in judgment,
to cast the mighty from their thrones
and lift up the lowly,
to turn business as usual upside down,
to make the underside the top side,
I might take no offense at him,
but rather, seeing the wounded made whole,
seeing the poor made rich,
seeing the dessert sing,
I might join in their great song of praise,
grateful to be found among the least
in the kingdom of heaven.
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