224. Why Christ offended people
224. WHY CHRIST OFFENDED PEOPLE
If Christ was the perfect man as well as God, why did so many people hate Him? The whole world conspired to murder Him: the common people, who shouted “Crucify him!” and their leaders, both religious and secular. (The accusation sign on the Cross was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek: the three ruling cultures and languages of the time. The whole world crucified Christ.) Were the leaders of the people more evil then and there than they are now and here? If He came back, would we crucify Him again, as in Dostoyevski’s parable “The Grand Inquisitor”? Why was He so offensive?
The salvation of the multitude is to be preferred to the peace of any individuals whatsoever. Consequently, when certain ones, by their perverseness, hinder the salvation of the multitude, the preacher and the teacher should not fear to offend those men, in order that he may insure the salvation of the multitude. Now the Scribes and Pharisees and the princes of the Jews were by their malice a considerable hindrance to the salvation of the people. . . . For which reason our Lord, undeterred by their taking offense, publicly taught the truth which they hated, and condemned their vices. . . .
A man ought so to avoid giving offense as neither by wrong deed or word to be the occasion of anyone’s downfall. But if scandal arise from truth, the scandal should be borne rather than the truth be set aside, as Gregory says (III,42,2).
St. Thomas could easily have added one more point here: that the leaders who conspired to kill Christ were not the only guilty ones, for the masses too let themselves be swept up into their plan to “Crucify Him!” Christ may have offended the leaders the most, but He offended ordinary people too. And He continues to do so, for He is the same “Christ, yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8).
People were not fundamentally different then and there than they are here and now. More of the common people loved Him than hated Him, but there was deep hate and fear too—and there still is. “The powers that be” arranged His murder (for “all power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”). He did not give offense to these ruling powers just for the sake of giving offense, but for the sake—for the salvation—of the many.
In every culture in history, the saints, who most resemble Christ, give the most offense to all cultures because all cultures, like all individuals, are fallen and sinful, in many different ways. Cultures, like individuals, have their specially cherished sins. Ask which ideas and beliefs, which values and commandments, most offend those people who are not Christ’s disciples in our culture, and you will find the central battlefields and flash points of spiritual warfare today. You will also find the battlefields where we should suffer the most hate and rejection, as He did. If you are not giving offense to these people, as He did, you are not doing His work.
These areas vary from one culture to the next. Few non-Christians are offended today by Christ’s call to mercy and forgiveness and by His attack on cold-hearted Phariseeism, just as few Jews in Christ’s day were offended by Christ’s support of sexual purity. No one in ancient Israel defended contraception, abortion, sodomy, or fornication, even though sinners practiced them; just as no one today defends cruelty and lack of personal compassion, even though sinners practice them.
Other cultures have been obsessed with power, or honor, or victory; ours is obsessed with feelings and with sexual “freedom”. Therefore the part of the gospel that gives offense to our culture is almost always the sexual morality of 4,000 years of Judaism and 2,000 years of Christianity.
“Offense” means merely making someone angry; “scandal” means spiritual harm to others. If even scandal (to a few) is sometimes necessary for the sake of the salvation of the many, as St. Thomas says, how much more is offensiveness often necessary!
But the motive must be love as well as truth. Our marching orders are to always be “speaking the truth in love”. It must be truth, not lovelessness, that gives offense.