Reading Luke 7:22-23: On Not Taking Offense

Luke 7:22-23: Jesus tells the disciples of John the Baptist to go and ‘tell John what things ye have seen and heard’ – such as Jesus healing the blind, the deaf, the diseased, the lame, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel to the ‘poor’.  The English term ‘poor’ here comes from the Greek word meaning the extreme opposite of wealthy, but more in the sense of being completely lacking in resources, and therefore helpless.  

Jesus then goes on to say: ‘And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.’  ‘Offended’ here comes from the Greek meaning ‘to set snare’ and therefore to cause someone to ‘stumble.’  So, setting some kind of trap, as it were, something which will make someone trip and divert their gaze from what is good, from the larger picture.  It’s interesting that the word ‘offend’ has these connections.  It doesn’t so much mean ‘to get hurt’, as it does to trip and to stumble.  In this sense, if we are offended, we are the ones who trip, we are the ones who suffer, not really the person who causes the offense.  Jesus is talking here about taking offense, not about giving it. 

It’s not that ‘giving offense’ is ok, but the point here is that when you are offended, you have to pay attention to the way it adversely affects your progress.  And to be offended by Jesus – to reject Him in some way, to be offended by something in the gospel perhaps we don’t yet understand – is to stumble and hinder the most important progress of all.  So, blessed are we when we do not fall for the trap, when we avoid the snare, when we continue to grow in our faith despite things that might make us stumble, if we let them.

I think taking offense is something very common to human beings.  Maybe it’s just wired into us, and we have to learn how to defuse it.  It does seem to be rooted in something rather primal, rather instinctual.  Just recently I heard of something quite serious and hurtful that a Church member said about other Church members.  I know too much about the damage that comes from taking offense – it will drive you out of the Church if you let it – so I consciously decided not to be offended.  Thankfully, I was able to understand that this person probably wasn’t fully aware of the seriousness of what they were saying, and also hasn’t had the opportunity develop a certain kind of wisdom that comes with life experience. 

Still, none of this is easy. And it doesn’t help that, in our contemporary culture, taking offense often seems to be applauded as an expression of our own righteousness, of our occupying the moral high ground. Taking offense in this sense is a way of marking yourself out as ‘good’, and separating yourself from ‘the bad’. The main problem with this approach is that, ultimately, it doesn’t provide a lot of functionality when it comes to the second great commandment: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’.

So, it seems like to not be offended often seems to require a deliberate, intentional use of our agency.  Blessed is she who understands that someone else’s imperfections and mistakes must not be the means of her own spiritual undoing. And blessed is she who keeps her heart and door open to those who cause offense, choosing mercy over condemnation.