Now that the Olympic games are a memory and the furor from the opening ceremony has died down, perhaps we Christians can reconsider our reaction to what many of us perceived as a provocation. Clearly many were provoked. Social media and the opinion pages and commentary segments of many news media outlets were filled with righteous outrage at the insult that they felt was the opening ceremonies—particularly that tableau, which bore more than a passing similarity to the Last Supper (or at least Da Vinci’s vision of the Last Supper).
Now, it is not my purpose to reargue the merits of the arguments for and against the general offensiveness of the ceremony. There have been many well-reasoned arguments pro and con already, and I doubt I would be able to uncover any new ground in that arena. In fact, my purpose is to ask why it matters to Christians if the display was, in fact, offensive. Even further, I’m curious to know why it matters even if the offense was intentional.
It’s not like we weren’t told ahead of time that casting our lot with Christ would set us at odds with the general bent of the world at large. Jesus, in his provocative sermon on the mount predicted the price that would be paid by his followers. “Blessed are you,” he insisted, “when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake” (Matthew 5:11). Paul, writing to his protégé Timothy, was even more blunt. “All who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).
There are, of course, many other passages that convey essentially the same message. Christians, living in a fallen world, will not be comfortable and will never truly fit into the prevailing social and cultural establishment. This is consistently presented as a given in scripture, and yet our reaction to events like the opening ceremony suggest we somehow are surprised by the reality described in the Bible. We react to these insults as if we think somehow we shouldn’t be insulted, even though our Role Model was thoroughly insulted, to the point of death.
Because we believe in our heart we shouldn’t have to endure insults, we react in very aggressive and fiery ways to the provocations, determined to defend our honor (although, recognizing perhaps the disconnect between profession and behavior, we might try to justify our actions by pretending we are defending God’s honor rather than our own). Of course, this ignores the challenging truth that we have never been called to defend honor—our own or God’s.
Instead, we have clear instructions, and a clear example, from our Leader for how we should react to ill-treatment and malicious behavior. “You have heard that it was aid, ‘An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” (Matthew 5:38, 39). “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Jesus goes on to add that by reacting this way in the face of wrongs committed against us, we become established as “sons of [our] Father in heaven” (vs 45).
All of this suggests that our great debate over whether or not the display at the opening ceremonies was offensive whether deliberately or not, misses the point. Let’s stipulate that it was offensive, and that it was deliberately meant to be offensive towards Christians. It seems appropriate for us as Christians to ask ourselves why we care. It’s not like we should be surprised. It’s not like we’ve any kind of mandate to rise up in our defense. It’s not like God has tasked us with his own defense.
It also seems appropriate for us to ask ourselves a more productive and positive question, in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. What is the best way to respond with Christian love to this provocation and to these provocateurs? It may be that we will need help from the Holy Spirit to answer that question, and strength and courage from that same Spirit to put our response into action. But I have a sneaky suspicion that the more we can respond with Sermon on the Mount love to this and other provocations, the more success we will have in advancing the Kingdom of God, which Jesus has told us repeatedly is not anything like the eye-for-an-eye kingdoms of this world.
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