Sermon on the Mount, Part 4:
Fighting Back
Matthew
5: 38-48 (NRSV)
You
have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I
say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right
cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat,
give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the
second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who
wants to borrow from you.
You
have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun
rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the
unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do
not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers
and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do
the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Friends, in the old days you
have heard that it was said, “Fight fire with fire.”
But I say to you, Love.
You have also heard that it
was said in years past, “Don’t get mad, get even.”
But I say to you, Love. And
be wise.
In this morning’s Gospel
message, we hear Jesus’ famous words on how to deal with an “evildoer”. But, in
our modern vernacular, let’s substitute “evildoer” for “bully”, and know that
the message is timeless: how to fight back to a bully.
I read way ahead in this
year’s lectionary-appointed Gospel texts, because I knew that it was just about
time for this particular lesson to make an appearance, and I wanted to know
exactly when I would get to deliver this message. Not just because I’ve
preached on this text before, and love preaching on this text, but because I
feel a very great deal of pastoral responsibility related to this particular
Gospel lesson.
This morning, we hear Jesus
advising his disciples on how to deal with the “bullies” of their day. It’s a
beautiful and powerful message, but over the centuries that beautiful message
has gotten lost and mangled in translation, and the consequence has been
generations of faithful Christians reading the words “turn the other cheek”,
and believing that Jesus is telling us that if someone is hurting you, that if
someone is threatening you, that you shouldn’t make any effort at all to defend
or protect yourself—that you should just let them. Generations of faithful
Christians have believed that if they want to follow Jesus’ words, then they
need to be doormats for abuse.
This, as a pastor, and as a
faithful woman, breaks my heart. The man who flipped over the money changers’
tables in the Temple to defend his exploited neighbors was not a doormat. The
man who invited twelve peasants to leave their worldly goods behind and come
with him to start a spiritual revolution was not a doormat. The man who refused
to recant his message that he was the Son of God and King of the Jews, willing
to die to proclaim the Word, was not a doormat. And if this man lived his
earthly life as the most glorious of rebels for the sake of saving us from the evils
of the earth, then why would he want us, his beloved followers, to succumb to
the powers of that evil? This man did not teach us to submit to our bullies.
Rather, this man taught us how to fight back with the greatest force on all of
heaven and earth: love. Love for yourself, knowing that no one has the right to
hurt you, love for your Creator, who made you strong and able, and love even
for your bully, who could still see the light if you show it to him.
But, in order for us to
understand Jesus’ radical message of love, we need to first understand what he
really meant when he said, “turn the other cheek”. I’m going to teach you about
this Gospel lesson the same way my chaplain in college did, based on the
teachings of Biblical scholar Walter Wink, and I’ve asked my dear, dutiful
husband to help me, because in order to really understand what Jesus is talking
about here, you need to see this acted out.
Let’s say Sean was here,
being a Jewish, working-class man, minding his own business, and all the sudden,
I, this bully, come along.
First, you need to
understand this: if what you imagined is me clobbering Sean, that’s not the
situation that Jesus is describing to us. That’s actually physically impossible
based on what the text says. Jesus isn’t talking about a situation where
someone like me comes along and attacks someone like Sean. Jesus is talking
about a single hit—a strike to the right cheek.
The next thing you need to
understand is that this is a right-handed society. Absolutely everything that
is done in public is done with your right hand, regardless of which of your
hands happens to be stronger. The Jewish Purity Code, laid out in the Old
Testament, demands this. So, if I’m striking Sean on his right cheek, and if I
have to use only one hand, my right hand, to do it, then there’s really only
one way I can possibly hit him—a back-handed slap.
Now, maybe that hurt, but
that’s really not the point here. A back-handed slap was, and is, humiliating.
Back-handed slaps, especially in this day, were a deeply degrading insult. It’s
the way that a master hit his slaves. It’s also the way that a Roman soldier
would hit a Jewish peasant. By hitting Sean this way, I’m telling him, and
everyone who saw, that he is beneath me and he needs to get back in his place.
Anyone in this room who’s
ever been insulted before can imagine how Sean must feel right now—deeply
angry. And his Law, the Law of Moses, the Law that says “an eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth”, teaches him that he should respond by turning around and
hitting me back. But where’s that going to get him? It will only escalate a
situation that’s already bad enough.
So Jesus tells Sean, don’t
resist me. Don’t hit me back. Instead do one simple thing: turn your head.
This might not look
significant, but this subtle gesture is actually huge. Sean has just totally
stopped me in my tracks. With this simple, non-violent gesture, Sean has now
just issued me an ultimatum. I can’t hit him with the back of my right hand
anymore, because now he’s facing the wrong way. I can’t use my left hand, and
if I do, I’m violating the Purity Code and humiliating myself. I only have two
choices left: I either need to stop hurting him, give up, and walk away, or, if
I insist that I have to hit him again, that I have to have the last word, then
I need to either slap him with the front of my hand, or punch him with my fist.
And yes, that might hurt, too, but if I do that, me, Sean, and everyone else
watching will understand that that is the way you hit an equal. I will have
taken back the degrading insult I just gave him, and, no matter what, Sean will
have restored his dignity.
The next two pieces of
advice that Jesus gives his disciples are similar. Jesus says, “…if anyone
wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.” Here’s what you
need to understand: the typical dress for a man in that society involved
wearing two layers of clothing—a thin sheath against your skin that was called
a coat, or a tunic, and a heavy outer garment, called a cloak. If you were very
poor, you might not own anything but just these two pieces of clothing. And if
you were buried in debt that you couldn’t repay, Jewish Law allowed that your
creditor could take your lighter, inner garment, your coat, as collateral. What
Jesus says here is that if your creditor is so greedy that he would literally
take the shirt off your back in court, then why stop there? Give him all your
clothes! Give him what he wanted, and then some that he didn’t ask for.
This might sound like you’re
submitting to your bully, but that’s not the case here. Jewish Law was very
clear that to view the nakedness of another man was deeply shameful—much more
shameful than being naked yourself—and that it was especially shameful, and
worthy of ridicule, to cause a man to be naked. What Jesus is telling his
disciples to do is to call such a man out on his greed. Hold him accountable
for what he has done. And let anyone who’s there to witness see how far such a
man has gone in his greed.
Lastly, Jesus tells his
disciples, “…if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”
Jesus is using rather vague language here, but his disciples knew exactly what
he was talking about because he was referring to a very common practice. Roman
soldiers, who occupied Palestine at the time Jesus lived, were allowed to pull
local civilians off the road, and force them to carry all their gear for them
for a whole mile. Jewish men deeply resented this practice. It would pull them
away from their own labors, and they would be forced to carry upwards of 60
pounds of weight while a Roman soldier treated them as nothing more than a pack
mule. And then they would have to walk back to what they were doing, exhausted
and humiliated.
But here’s the catch: that
Roman soldier could only force that civilian to carry his load for one mile. If
the civilian walked even one step further than that, that soldier would be
violating orders, and subject to punishment by his next higher-up, a Centurion,
and the Centurion would be allowed to punish the soldier however he wanted to.
No soldier would risk this punishment.
So Jesus is telling his
disciples: next time a Roman soldier forces you to carry his gear for him,
don’t resist, take it. Then when you get to the end of that mile, and the
soldier asks for his gear back, tell him, Oh no, that’s okay, I’m fine, let’s
keep going! Then that soldier will see how quickly the tables are turned.
Jesus’ disciples could just chuckle at the idea of a Roman soldier, who was so
full of himself 20 minutes ago, now chasing a peasant down the road, begging
him to give him his gear back.
The point is this—there will
always be bullies. You can’t stop that. There will always be people who degrade
and humiliate you just because they can. There will always be people who pick
on someone weaker or less powerful than them so they can feel better about
themselves. And someday someone will bully you.
But if you respond to their
behavior, to their taunting, to their insults, by turning around and trying to
hurt them the same way, or by finding someone else that you can pick on, than
you’ll only be stooping to their level and you’ll become a bully yourself. But
if you resist the urge to get even, to fight fire with fire; if instead you
respond with love, you can save yourself, and maybe even your bully, too.
Jesus told us to love our
enemies, to love and pray for those who would persecute us. Love is about more
than romance; it’s about more than just sentimental, fluttery feelings.
Love is about seeing the
absolute, precious worth of every person. Love is about seeing in you a person
who deserves more than to be bullied. Love is about looking into the eyes of
someone who’s trying to put you down, and seeing, in spite of their behavior,
that that person, too, is a precious child of God.
Love, most of all, holds us
all accountable for our actions. Love commends the work of one who has done
well, but makes the bully see the consequences of his or her actions. Love
makes your adversary stand face to face with who they have become, and offers
them a better future. Love says to your adversary, Your actions are
unacceptable. And love says, even to your adversary, There’s still grace for
you. There’s still time for you to be a better person.
When we hold one another
accountable for our sins, for all the ways we have bullied others, and even
ourselves, then we give one another a true chance at redemption. That is how a
follower of Jesus fights back.
May it be so.
Amen.
In writing this sermon, I referenced the works of Biblical scholar Walter Wink. You can read his work on this topic at this link: http://www.cpt.org/files/BN%20-%20Jesus%27%20Third%20Way.pdf . Special thanks to the Rev. Dr. Laurie Tiberi for directing me to this article.
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