musings.from.the.porch

When I think about Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 regarding retaliation, I think about conversion.    Conversion is the act of changing from one way of functioning to another. Given that definition, it’s rather odd that when we talk about conversion in the religious sense, we speak of it as though it happens to us only once.  On the other hand, my experience has been that having a relationship with God is not about one experience of conversion but rather a series of them.  God continually comes to me and shows me that the way I’ve been doing things just doesn’t work.  It’s time for a change.  It’s time to start doing things differently… It’s time for a conversion.

I believe this is exactly what Jesus meant when he began his discourse on retaliation with the words, “You heard it was said, ‘An eye in place of an eye and a tooth in place of a tooth.  However I, Jesus, am saying to you not to resist an evil person.”  It’s important to take note of the tense change that takes place here.  He is in essence saying, “In the past you have been told that it is okay to retaliate when you’ve been wronged, but I am now telling you that that kind of behavior doesn’t work.  It only leads to worse behavior.”

It is also pertinent to mention that while Jesus was quoting the Old Testament when he referred to the “eye for an eye” saying, I believe what he was really challenging was the prevailing cultural value of retaliation.  The value of retaliation was not unique to those who lived in Israel.  Rather, everyone in Ancient Near Eastern culture held this belief and it was a perfectly acceptable way of treating one another.  This is a clear instance in which Jesus is saying that the prevailing culture’s way of living and God’s way of living are quite different things.

This begs the question as to why Jesus would challenge a cultural value that was so engrained.  I’d like to play a clip from a movie called 13 Days to illustrate why Jesus had a problem with this mentality.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the movie, 13 Days chronicles the events of the Cuban missile crisis specifically as they transpired in the White House.  This clip picks up as President John F. Kennedy is in an executive committee meeting discussing how America should respond to the fact that Russia had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

This clip demonstrates the escalating nature of retaliation: Russia threatens America by placing nuclear weapons in Cuba, America retaliates with air and ground attacks, Russia retaliates by attacking one of our allies, America then retaliates by defending its ally with the use of nuclear weapons.  The next step would be a nuclear exchange between America and Russia, but hopefully cooler heads would prevail.  In other words, hopefully, someone will stop the escalating cycle of retaliation before untold damage is done.

This is why Jesus challenges the notion of retaliation: because it begins a cycle of escalating damage, and he is calling us to stop the cycle from beginning in the first place.  Furthermore, the fruit of such devastating damage makes reconciliation near impossible, and Jesus concern for reconciliation is what under girds his condemnation of this behavior.

After exhorting his listeners not to resist an evil person, he goes on to list several examples, which would normally warrant a response of retaliation.  I would like to suggest something about the nature of Jesus’ words here that should govern the way we read and interpret these examples: I believe Jesus is employing the use of hyperbole in his speech.  In case you are unfamiliar with hyperbole, it is a literary device that employs overstatement or exaggeration. 

Consequently, I don’t believe Jesus meant that if someone wrongs us we should literally offer ourselves to that person for abuse. However, to say that Jesus is not being 100% literal is not to say that he is not serious about this teaching or that his instruction is somehow optional for us.  On the contrary, Jesus probably used hyperbole in order to make sure he had our attention and to make sure we understood the radical nature of his teaching.  Therefore, the use of hyperbole does not suggest that this teaching is unimportant or not of great consequence but rather it underscores the crucial nature of what he is saying.  He is not literally commanding us to allow ourselves to be abused, but he is quite literally saying that we are not to retaliate and exchange blow for blow.

This is an important point to make because these words have been misused in the past to send people back into abusive situations that they should never be in and that God wouldn’t want them to be in. This has been especially true for women.

Now let’s take a moment and look at the examples Jesus used to make his point about retaliation.  In the first instance, he refers to someone being struck on the cheek.  With this particular example, it’s important to understand that a slap in the face was one of the greatest insults that one could have been received in Jesus’ day.  In a culture where honor and shame were everything, it would have been quite out of the ordinary not to defend your honor when it was impugned in this way.

In the second instance, he mentions a person who is being sued for their tunic, and he instructs them to give to the person bringing the lawsuit their cloak as well.  In that day, people only wore two main garments of clothes: an inner garment (the tunic) and an outer garment (the cloak).  Consequently to hand over both garments would leave one standing there in his tighty-whities.

In the third example, he describes a person who is being forced to carry the gear of a Roman soldier who would have represented the arm of Rome’s oppression upon Israel. Can you imagine being forced to serve your oppressor like a Jew being forced to serve a Nazi soldier?

Finally, Jesus concludes this portion of his sermon by instructing his hearers to give to those who ask.  This command suggests a change of posture from being closed and defensive to open and generous.  This is the climax of his teaching: it is a command to live kindly and generously.

What do we make of all this? I believe Jesus is saying that there is a better, more virtuous way to respond when we are wronged, but it is not easy, and in fact it is quite difficult because ultimately it requires that we place others before ourselves. 

We must value community or relationships above all else, for that is the real point of this teaching: God desires that we live in harmonious relationship with one another, and the very fact that we find ourselves in a position to retaliate means the relationship is already in danger. If we retaliate and enter that cycle of escalation, great damage will be done, which may ultimately result in the destruction of the relationship.  However, if we refuse to retaliate and live with a posture of kindness and generosity, there is always hope for reconciliation.

We began this reflection with the notion of conversion: changing from one way of functioning to another.  What do you think about Jesus’ invitation to convert to a more kind, generous way of living?  Let’s talk about it.

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