Turn To Them The Other Cheek Also…

Day 10

Turn To Them The Other Cheek Also…

(Guest Post By David Campbell)

 

‘You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.’

Matthew 5:38-42

 

Today, as I write this, a young man I have known since he was in his early teens, Deron … a young man who has served as a team member in Fusion’s ministry in Trench Town … a young man with a young family … can not safely live in his own home.

This is the home he has lived in for his whole life, and the community he has grown up in and served as a mentor to children and young people for over a decade.

Why? Because when a vengeful spirit takes hold of people who have lost an “eye” or a “tooth”, they want to take five eyes, eight teeth, and a few scalps too.

Late last year a cousin of Deron’s was killed in a drive by shooting, someone in the family network decided to take vengeance not long after Christmas … and now the cycle of vengeance is in full swing and nobody with any connection to any of the victims is safe.

Mahatma Ghandi famously said; “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”, the problem is not the standard, but the human heart that doesn’t want to settle for an eye.

Vengeance always escalates.

The covenant righteousness from God’s law does not prescribe vengeance, it limits vengeance and prescribes, instead, justice. If you read the Old Testament laws around how justice was expected to be administered, you will notice that the pattern was restorative. If someone is cheated out of their possessions, property, or rightful pay, it is right that restoration is made. If an ‘eye’ was taken, an ‘eye’ should be restored.

The spirit of these laws is clearly not vengeful, and the practice was not administered through taking out any eyes, but by determining a fitting way for restitution to take place.

But the human heart … that can be vengeful.

‘You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.‘

Matthew 5:38-42

Jesus starts to challenge the vicious cycle of vengeance with the words “do not resist an evil”. My English translation (the NIV) says “an evil person”, because an adjective needs a noun in English. For example, you can’t just say “a red”, you have to say; “a red ball”, “a red chair” or “a red coat”. Koine Greek works differently, and the noun can be inferred. This means that translators to English need to work out, as best they can, what is being inferred and what noun to insert to make sense in English. It isn’t necessarily wrong to add the word “person”, but it may be equally valid to add the word “act”.

To take a step back from the grammatical detail, Jesus’ point about not “resisting an evil” is made clear from the context of the whole of what He goes on to say, and affirmed by two of his most well known followers.

Peter, who walked closely with Jesus through his whole ministry, put it like this…

“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” 1 Peter 3:9

Paul the Apostle used an even shorter summary of what Jesus taught here…

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” Romans 12:17

As Jesus gives examples of the vicious cycle, and transforming initiatives for each one, everything he commands is a form of resistance … but not in an evil way. He doesn’t just give a rough guide, he delves into the harsh reality of experiencing evil being done to you.

‘If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.‘

Matthew 5:38-42

No matter which culture people come from, being hit in the face is not just a physical act, it deliberately targets someone’s sense of dignity. It stings the soul to be hit in the face.

In Trench Town, one of the reprisals in the vengeful cycle that I mentioned earlier led to a young man receiving twenty two shots to the head and chest. That was not just a cold-blooded murder, it was a deliberate and intentional assault on his human dignity, designed to inflict pain on all his family. Experiencing evil is traumatic.

In Jesus’ time you could be taken to court for a backhanded strike to someone’s cheek, because it was such a public affront to the dignity of the person being struck (he specifies the right cheek, so the implication is that the back of the right hand has been used).

How does Jesus’ way meet this kind of indignity? Quite literally; face to face. If you suffer shame and indignity from someone, a strike to the right cheek, you can’t turn the left cheek if you don’t stand your ground. You have to stay facing the person who inflicted the indignity.

This is exactly what courageous opponents of segregation did in the civil rights movement in America. They stood their ground, as equals, but did not allow evil to set the agenda by striking back. There are countless examples throughout history where this approach, in the long run, undermines and even begins to dismantle the dehumanising regimes, systems and practices of oppression.

‘And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ‘

Matthew 5:38-42

Jesus then mentions being sued, which is again a public process which would be shameful to experience … much more so because the person being sued is clearly so poor that all they can be sued for is their coat … and the person doing the suing has the means to pay for the legal process.

The radical compliance He commands would have caused quite a stir in a public trial. Most people only had their outer garment (coat) and inner garment (shirt), and it was shameful to look on someone’s nakedness. Jesus is saying; if they take you, my people, to court for your outer garment, throw them your inner garment too! The shame intended for the person being prosecuted would have been amplified back on the person who brought them to this public trial.

Again, there are many instances in history where strategic resistance to unjust practices in the judicial system have revealed who the real criminals are.

‘If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.’

Matthew 5:38-42

Jesus’ last example is about a foreign occupying army, in his case the Roman Army, who could force any Jewish citizen to carry their pack for a mile.

However, the soldier was only allowed to make them carry the pack for one mile … so if a citizen was to respond with radical compliance and go two miles instead … the soldier would have scratched his head because this response was so unexpected, and may even have had some explaining to do to his commanding officer.

In these three examples Jesus has shed more light on the real problem … the viscous cycle of vengeful hearts … but he has also shown how this problem often hides in plain sight. First, the natural desire to take matters into your own hands by striking back. Second, the more subtle approach of using the legal system as the instrument of vengeance, which is more available to those with resources. Third, resistance to an oppressive regime using equally evil means.

Jesus’ Kingdom, the one that is close at hand, is moving in the opposite direction, and operating from opposing values to the systems of this world.

The initiatives He commands His followers to take when faced with conflict or oppression changes the whole game, from retaliatory reaction, to a response full of dignity and strength that has the potential to restore the dignity and humanity of all.

We know Jesus means what He says, because He will live through being struck in the face, through an unjust trial, and through the indignity of being ordered to carry a burden by a Roman soldier. The initiatives He took in those moments were demonstrations of the Kingdom response … and that is what He commands us to follow. 

 

A Biblical Perspective on Justice 

 

 

 

Journaling The Journey 

How is this passage revolutionary to human nature?

How is it revolutionary to your personal experience?

Which part of this passage do you find most challenging?

What relationship comes to mind when you read this?

What response do Jesus’ words call you to make?

 

Today’s Mountainside photograph was taken at Sugarloaf Mountain, Wales, UK