An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
This idiom was an improvement over fallen human nature, which sought after unlimited revenge. To constrain one's response with due proportion to the offense had almost an air of justice to it. But it was not a sufficient paradigm for life in the Kingdom.
But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.
Jesus was inviting all peoples, the good and the bad, into his Kingdom, even sinners and tax collectors. He worked mighty deeds even for Gentiles. His plan was for a Kingdom that was all inclusive, where distinctions like Gentile, Jew, servant, free, woman, and man would be subsumed by unity in Christ himself (see Galatians 3:28).
Jesus understood well how persistent the divisions between individuals and groups tended to be, how they clung to their sense of themselves as victims and their corresponding perceived rights against their aggressors. He knew that there was only one way that people, many of whom were enemies with one another, could truly be united, and that was to lay down their insistence on their own rights and to become vulnerable.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one as well.
It would not merely be a matter of forgiving past offenses. Life in the Kingdom would also necessitate responding with love even offenses presently being endured. As people struggled to learn new Kingdom behavior and let go of old prejudices this was the only response that wouldn't begin to rebuild old divisions and hostilities. They would not only need to be able to receive a slap and forgive the one from whom it came, they would need to be able to maintain an active posture of love, one by which they could still keep an open heart even while the second slap was coming, happy to allow the hatred of the other to eventually exhaust itself in the hope that it would begin to question this love that did not retaliate and be moved by it to conversion.
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand over your cloak as well.
The standard for Kingdom behavior was of course to prohibit revenge entirely. But not only that, rather than taking anything from the offender, the new standard was actually to love and give to the one who done wrong. It was to offer them unconditional love as a challenge since this love alone, and never revenge, might actually succeed in bringing about the unity desired by Jesus. His followers were meant to show themselves to be above violence by turning the other cheek, by giving more than was asked, and not turning their back on anyone, regardless of their sense of what that other might deserve.
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” (see Romans 12:20).
Jesus himself perfectly demonstrated what this standard of behavior looked like concretely during his Passion. They struck his face, pressed him into the service of carrying his own cross, and divided his tunic among them. But Jesus not only did not send for legions of angels to smite them he prayed for them and offered his very life for them. And not only for them, but for all peoples in all times and places. This is our model. Jesus told his disciples to take up their crosses to follow him. This section of the Sermon on the Mount makes explicit some of the demands which that entails.
The Sermon on the Mount was by no means a political philosophy designed to address the life of nations. Yet imagine if all individuals within a nation chose to embrace this teaching. How likely is it that such a nation could choose war as anything but a last resort? Instead, by positive commitments throughout the world such a nation would gradually help to alleviate the sorts of disparities and misunderstandings that give rise to war. Which of course sounds too good to be true. But that is probably only because we so seldom see anyone fully embracing and embodying this teaching of Jesus. These are the people that come to be known as saints. Yet the call is not only for a select few. It is for all followers of Jesus. And without it life in his Kingdom, the Church, cannot function as he intends.
Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.
Jesus himself demonstrated the holiness of God, and by embracing the lifestyle of the Sermon on the Mount, demonstrated the way to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. He himself gives us the power to do what he commands, what, without his command, would seem to be impossible or even crazy. We must reinterpret what we consider to be 'wise' in light of the all surpassing power of Christ. This power is above all manifest in the ability to love selflessly, even unto what we would consider to be folly.
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God
In order to embrace this example and teaching given to us by Jesus we must build our lives on a different foundation than our ego. In order to become vulnerable ourselves we must first realize the security we have in Christ, one which no one can take from us. Then we will finally learn to stop bickering and backbiting so that what Jesus said might finally be a reality:
that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me (see John 17:21).
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