You have heard that it was said,
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
The legal doctrine of an eye for an eye was meant to put a check on unrestrained retribution. It meant that the punishment ought to correspond in some way to the crime. What to us now sounds somewhat primitive had, at the time, a civilizing influence on society. Yet what was meant for the protection of the civil order was being used to justify private retribution. Jesus insisted that this was inappropriate in the context of private individuals. But he took it further, toward the opposite extreme. People would sometimes use their legal rights to justify a lack of charity. But Jesus said that for the sake of charity people should be prepared to lay down their rights.
But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one to him as well.
It is so easy for an insult like a slap, which typically does no lasting damage, can mark the end of dialog. Things get heated to that point and then both parties are ready to cut off all relations. But what if there is a reason to pursue relationship that matters more than our pride? How can we expect to share the Gospel if we are so easily triggered and turned aside? This is no justification for domestic violence. It does not mean that one should simply enable another's sinful aggression. But it does mean that there is sometimes a greater good at stake that makes it necessary to endure that aggression with calm dignity.
If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand him your cloak as well.
When people start insisting on taking from us what is our own we quickly put up our walls of defense and give only as little as we must. But what if people genuinely need what we have to give? Will we turn them away because they seem first presumptuous and then ungrateful? What if they really do need something that we can provide? Ought we hold back because of how they asked, demanding rather than groveling at our feet? What if they have been subject to privation throughout their lives? Would this not explain why they might now feel entitled and appear demanding?
Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go with him for two miles.
When we are forced into service instead of volunteering most of us probably tend to do the least possible. But would doing more sometimes accomplish more? Perhaps it would do no harm to society to aid even the Roman occupation while helping to convince individual Romans of the unique charity and concern proper to Christians. Going the extra mile might be a way for our lives to preach, or at least make them wonder what is different about us. This is not to say that it would be a good idea to be complicit in actual evil, as though we should collaborate with a Nazi regime. But even members of evil regimes are still loved by God and deserve our love as well. Not a love that enables self-destruction, but a love that shows a still more excellent way (see First Corinthians 12:31).
Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.
All of these teachings of Jesus seem difficult and impractical. But we must remember that it was Jesus himself who put them all into practice and demonstrated them for us. He was the one of whom Isaiah wrote, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (see Isaiah 50:6). He did not withhold his clothing from the guards who divided his garments by casting lots (see Matthew 27:25). He was pressed into the service of carrying his own cross all the way to Calvary and did not object. It all seemed like a recipe for failure. But it was in fact how he would go on to the victory of the cross from which he would draw all peoples to himself. At other times Jesus reminded his disciples that they too would need to take up their crosses and come after him. Today his teaching shows what forms such discipleship must sometimes take. We may not be able to always give everything to everyone. But we must be prepared to give what we can when we can if we want to follow the example of our Lord. This seems to be what how Paul described his own mission in our first reading today:
We cause no one to stumble in anything,
in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;
on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves
as ministers of God, through much endurance,
in afflictions, hardships, constraints,
beatings, imprisonments, riots,
labors, vigils, fasts;
by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech,
in the power of God
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