Mt. 5: 38-48
Dear Friends,
Turn the other cheek! Walk the extra mile! Give the cloak along with the tunic! It sure seems like Jesus is asking us to be a doormat for our enemies. That is totally different from Jesus‘intentions. He wants us to engage the hostile one not with the escalation of violence but in a search for an opening to rebuild the relationship.
Here is how it works. Jesus is asking us to shame the person so we can talk. Talking hopefully will lead to reconciliation. We saw an example of this in the work of Gandhi and Dr. King.
The key is to understanding the examples as they were experienced in the culture of Jesus’ time.
First is the cheek thing. Obviously, for someone to slap you on the cheek, the red zone of hostility must be in full alert. However, in turning the other cheek, the person would have to use the back of the hand. This was a very shameful thing in the culture of Jesus’ time. So the choice for the aggressor was to shame oneself or begin to talk.
The mile leading to the second mile is also a cultural trap. Roman soldiers were free to demand any Jewish person to carry their baggage for a mile. Anything beyond that and the soldier was liable to serious trouble. Again, a conversation was possible.
The same principle works for the cloak and the tunic.
Jesus is asking us to respond to violence in a non-violent way that leads to the possibility of peaceful resolution He modeled this in His life and most profoundly in His Passion and Death.
All six items Jesus uses in this section of the Sermon on the Mount lead us to healing of human relationships. They all lead to the conclusion of the section in verse 48:”So be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect”. (Mt 5:48) For all of us, it is a slow and struggling journey to free our heart from the depth of bias and blindness that plague our normal life as we try to sort out the weeds and the wheat.
There are two passages in the Second Eucharistic Prayer for Children that are especially beautiful in this call to walk in the way of love.
We pray: “He came to show us how we can love you Father, by loving one another. He came to take away sin, which keeps us from being friends, and hate, which makes us all unhappy”.
Later on we pray: “Remember, Father, our families and friends, and all those we do not love as we should”. I have a long list in that latter category of insufficient love that brings prayer for a lot of people who would never dream of prayer from me.
