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.
Jesus is challenging us to offer no resistance in a world that savors and glories in revenge. As if this is not enough, Jesus is telling us to love our enemies. This is neither logical nor seemingly possible. However, it is so much less than what Jesus modeled in his Good Friday experience. We need to listen to it and bring it into our heart without blocking it with the common sense urge to say it just is not possible in our lived experience.
The following is one scholar’s interpretation that makes some sense. However, even its practicality demands tremendous self—sacrifice and patience. The key is to understand the examples in today’s Gospel as they were experienced in the culture of Jesus’ time.
Here is how it works. Jesus is asking us to shame the person so we can talk. Dialogue hopefully will lead to reconciliation. We saw an example of this in the work of Gandhi and Dr. King.
First is the cheek thing. Obviously, for someone to slap you on the cheek, the red zone of hostility will be shocked into 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 discredit oneself or begin to talk.
The mile leading to the second mile is also a cultural trap. Roman soldiers by law were free to demand any Jewish person to carry their baggage for a mile. Anything beyond that and the soldier was liable to be in 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 extended 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 stressful journey to free our heart from the depth of our bias and blindness. We need to try to free the wheat from the weeds that are so deeply interwoven in the depth our hearts.
There are two passages in the Second Eucharistic Prayer for Children that are especially beautiful and simple. They offer an opening for today’s Gospel 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 holds the invitation of prayer for a lot of people who would never dream of prayer from me.
Here is a beginning. Eliminate the hatred as much as we can and expand our horizons of love to “those we do not love as we should”.
Jesus is challenging us to offer no resistance in a world that savors and glories in revenge. As if this is not enough, Jesus is telling us to love our enemies. This is neither logical nor seemingly possible. However, it is so much less than what Jesus modeled in his Good Friday experience. We need to listen to it and bring it into our heart without blocking it with the common sense urge to say it just is not possible in our lived experience.
The following is one scholar’s interpretation that makes some sense. However, even its practicality demands tremendous self—sacrifice and patience. The key is to understand the examples in today’s Gospel as they were experienced in the culture of Jesus’ time.
Here is how it works. Jesus is asking us to shame the person so we can talk. Dialogue hopefully will lead to reconciliation. We saw an example of this in the work of Gandhi and Dr. King.
First is the cheek thing. Obviously, for someone to slap you on the cheek, the red zone of hostility will be shocked into 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 discredit oneself or begin to talk.
The mile leading to the second mile is also a cultural trap. Roman soldiers by law were free to demand any Jewish person to carry their baggage for a mile. Anything beyond that and the soldier was liable to be in 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 extended 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 stressful journey to free our heart from the depth of our bias and blindness. We need to try to free the wheat from the weeds that are so deeply interwoven in the depth our hearts.
There are two passages in the Second Eucharistic Prayer for Children that are especially beautiful and simple. They offer an opening for today’s Gospel 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 holds the invitation of prayer for a lot of people who would never dream of prayer from me.
Here is a beginning. Eliminate the hatred as much as we can and expand our horizons of love to “those we do not love as we should”.
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