“Turning the Cheek?” A sermon based on Matthew 5:38-48
“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. 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.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of God, who causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Even those who are not Jews do that. Be perfect, therefore, as God is perfect.”
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Your loving mercy is as high as Heaven and your truth so perfect. I live in sorrow, imprisoned. You are my light, your glory, my support. Behold not with malevolence the sins of man but forgive and cleanse; and so, O Lord protect us beneath your wings, and let peace be our portion now and forever more. Amen.
This was a prayer of Queen Lili’ulokalani of Hawaii in 1895, while she was under house arrest in Iolani Palace. The Queen had, by request, drafted a constitution that would eliminate the Republic, and restore the monarchy's authority and allow Asians to vote. She was overthrown by a consortium of American and European businessmen, who then annexed Hawaii to the US by force.
This week's Gospel reading continues the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew draws upon the "Q Sayings” source, and structures the teachings as "antitheses", setting Jesus’ words over against the Law of Moses. We might be forgiven for thinking Jesus is saying something new. " In fact, he wasn’t. The principles of non-violent resistance were known in Babylon and Egypt, by Greek and Roman philosophers, and promoted in wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures. Proverbs 25 says "If the one who hate you is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. For you will heap burning coals upon his head, and Yahweh will repay you." .
So let’s talk about “turning the other cheek”, “going the extra mile”, and “giving up your clothes”. We today have turned these into a kind of wimpy notion that Christians should be doormats. We have gone to extraordinary lengths to explain why, in the real world, being a doormat won’t work; then we rationalise our violence and retaliation. I put to you that Jesus was anything but a doormat. No one could get in people’s faces better than Jesus. He did it without malice or revenge, he never retaliated; he always spoke with truth, and always with love for the other person.
In “Engaging the Powers”, and “Jesus’ Third Way”, Rev. Dr. Walter Wink explains this passage as statements of non-violent resistance. The Jews were technically under the rule of the Romans, who grudgingly allowed them to practice their faith so long as they remained obedient to Caesar.
In Jesus’ culture, a back-handed slap to the right cheek was reserved for equals. The left hand was used for toilet functions, so would not likely be used for anything else, since that would shame the one doing the slapping. Usually, an open-handed slap with the right hand on the left cheek would be reserved for those people who were considered inferior. If that so-called inferior turned the other cheek, the perpetrator would be forced to do a back-handed slap, which was reserved for equals. So Jesus is saying two things - don’t resist your oppressor - turn the other cheek, which means your oppressor must then treat you as an equal.
It is a way of throwing the oppressor off-balance so that they have to look at their own behaviour.
Most people in Jesus’ time didn’t have more than two pieces of clothing - an outer garment which could be taken if one was sued. However, to surrender your inner garment as well, would leave you naked. Being seen naked would shame the perpetrator - and to see someone naked was more shameful than *being* naked.
Roman soldiers could force someone to carry their load for only one mile; they could not make a person do it for two miles. If that happened, the Roman could be in danger of losing his job, or maybe sent to outer Mongolia. So Jesus says if you are forced to carry it one mile, volunteer for two. Can you imagine the soldier chasing someone around trying to get his pack back so he won’t get into trouble?
There has been a lot of discussion in my clergy group this week about these actions making the oppressor look bad, and whether or not Jesus did this on purpose.
I believe that Jesus knew exactly what effect these actions would have, and wanted to be really clear with the people who heard him what this meant. So we get the further statement to love your enemies. Jesus is saying that if you do these things out of a desire to get revenge for the way you are being treated, you have lost sight of the principles. Love - and actions taken in love and compassion - can show the perpetrator the injustice of their actions, and bring about change and redemption. Jesus is telling us that the point is the action, not the reception.
Two people in our immediate history adapted these principles of non-violence from Jesus. One was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who led the struggle for freedom for blacks in the United States, and emphasised the need to resist out of love and compassion. To paraphrase Martin Luther King somewhat:
“From the very beginning there was a philosophy undergirding the Montgomery boycott, the philosophy of nonviolent resistance. There was always the problem of getting this method over because it didn’t make sense to most of the people in the beginning. We had to use our mass meetings to explain nonviolence to a community of people who had never heard of the philosophy and in many instances were not sympathetic with it. We had meetings twice a week on Mondays and on Thursdays, and we had an institute on nonviolence and social change. We had to make it clear that nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence. This method is nonaggressive physically but strongly aggressive spiritually.
Another thing that we had to get over was the fact that the nonviolent resister does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding. This was always a cry that we had to set before people that our aim is not to defeat the white community, not to humiliate the white community, but to win the friendship of all of the persons who had perpetrated this system in the past. The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community. A boycott is never an end within itself. It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.”
Rev. Paige Besse-Rankin of the Church of Christ in Goshen, Indiana uses this illustration: In the documentary "Praying the Devil Back To Hell" the Christian and Muslim women of Liberia formed a prayer alliance to stop the civil war. Every day they gathered across from the presidential palace to pray for peace. At long last the country’s many factions met in neighboring Ghana for peace talks. After weeks of the talks getting nowhere, the women sat in the halls and in front of the doors, locking the "men" in until peace was agreed. When threatened with forced eviction, the women responded by threatening to remove the only thing they had left, their clothes. The men, who would be shamed at seeing their "mothers" naked, signed a peace treaty.
Rev. Marilyn MacDonald writes “Mahatma Ghandi not only 'drew from Jesus' but was very clear that his approach was a following of Jesus' way and teaching. His favourite hymn was 'When I survey the wondrous cross,'; he began each morning with a reading of the Beatitudes from Matthew. I remember, as a child in India when he was still alive, hearing that he would have become a 'Christian', except that when he decided to go to a church service, he was told that the church for coloureds was down the street. That was in South Africa.
Gandhi and King drew from Jesus - and without their actions, which eventually brought about emancipation and independence for India, and emancipation and integration for blacks, would those results have come about? King was clear where he learned non-violent resistance. So was Gandhi.
Now, the actions of Jesus put the Romans in a position where they were shamed. Gandhi's actions put the British in a position where they were shamed. Didn't Martin Luther King's actions do the same. I suggest that all three were well aware that their actions would shamed the oppressors. It doesn't mean that they did it on purpose to shame, nor does it mean that there is no care or compassion for the oppressors: it means the opposite, that they are converted by actions done out of love.
Neither Jesus nor Gandhi nor King talked about “eros”, romantic love, or “philia, love between friends. Again, quoting Martin Luther King: “. when we talk of loving those who oppose you and those who seek to defeat you we are not talking about eros or philia. The Greek language comes out with another word and it is agape. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men. Biblical theologians would say it is the love of God working in the minds of men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. When you come to love on this level you begin to love men not because they are likeable, not because they do things that attract us, but because God loves them; here we love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does.”
Far from being easy, the kind of love and the kind of call to non-violent resistance to evil is the most difficult thing to do. Could we do it? Could we refuse to retaliate in anger? Would we? Would we say that our anger was justified and therefore God would stand behind it? I think in these passages, Jesus is saying - there is a third way, and it’s hard. But just as God is perfect, so we are called to strive to do the same, no matter how difficult it may be. Jesus knew it was not easy, he knew what the actions could mean, he knew that loving one’s enemies might require even a loss of life. We are called to resist evil actions, and love those who do them. Just as God loves. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Pastor Karen Disney, Grace United Methodist Church
2. Pastor Greg Crawford, from the sermon “So What’s New?” February 20, 2011
3. 2008 Brazilian Documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” directed by Gini Reticker
4. Rev. Dr. Walter Wink, Auburn Theological Seminary. “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination” and “Jesus’ and Non-Violence: A Third Way” p. 101.
5. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “The Power of Non-violence”
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1131
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