Matthew 5:38-48

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

 

A few years ago there was a full-page advertisement in the Chicago Sun-Times promoting Steve Munsey’s “Jesus of Nazareth” at the Family Christian Center in Muncie, Indiana.  The advertisement announced a “Revised Script,” “Waterfalls,” “1000 Cast Members,” and “Camels, Horses, Sheep.” It also contained this tagline:  “Discover how God can heal you, extend your life, and destroy your enemies!”[1]

Well!  I don’t really remember that part of the Christmas story, but who doesn’t like the thought of seeing their enemies destroyed?  The late Christian musician, Rich Mullins, used to say, jokingly, “I know, “‘Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord,’” but I just want to be about the Father’s business”[2]  Indeed!

We laugh, but not in ignorance.  In truth, we laugh because we get the punch line perfectly well.  It is in our DNA to want to see those who hurt us hurt, to want to see our enemies destroyed.  Vengeance and retaliation are received into us with mother’s milk.  Nobody has to be taught to strike back, to return hurt for hurt.  “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” may be one of the more instinctive impulses in the life of fallen humanity.

But therein lies the problem:  the instinctive impulse to retaliate is part of the fallen world order.  As we have seen and as we have said time and again, the Sermon on the Mount is presenting an alternative ethic and an alternative way of life:  the Kingdom of God life.  In this sermon, Jesus is highlighting the disastrous consequences of life lived by innate impulse.  He has shown us that the impulse to lust is actually adultery, the impulse to insult is actually murder, the impulse to treat our marriages as disposable is actually a very destructive impulse, and the impulse to distort language so as to cover our own hides is a blasphemous distortion.  So He has enjoined us to a new way of living life and, indeed, a new way of looking at life.

And, again, as we have also said, He has done so because, in Christ, we really are citizens of the Kingdom of God.  Our residency is not our citizenship.  This is something we must understand.  We are in the world but not of it.  So the privilege and challenge of the Christian is to learn the language of the Kingdom of God so we may speak it here and to learn the life of the Kingdom of God so we may live it here.  This will mean warring against our impulses and natural proclivities, taming our world-tainted hearts, and fighting against our need to justify ourselves, to preserve ourselves, and to reward ourselves.

This is especially the case in the area of retaliation.  In our text this morning, Jesus is going to show us that Kingdom citizens, followers of Jesus, need not respond to personal wrongs as if those wrongs are reality-defining events for us.  This is because, as Christians, we should view everything that happens to us through the lens of our life in the Kingdom of God.  We do not possess the right or privilege of acting as if this fallen world is all there is…and we may thank  God for it.

What this means for personal retaliation is most important, and, in my opinion, has been summed up well by Dallas Willard.

…[W]hen we are personally injured our world does not suddenly become our injury.  We have a larger view of our life and our place in God’s world.  We see God; we see ourselves in his hands.  And we see our injurer as more than that one who was imposed on us or hurt us.  We recognize his humanity, his pitiful limitations (shared with us), and we also see him under God.  This vision, and the grace that comes with it, enables the prayer:  “Father forgive them, for they do not really understand what they are doing.”  And in fact they don’t, as Jesus well knew when he prayed this prayer over his murderers.[3]

Yes, the only way that these words of Jesus will make sense to us is if we understand that He is speaking to us from a different perspective, the perspective of the Kingdom of God, a perspective that simply must become our own if we are to be disciples and followers of Jesus Christ.

Listen again to our text:

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

When we listen to these strange words, what we are hearing is the Lord Jesus’ blueprint for subversive Kingdom behavior.  That is, we are hearing how to live so as not to become tainted by the world and so as not to allow the world to live its own delusions at it observes the alternative Kingdom evident in our own lives.  These delusions that govern the world (and this is critical!) cannot be defeated on their own terms.  Evil is not defeated by evil.  Rather, it is undermined and defeated ultimately by the subversive, undermining behaviors of the Kingdom of God that, while difficult, demonstrate the absurdity of this upside down world and call all people to a higher life.

I. The Subversive Act of Non-Retaliation. (v.38-42)

First, Jesus calls us to the subversive act of non-retaliation.  Clarence Jordan has pointed out that there have been and are four approaches to retaliation:  unlimited retaliation, limited retaliation, limited love, and unlimited love.[4]  Unlimited retaliation refers to causing greater harm to the one who has harmed you than the one who has harmed you has caused you.  The idea of unlimited retaliation might be summed up in Jimmy Malone’s words to Elliot Ness in the movie “The Untouchables.”

Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I’m offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?

Ness: I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so.

Malone: Well, the Lord hates a coward.

That’s unlimited retaliation.  Hurt them more than they hurt you.  Slightly better than this is limited retaliation.  We can see this in the ancient lex talionis which Jesus quotes in v.38:  “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”  That’s lex talionis, the law of retaliation, and it means that your response to a wrong suffered should be equal to that wrong.  In this approach, you don’t hurt the person who has hurt you more than they have hurt you, but you do hurt them as much.  It is quid pro quo justice at its finest.

In v.43, Jesus also quotes a statement summing up what Clarence Jordan called limited love:  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’”  Do you see?  That’s limited love.  “I will love my family members, neighbors, and friends, but not my enemies.”  On that basis, you can retaliate against your enemies but show greater understanding to your friends.

But what Jesus is arguing for in our text is unlimited love.

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

To be sure, this is a very difficult calling.  It is made even more difficult when we realize what Jesus is actually asking us to do.

Charles Quarles notes that, since most first-century Jews were right-handed, a slap to a person’s right check would necessarily be a back-handed slap.  He points to rabbinic teaching demonstrating the Jews acknowledgment of the double-insult involved in a back-handed slap.  Because of that, the Rabbis declared that a back-handed slap deserved a double-fine.

If he slapped him he must pay him 200 zuz.  If he struck him with the back of his hand he must pay him 400 zuz.  If he tore his ear, plucked his hair, spat and his spittle touched him, or pulled his cloak from him, or loosed a woman’s hair in the street, he must pay 400 zuz.[5]

What Jesus is saying, then, is that citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven should not respond to personal insult with personal insult.  Let me quickly address an initial question that many Christians have about this passage and one that has given rise to various positions within the church:  namely, does this teaching meaning that there are never situations to oppose violence, even with violence?

In fact, there are very good reasons for seeing this teaching as a personal injunction.  It involves you, personally, and how you react to personal wrongs.  Nations and communities must, unfortunately, have armed forces and police forces in this fallen world of ours.  While this is an interesting subject about which much could be said, let me simply point out that the Lord Jesus never condemned military service per se, even though he had ample opportunity to.  The New Testament, in fact, upholds the rights of governments and courts to exercise just authority before God (Romans 13:1-7).  The question of what constitutes “just authority” is perhaps another question for another day, but let us note that the Lord God does not appear to apply this personal ethic to larger entities, though, obviously, nations and governments may sin as well and they should indeed consider the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount.

Furthermore, the New Testament certainly upholds the responsibility of parents to love and care for their children and for the people of God to love and care for the weak, the poor, and the oppressed.  Turning the other church cannot biblically be a blanket injunction for us passively to turn the cheek of others who should be under our protection.  To stand idly by while others are abused, injured, and killed under the guise of “turning the other cheek” is not to honor God.

Finally, it has been noted that the life of Jesus is the ultimate commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.  In that vein, it is interesting to note that Jesus did not allow Himself to be killed before His time had come (Luke 4:30).  Similarly, Paul protested unjust treatment by appealing to his Roman citizenship (Acts 22:25).  Turning the other cheek when slapped is not necessarily passive acceptance of lethal action.  The believer is being insulted, not murdered.  To read this as a blanket prohibition against protecting yourself is a mistake and is unwarranted in light of the whole witness of Scripture.  Jesus is not forbidding protection of oneself.  He is forbidding a spirit of retaliation, evil for evil.  Even here, however, it must be noted that there may indeed come times, and, in Christian history, there have often been times, when believers were given the high honor of martyrdom.  So this teaching also should not be read to mean that the believer must always preserve his life.  If the Spirit makes it clear that a follower of Jesus is being called to lay down his or her life for his King, he or she should embrace this, but this is not the same as saying that followers of Jesus must never protect themselves or others.

None of these examples are intended to argue against Jesus’ teachings.  Instead, they are intended to help us understand what, in fact, Jesus is teaching.  He is not establishing a simplistic, wooden law.  Again, we must not reduce the Sermon on the Mount to a checklist for righteousness.  Instead, He is demonstrating how citizens of the Kingdom of God live.  And, in this case, He is showing us that, unless other action is required by other Kingdom values, our greatest victory in the face of personal injury is not retaliation but the subversive act of non-retaliation in demonstration of the fact that the injurer has no real power over us, the people of God.

Even given the qualifications I mentioned above, this remains a very difficult word.  And, frankly, it is a word that some in the church have flatly rejected.  For instance, some years ago Philip Yancey expressed genuine and legitimate concern about one prominent Christian’s rejection of Jesus’ teaching:

I grow alarmed when I hear the National Secretary for the Moral Majority praying for the death of his opponents, and saying, “We’re tired of turning the other cheek…good heavens, that’s all that we have done.”[6]

Even more blatant are the words of Christian Reconstructionist Gary North.

“…turning the other cheek is a bribe.  It is a valid form of action for only so long as the Christian is impotent politically or militarily.  By turning the other cheek, the Christian provides the evil coercer with more peace and less temporal danger than he deserves.  By any economic definition, such an act involves a gift:  it is an extra bonus to the coercing individual that is given only in respect of his power.  Remove his power, and the battered Christian should either bust him in the chops or haul him before the magistrate, and possibly both.”[7]

What we see in these two examples is not merely a rejection of the teachings of Jesus.  They are, in fact, capitulations to the spirit of the age and the ways of the fallen world order.  They are a rejection of the life to which we have been called as citizens of the Kingdom.

Jesus says that we live out our subversive practices by turning the other church when struck, by giving more than a person who sues us is asking, and by voluntarily carrying a forced load two miles instead of one.  This last example alludes to “the Roman law of impressment,” a law stating that a Roman soldier could legally require somebody to carry a burden for one mile.  Michael Card sees this law reflected in the soldier’s demand that Simon of Cyrene carry the cross of Jesus.[8]

The great questions, of course, are “Why?” and “What on earth does it prove?”  In fact, it proves a great deal on earth!  What does non-retaliation accomplish?  Consider:

• It short-circuits the inherently escalating cycle of violence that continues if we return violence with violence.
• It demonstrates to the one who has hurt us that their injury is not the sum total or even the core of our existence, that life, for us, is more than our life.
• It sometimes disarms the wrongdoer.
• It sometimes shames the wrongdoer into repentance.
• It leaves open the possibility of winning the wrongdoer to Christ when we suffer before the wrongdoer like Christ.
• It demonstrates, in dramatic ways, the posture of Jesus before His accusers at the crucifixion.

Yes, it does indeed accomplish many things.  On the other hand, the value of non-retaliation must not be judged by what it accomplishes.  On the face of it, in the world’s terms, it is an absurd thing to do.  No, the value of it lies in the fact that our King has called us to this life and that this life marks the reality of the Kingdom of God.  Even so, it can have powerful results.

I once heard Andy Stanley talk about the tumultuous first years of his father Charles Stanley’s pastorate at First Baptist Atlanta.  Dr. Stanley had much opposition in those years and a great deal of it seemed to concentrate in the person of one particular man in the church.  Andy Stanley, a boy at the time, says he will never forget in one particularly rancorous business meeting that this powerful layman confronted his father in the pulpit, on the platform, in front of the entire church.  There on that stage the man slapped Charles Stanley in the face.  What impacted Andy and the rest of the church the most was what Charles Stanley did in return:  nothing.  He did nothing.  He just received the man’s blow without retaliation.

Now what made that right?  It was right because he was obeying Jesus.  And what did it accomplish?  Well, it effectively ended the major opposition he had from that party, for they were ashamed of their behavior, and it rallied the core of the church to Stanley.  Why?  Because, in that instance, Stanley modeled the values of the Kingdom of God and this other man modeled the values of the fallen world.  Furthermore, it forever impacted his son, who to this day mentions that episode as a crucial moment in his own life.  What a wonderful lesson Charles Stanley taught his son and his church.

I think as well of Mother Theresa, who once visited a wealthy businessman in India to ask for money for an orphanage.  As she held out her hand, the man contemptuously spat into it.  She looked at her hand, closed it into a fist and said, “That is for me.  Now, how about something for my children?”  And then she held out her other hand.

I think of Calvin Miller, who told me once how, as a pastor in Omaha, Nebraska, he was visiting the home of a man who was living a godless life and was setting a terrible example for his children.  Dr. Miller told me that he confronted the man, standing there in his living room, and told the man that he would answer to God for the destructive example he was setting for his children.  The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back looking at that man’s ceiling.  When he sat up, he could feel the blood in his beard.  The man had struck him in anger.  Miller’s response?  Nothing.  He simply and calmly left.

Why was that valuable?  It was valuable because Jesus suffered and, in that moment, Calvin Miller was drawn into the sufferings of Christ.  He was suffering for telling the Kingdom truth.  And what was the result?  In this case, the result was that the man was shamed into conviction by Dr. Miller’s non-retaliation.  He came under conviction, gave his life to Christ, and became a stalwart member of that church.

Do you see?  Do you see how non-retaliation is actually a powerful, prophetic act through which God can accomplish great things?

I ask you:  are you the type of person who has to get revenge?  Are you the type of person who must be right?  Are you the type of person who practices an eye for an eye?

If so, how is that working out for you?  Is the path of vengeance nurturing your soul?  Is retaliation helping you to become more like Jesus?  I assure you it is not.

The refusal to retaliate is the first, great subversive act when you have been wronged.

II. The Subversive Act of Praying for Our Enemies (v.43,44b)

There is another:  praying for our enemies.

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ^44b But I say to you…pray for those who persecute you

The natural desire is to love our friends and hate our enemies.  It is hard to overstate how engrained within us this innate sense of justice is.  We essentially excuse our hatred of our enemies on the basis that we show love to others.  Way may rightly hate some, we tell ourselves, because we don’t hate all.

Jesus presents another way:  “pray for those who persecute you.”  We must pray for those who hate us and wish us wrong.  Again, given what has been said before, there may be situations in which prayer for them also includes stopping them.  Or it may mean praying for them while laying down our lives.  Let us remember that this is precisely what Jesus did on the cross:  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).  Jesus prayed for those who were taking His life.

To pray for your enemies is to undermine your own ability to hate them and to open your heart to desire their greater good:  their salvation.  To pray for your enemies is to beseech that the Spirit will soften and change their hearts, a hope you cannot partake in when you have filled your heart with hate.  To pray for your enemies is to fight against the degeneration of your own soul by refusing to allow vengeance to define who you are.

This is not an arbitrary law Jesus is giving us.  It is, like all the other aspects of the Sermon on the Mount, a simple description of what people whose hearts have been filled with the peace and joy of Christ live like.  We must become the type of people for whom the thought of praying for our enemies is natural.  To this end, the following Orthodox prayer for enemies might be helpful:

Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst command us to love our enemies, and those who defame and injure us, and to pray for them and forgive them; Who Thyself didst pray for Thine enemies, who crucified thee: grant us, we pray, the spirit of Christian reconciliation and meekness, that we may heartily forgive every injury and be reconciled with our enemies. Grant us to overcome the malevolence and offences of people with Christian meekness and true love of our neighbor. We further beseech Thee, O Lord, to grant to our enemies true peace and forgiveness of sins; and do not allow them to leave this life without true faith and sincere conversion. And help us repay evil with goodness, and to remain safe from the temptations of the devil and from all the perils which threaten us, in the form of visible and invisible enemies. Amen.

III. The Subversive Act of Loving Our Enemies (v.43-48)

Above these specific acts of subversion (non-retaliation and prayer) is the subversive act of love.  The call to love our enemies is a foundational call.  It makes all other redemptive actions towards our enemies possible.  Listen:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

“Love your enemies.”

Here is where we see and feel the disconnect between our hearts as we known them naturally and our hearts as God intends them to be.  It is a stunning thought.  It is, from our perspective, almost impossible.

How are we to do this?  How are we to love our enemies?

The answer, I believe, is found in understanding the deceitful assumption we have perhaps all felt when considering these words:  the assumption that, in Jesus’ scenario here, we are the wronged party and somebody else is the enemy.  Of course, in a sense, this is the wooden meaning of the words.  Jesus is, in fact, teaching us to love our enemies.  But we deceive ourselves if we do not see in Scripture that there is another truth at work here as well.  Undergirding this teaching is the unnerving but undeniable fact that, oftentimes, we are the enemy that needs to be forgiven.  Most of all, the grand truth that makes this idea conceivable is this startling fact:  we are the enemies of God against whom He has not retaliated and for whom He has prayed and whom He loves.

How can we love our enemies?  By realizing that we are the enemies who have been loved.  S.M. Hutchens put it beautifully when he wrote this:

I chuckle when I think of all the preachers I have heard trying to help us squirm out from under what we find [in these verses]. It is ironic while they are trying to relieve us of the burden of taking these admonitions literally, the only thing that keeps us from being put into hell this very minute is that God himself takes them exactly as they read.

Things become clearer if we can manage to stop thinking of the commands to turn the other cheek, and so forth, in fear of the advantage bad or pathologically dependent people would take of us if we did, and instead place ourselves where we belong in the scenario. We, you see, are the enemies, from whom he could extract eyes, teeth and everything else, and yet doesn’t. We are the ones who have demanded his coat, and received his cloak a well. We are the ones who beg from him, and who are not refused; we are the ones who ask him to go a mile with us, and then find (frequently to our annoyance) that he has decided to accompany us two. If we would be like him, we must do the same for others.[9]

Yes, we can love our enemies because we, by nature enemies of God, have been loved.  We can turn the other cheek because the God whom we have wronged has turned the other cheek in Christ.  We can pray for our enemies because the Jesus we crucified prayed, “Father forgive them.”

May we do likewise.