Sermon given at the Millbrook United Methodist Church, 2/20/11.
Text: Matthew 5:38-48
God of infinite possibilities, may your words alone be spoken, and may your words alone be heard. Amen.
A few years ago, on a warm spring day, I drove past a church in Maine. Actually, I was stopped at a red light on an intersection and the church was to my right. The church sign announced that Luke 6:27-36, Luke’s version of the Scripture we just heard, was the sermon text for the coming Sunday, and immediately following was a sentence that declared: "Following Jesus is Loving and Practical." Now, as soon as I read that, I cringed. I had a visceral reaction; I balled my fists and clenched my jaw. I started arguing with the sign; "I don't think so," I said out loud. "I’m not totally sure it’s all that loving, and it's definitely not very practical." I began to mentally list of all the questionably loving and certainly impractical things Jesus called us to do; the car behind me, however, interrupted my list-making with its blaring horn, so I never got to finish the argument with the church sign. I've wondered ever since what the minister said on that Sunday morning.
A few of the certainly impractical and questionably loving teachings of Jesus that I recalled in my head that day are found in today’s Gospel. How is it impractical? “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. ” Is that practical? I don't think so. “If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” Come on, Jesus. Let's be realistic. If someone takes away all my goods, then how can I give to everyone who begs from me? It doesn't make sense.
How is it questionably loving? “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also” has been unloving, indeed, evil advice given to battered women and abused spouses for centuries. At first glance, Jesus seems to be commanding us to be doormats, to accept any number of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual ills in the hopes of some sort of favorable reward from God. Is Jesus insisting we become punching bags, both literally and metaphorically? THAT would impractical and unloving. Also, it’s very likely that Jesus is speaking here to those who had been victimized by injustice, to the oppressed rather than their oppressors. Is Jesus telling his victims to be quiet, to keep taking it?
Friends, I must say that I have had quite a change in my understanding of this text since that spring day when I encountered that church sign. I believe that if we dig just a bit deeper, if we engage in a bit of excavation, we discover how incredibly radical this bit from the Sermon on the Mount, that turning your cheek, giving your cloak, and going an extra mile can be powerful testaments to the gospel of peace. It dares to move beyond an eye for an eye notion of justice and makes the bold claim that following Jesus is indeed loving and practical. It rejects any sort of retributive justice; instead it embraces God’s way of unrelenting and all-encompassing love, a love that accepts you and embraces you and tells you there is nothing you can do to stop it. It calls us to a whole new, radical way of living.
In Hebrew law, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was established to make sure the punishment did not exceed the crime. So if you put out my eye, I could not retaliate by killing you; I could only put out your eye and nothing more. That is retributive justice. But Jesus is calling for an understanding of justice beyond an eye for an eye. Strange as it may initially seem to us, Jesus' words are a powerful form of non-violent resistance to oppression; indeed, his words redefine justice itself. Now this isn’t immediately evident because we have to know something about the culture in which Jesus lived. In the culture of first-century Palestine, a person's left hand was used for, well, bathroom functions. Now, what this meant was that you'd never strike a person with your left hand. If you were superior to another person, you would strike them with the back of your right hand, never with the palm of your hand for that would mean you'd see them as an equal. Now we begin to understand the scene Jesus is setting. If someone strikes you on the cheek, it will most likely be with the back of his hand, for remember Jesus is preaching to the oppressed, those certainly not considered equals by their oppressors. If you turn your face to the right, you force your oppressor to see you as an equal for even your oppressor won't use his left hand. That just simply wasn’t done, because that would have defiled the oppressor as much as the oppressed. If you can imagine, the oppressor's hand begins to swing but is caught in mid-air because he doesn't want to treat you as an equal by hitting you with open palm. You have forced upon your oppressor an equal playing field. Turning the other cheek is not synonymous with forgiving and forgetting; it is a powerful demand for equality and respect as a child of God.
The same subversive type of resistance comes in giving up your shirt when your oppressor asks for your coat. Now, this isn’t comparable to giving your old winter coat to the Salvation Army. Jesus is talking about something completely different here. The likely scenario is that you are asked for your coat in repayment of a debt. You owe your oppressor something and since you have no land and very little money, your oppressor asks for your very coat. Now, there were very clear restrictions regarding the repayment of debts. You could not leave a debtor naked at sundown no matter what he or she owed; it just simply was not to be done. It was against every sense of decency and good order. So Jesus sets up another strategy of resistance. If they ask for your coat, give them your shirt too. There you'll be standing half-naked; they'll be forced to deal with this new reality you've set up. Perhaps, they might be so disarmed that they'll return your coat as well.
Also, in first century Roman-occupied Palestine, a soldier could conscript a Jewish native to carry his equipment for one Roman mile -- 1000 paces. This was, of course, no easy task considering a Roman soldier's backpack could weigh upwards of one-hundred pounds. However, a Roman soldier was prohibited from insisting the carrier to go anymore than a single mile; to do so could incur disciplinary actions. By going an extra mile, you are living with dignity while being treated like nothing; you are not allowing injustice and oppression to define who you are and what you do.
Jesus is not telling people to remain victims, to accept their oppressed state, but to find new ways of resisting evil. On the other hand, Jesus is not saying there are no consequences for unjust, oppressive behavior, either. "Love your enemies," Jesus said, "pray for those who persecute you." This is the ethic that moved Martin Luther King, Jr., to kneel down with his sisters and brothers before water hoses and snarling police dogs. Many people thought he was crazy. "Only violence can fight violence," they told him. But the authorities and the oppressors didn't know what to do with this kind of resistance. They knew the power of violence; they knew the powerlessness of people who knew and accepted their place as victims, but this was something they hadn't seen before: people who refused to be victims, people who refused to fight back with violence but with God’s justice, people who claimed their place and reshaped the battle completely.
"Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." And don't be too impressed with yourself for being good to your friends. Anybody can do that, Jesus says. "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" Just when we think we have loving and praying for our enemies figured out, Jesus reminds us that it's far deeper and more difficult than simply how we treat our friends. It's much more than quid pro quo; that is, it’s more than giving love to those who give love back. Jesus is telling us to love and pray and to not expect anything in return. It's even different from treating others the way we hope to be treated; it’s treating others as sisters and brothers no matter what, and with no expectations. It’s a radical new way of living.
“Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you.” When Martin Luther King preached on this text in 1957 in the midst of the Civil Rights struggle, he said that “the words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.” I would maintain that today, just as in 1957, these teachings of Jesus resonate in our hearing with new intensity and call us to urgent action. When lesbian and gay teenagers are literally bullied to death for being who God made them, we need a new way of living. When the overwhelming majority of the United State’s wealth is concentrated in the top 2%, while the middle class has almost completely disappeared and the poor get poorer, we need a new way of living. When creation is abused and arrogantly wasted in order to satisfy selfish, greedy habits, destroying entire ecosystems and species in the process, we need a new way of living.
Today, when I hear these words from Jesus, I often think about Matthew Shepard's mother, Judy. Do you remember Matthew Shepard? In October 1998, he was brutally beaten for being gay, for being who God made him, beaten because two men were filled with hate. Two young men offered Shepard a ride home; instead, upon finding out he was gay, the took him to a remote field. The two them beat him, tied him to a fence on a country road and left him alone in the freezing night. By the time someone found him the next morning and got him to the hospital, there was no way to save him. Matthew Shepard died as hundreds stood in candlelight vigil outside the hospital. The two men who killed Matthew were arrested, tried, and convicted of the brutal hate crime. And what has Judy Shepard done since? She has taken Matthew’s story and changed the way we talk about and deal with hate in America. She has used his legacy to challenge, inspire, and educate millions of people that turning the other cheek is not synonymous with forgiving and forgetting; instead, it is a powerful demand for equality and respect as a child of God.
"Love your enemies," Jesus said, "pray for those who persecute you." Judy Shepard’s life is shaped by a gospel deeper than hatred, a gospel stronger than revenge. Judy Shepard embraced a new way of living, one that will indeed save our world and our civilization if we would just have the boldness to dare to try it. By loving her enemies and passionately, powerfully spreading the message that ALL people are God’s children of sacred worth, she shows us radical resistance to the values of this world. She is a witness to the transforming power of the gospel. Friends, the gospel has never been more relevant. The world has never been more ready. May we find the courage to love and live beyond an eye for an eye. Amen.
© Evan W. Dodge.
