Matthew 5:38-48 "We Have Met the Enemy"

         A pastor once preached a sermon based on the passage we just read.  Because he always tried to make his sermons interactive by somehow including the congregation, he began in this way.

         “Now, I’ll bet that many of us feel as if we have enemies in our lives. So raise your hand if you have many enemies.”  Quite a few of the more honest people raised their hands.

         “Now raise your hand if you have only a few enemies,” he dared.  About half as many people raised their hands that time.

         “Now raise your hand if you have only one or two enemies.”  In response this challenge, just a couple of people raised their hands.

         “See,” he said, feeling smug now that he had made his point, “most of us feel like we have enemies. Now raise your hand if you have no enemies at all.”

         The pastor looked around the sanctuary.  Not expecting – and now not seeing – any hands waving, he began to move on.  However, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed an elderly man in the very back row begin to stand up. 

         The gentleman interrupted the pastor and announced, “I have no enemies whatsoever!”

         Astonished, the pastor invited the man to the front of the church.  What a blessing!” the pastor said.  “How old are you?”

         “I’m 98 years old, and I have no enemies,” the elderly parishioner declared.

         The pastor responded warmly, “What a wonderful Christian life you have led! Tell us - how it is that you have no enemies.”

         “Why, it was easy!“ the man replied.  “I outlived them all!”

         We have been reflecting for the entire month of February on what we call the Sermon on the Mount – and it has not been an easy journey. We began with Jesus blessing the poor and the meek and the pure in heart and wondered just where that left us who would rather not be poor and thought of as weak and who think that life is a lot more fun when a tad of impurity is thrown in every once in a while. 

         Later, we tackled the difficult topics of anger, swearing, adultery, and divorce.  And now the Gospel writer wraps it all up by focusing on what Jesus had to say about those people we despise, the ones who have hurt us, double-crossed us, trampled on us, the ones we can not forgive: our enemies. 

         In this final passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges us to reflect on the three R’s that seem to characterize our culture – rights, revenge, and relations.  One blogger I read this week put it this way:  “We’re driven by a concern to hold onto our Rights, we want to hold onto what is ours. We’re driven by a need for Revenge; we want to take back what should be ours. And we’re driven by loyalty to our Relations; we all have an inner circle of family and a few friends and our main task is to be loyal to them.” 

         This blogger has most of us pegged, no doubt about it.  Who among us does not want to get the best of those who have wronged us and who among us does not want to come out on top? 

         And to think that way is not necessarily a bad motive.  Jesus might even agree with it.  After all, he did not want us to be downtrodden doormats – really!  Perhaps it is just a matter of how one goes about getting that upper hand.

         And that is where Jesus and our dominant culture differ.  You see, our most common method of achieving that goal of besting our enemies has traditionally been violent forms of retaliation –

be it striking out at our kids, domestic violence, or finding ourselves, if not supporting then passively standing by, as our nation engages in war after war after war, financed by a burgeoning military budget that eclipses that of any other nation on earth.  After all, we reason, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: It is in the Bible, right? 

         An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:  It is our God-pronounced justification for violence – in addition to being a sign of power, a symbol of strength, and, I mean, who wants to be a doormat and get walked over by a child, a spouse, a nation.  Violent retaliation?  Passive acceptance?  Revenge?  Doormat?  Those seem to be the choices.

         However, if we carefully read this challenging passage, we find Jesus saying:  No, there is another way. You do not have to turn to violent revenge, and you do not have to be a doormat either. 

         “How so?” we engage him.  And Jesus takes the bait, beginning to weave his countercultural philosophy at precisely the same point where we always seem to begin - our age-old justification for violent intervention – an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. 

         Did you know those words are in the Old Testament?  They are found in Leviticus, the book that outlines in detail the entire scope of ancient Jewish law. 

         And did you know that this particular requirement – and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - was actually meant to curb and set limits to, not justify, all out violence?  This Jewish law contrasted the typical ancient practice of killing an entire family or burning down a whole village to avenge the loss of an eye or a tooth. 

         This law was a new way of doing things.  Rather than hurting someone more and escalating violence, the Jewish law declared that retribution should be consistent with the wrong done.  The punishment should fit the crime, so to speak. 

         However, Jesus goes a step further and declares that the cycle of violence needs to be broken all together.  In this text, he offers three examples of how to respond to a commonplace situation in his day and age without violence, yet still not end up as a doormat.  Jesus talks about three behaviors - slapping the right cheek; suing in court, and being forced to go a mile carrying a heavy Roman soldier’s pack.  Before we look at them more closely, it is important to understand that these behaviors were not behaviors anyone could take on.  Only the affluent, the privileged few could engage in them – and did – when it came to the peasants and low lifes that Jesus preached to.

         The first behavior was turning the other cheek.  At least, that is how we refer to it even though the behavior is in fact offering your left cheek to be slapped – and that is an important distinction.  David Ewart in his blog “Holy Textures” summarizes the situation well. 

         Masters slapped the right cheek of their servants and slaves as a sign of rank, privilege, and power.  “It was always done by hitting with the back of the right hand across the right cheek….
(Ewart writes) And to preserve one's honor (or) public standing - it (was) crucial everything be done according to (these) socially accepted protocols.

         The slave must obediently stand facing you....You must strike only the right cheek; and only with the back of the right hand. Any variation on this would demonstrate that you were not in control…
Now imagine your overlord has just slapped you on your right cheek, and without saying a word you silently turn your head to expose your left cheek.

         It appears that you are becoming doubly subservient… But you are actually rendering your master powerless!
 Turning your head hides your right cheek and presents your left cheek. But the angle of your head will be such that the master can see, but cannot strike your left cheek with the back of his right hand.  (Remember how important the protocol is).

         You would appear to be meek and servile; obediently waiting for a second blow. But the Master would be totally helpless. His only options would be to hit you with the palm of his right hand, or use his left hand, or walk away. All three would cause him to lose face.”

         Even though you are a servant or slave, you have made your point.  You have retaliated, but not with violence.  

         OK - Let’s look at the second behavior Jesus points to - being sued in court.  Again, David Ewart explains Jesus’ reasoning for what might seem like passive acceptance.  

         “Since peasants quite literally only owned the clothes on their backs, being sued for your coat was being sued for the only thing you owned - except for your underwear! Which is what a "cloak" means.        

          Being seen in your underwear is shameful for you. So why not publicly expose the shame which allows someone with wealth and privilege to take away the only thing a poor person owns by going naked! Give him your underwear. Let him explain why you are naked.” 

         Once again, even though you are a serf or a peasant, you have made your point.  You have retaliated, but not with violence. 

         Finally, Jesus ends with that troubling statement about walking the second mile. “Soldiers were allowed to conscript civilians to carry their packs, but only for a mile, (Ewart notes). However, this was no minor inconvenience for anyone who worked and fed his family day by day. Walking a mile with a heavy pack and then back again would mean missing that day's labor, and therefore that day's food for the family.

         Offering to go a second mile publicly exposes the unjust hardship of being forced to go even one mile, but does so in a way that seems to cooperate while at the same time brings shame and ridicule on the ones doing the forcing.”

         And for the third time, even though you are one of the least of these, you have made your point.  You have retaliated, but not with violence. 

         By now, it should be pretty clear what Jesus’ philosophy is.  No matter the extent to which we as Christians may try to justify violence and revenge, Jesus did not. 

         Jesus was non-violent.  Time and time again, we hear this personal stance reflected in his stories and parables.  In all four Gospels, we see the way he lived his life – right up to the moment the nails shattered the bones in his hands and feet and the cross was raised.  Jesus was non-violent, and that is the bottom line. 

         Did he ever get angry?  Sure he did. He overturned those tables in the temple during Holy Week.  But he was not seeking violent revenge.  I actually think Jesus would oppose those Stand Your Ground laws, especially when they lead to shooting a teenager when you thought he was playing his music too loud.

         Jesus was non-violent, and that is the bottom line. If we truly desire to follow him, then we need to, first and foremost, strive for and advocate for non-violent solutions as well. 

         In the end, Jesus says, love your enemies rather than just outlive them.  Even pray for them on occasion.  Be the child of the Holy One that God dreamed you could be. 

       Wow!  Love your enemies?  Pray for them?  Resort to collaboration rather than violence?  Is this all a bunch of naïve claptrap?  As Presbyterian pastor Jon Walton writes, “Jesus (must have) lived at some higher level of existence than we do. How else could he have come up with such an illogical set of suggestions for living?

       So we rationalize, “You have to forgive him. He got carried away sometimes. All compassion you know, all gushy about the goodness in people’s hearts, all soft in the middle about that little spark of God in everyone. We have to forgive him that. It doesn’t pan out in real life.”

         But maybe, if given a chance, carefully thought out non-violence does pan out in real life. Maybe it works.  I mean, in the end, it has to work.  At this point, humanity really has no choice.  After all, as Mahatma Gandhi understood:  “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”       

         In a sermon preached in 1957, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote “Of course this is not practical; life is a matter of getting even, of hitting back, of dog eat dog… My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities, which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.” 

         Our choice cannot be between violent retaliation and passive acceptance.  If we are Christians, then our starting point must be, first, that non-violence will work, and second, that it is up to us as followers of Jesus to put it in motion. 

         If you take away nothing else from this sermon, maybe taking to heart this two part shift in perspective is enough: Non-violence will work, and it is up to us – not our enemy – to put it in motion.

         Before you hurt someone as they have hurt you, before you slap, before you abuse, before you stab another in the back, before you kill with words, stop and ask yourself one question:  Why would a reasonable person act as he or she did? 

What might be an explanation?  Is there any common ground here?  As Steven Covey wisely wrote: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.  It needs to begin with us, not our enemies.

         You know, we talk a lot about our enemies – the ones out there, the ones trying to get the best of us, the ones we do not trust, the ones we will not forgive, the ones we hate.  But sometimes I wonder if the cartoonist Walt Kelly had it right all along when he put these words into the mouth of his character, Pogo:  “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” I think Jesus would say amen to that.