Matthew 5:38-48

Matthew 5:38-42     Retaliation  

(Luke 6:29-31)

The directive was drawn from the Book of Exodus [21:24] and originated during the early history of Israel, in an era without police forces, when revenge easily escalated and continued for generations. It was designed to halt the endless cycle of violence, by respecting injured honour on the one hand, and restricting retaliation on the other. 

Jesus rejected these outcomes.  His concern was the growth in general self-respect of the victim, and the education and restoration of the offender.

The word resist might be better translated as “fight back against”.  Jesus’ concern was always that the dignity of the oppressed be recognised, as much by themselves, as by the oppressor.  Jesus longed for the re-empowerment of the poor in spirit, those whose spirit had been crushed to the point of annihilation by their almost inevitable passive compliance in their own debasement.

He strongly rejected all oppression but, equally, he deplored the sense of hopelessness that contributed to its pervasive acceptance.  However, Jesus would have no part in violent resistance, either.  As would become obvious through the examples he gave, Jesus’ response to violence was active, but non-violent, resistance.

Assuming the striker to be right-handed, then the stroke to the right cheek would have been a back-handed stroke – a dismissive, contemptuous action, carried out with an attitude of presumed superiority.  To strike the other cheek would call for a much more deliberate and violent action.  By turning the other cheek, those struck would, in effect, be allowing those responsible to recognise what they had done; it would expose their violence, and peacefully challenge it at the same time.  It would preserve the sense of quiet dignity of the oppressed.  It might alert and educate the oppressor.

Even if it failed to check the further violence of the oppressor, it would have served to avoid the danger of escalating violence, and would have left the peace of the oppressed intact and enhanced.

In Palestine at that time, normal male dress consisted of two garments – a basic tunic/undergarment with sleeves, usually of wool or linen, that extended down to the knees; and, draped over that, a larger cloak/outer garment that, for the peasant classes, doubled as a blanket at night.

In cases where creditors could claim the outer garment as surety for a loan, the law required that it be returned by nightfall.

Jesus’ extreme suggestion that disciples offer the inner garment as well as the outer one, and, consequently, leave themselves naked, was calculated to highlight, perhaps by ridicule (?), the callousness of the whole system.

Again, while the response would be one that flowed from the offended victim’s sense of inner peace, maintaining personal dignity and avoiding violence, Jesus’ suggestion further showed the moral bankruptcy of a society that required pledges, and that could not function simply on the basis of personal honesty.

The practice reflected the custom of Roman mercenaries to conscript local residents to carry their packs.  Authority condoned the custom.  However, rather than force local populations to rebellion, Roman law restricted to one mile the distance that a soldier could demand of the carrier.  To go the second mile would unsettle the dominant soldier’s sense of power and superiority, and possibly serve to highlight the wrong done in the first instance.

Jesus was teaching in Galilee, an area where the relentless advance of social change was forcing people into destitution.  By giving loans at unreasonable rates and demanding repayment, especially when impossible, the rich and powerful were forcing local peasants to sell their land, and turning former tenants into simple day-labourers.

Jesus refused to accept that the local residents were totally powerless.  In the face of injustice and oppression, unlike the Zealots, he would not advocate violent rebellion.  His solution, when implemented generally in a money-based economy (not the peasant economy of Galilee), might have given rise to some version of farming cooperatives, where the poor would lend to, and borrow from, each other, not to make themselves rich, but to maintain their own identity and to assist each other.

For the members of Matthew’s community, many of whom would have been poor, mutual financial help may have been one practical expression of life in community, especially for those members ostracised from their families because of their choice to follow Jesus.

Matthew 5:43-48     Love for Enemies

(Luke 6:27-28, 32-36)

Matthew’s sixth illustration of how Jesus fulfilled the law showed Jesus extending the law beyond the letter to its underlying spirit and vision.

Later in the narrative, Jesus would insist that the essence of the law could be expressed in the twofold commandment to love God with heart, soul and mind, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself [22:37-39].  Nowhere in the law, however, was there any naked command to hate your enemy.  The Book of Judges, nevertheless, was peppered with injunctions to obliterate enemies.  Even the writings of many of the prophets were filled with images of God wreaking vengeance on the enemies of Israel.

To the Jewish mind, to hate did not necessarily carry the idea of emotional vindictiveness, but could simply mean “to dissociate from”.  Love, likewise, did not refer to an emotional connection but, rather, to a “deliberate choice for”.

At times, the “Prayer Book of Israel”, the Psalms, which nourished the prayer life of Jesus, and of his mother and Joseph, mixed profound love of God with equally profound hatred of God’s enemies:

Jesus, the fulfiller of the law and the prophets, wished to set the record straight.  Individual scriptural passages needed to be interpreted in the light of the whole; and earlier insights needed the corrective of later and more mature insights.  God’s self-revelation was gradual as people matured to appreciate the depth of what remained essentially mystery.

Love of Enemies

Jesus, then, simply illustrated the unconditioned love of God who, as was obvious, dispensed sunshine and rain indiscriminately.  Perhaps just as well, for who would qualify as wicked or good, just or unjust?  All human persons are works in progress, incomplete and inconsistent.

Jesus showed the disciples a God who was against no one.  With God there would be no “us” and “them”.  Indeed, as disciples grew in their ability to open their eyes in love to their world, they would discover that others were little different from themselves.  Like God, they would grow beyond “us” and “them”, and find that all are “us”.

The setting, still, was the Israel of Jesus’ day where tax collectors and Gentiles were frequently categorised as sinners.  Discipleship was a choice to move beyond sin towards mature covenant relationship in God.   Essentially, its reward was nothing extrinsic, but the experience of the intimacy, love and integrity of discipleship itself.

For Matthew’s community of disciples living in the Diaspora, their necessary concern for each other, and even mutual financial help, were not to be reserved solely for community members.  Were that the case, they would have been little different from their neighbours.  Their sense of God was unique.  Their experience of that loving God empowered them to reach beyond themselves to respond to the needs of all.

In the Christian vocabulary, perfection can sound an off-key note.  Too often it has been seen as an ideal of personal accomplishment and flawlessness, achieved by “performing” carefully and observing commandments meticulously.

As applied to God, and obviously discerned from the context, Jesus was referring to the consistency of God.  God was, as it were, whole, complete, “of one piece” – thoroughly and universally loving.  Disciples become perfect, like God, as they seek to grow in integrity by means of non-selective, unconditional love.

Fulfilling the Law

What can be learnt to date about Jesus’ fulfilling the law?

Matthew had so far shown Jesus as a teacher who:

• penetrated beyond the letter of the law to its spirit,
• extended its reach beyond the limited cases envisaged by the letter of the law,
• ignored some details,
• corrected,
• and even rejected some laws on occasion.

Generally, Jesus was not concerned with precise directives to be meticulously observed.  He painted extreme scenarios; he challenged outrageously, hoping all the time to encourage his listeners to penetrate, ever more deeply, to the essence of the message that he was trying to convey.  He sought to stimulate personal conscience, and to relate it to their openness to God.

Clear directives had been a temptation for many Pharisees, and have continued to be tempting to many in the Church.  Some people are fearful of personal conscience.

The Source of Jesus’ Freedom towards the Law.  Jesus understood the origin of the law and its purpose.  Its source was the liberating God, and its purpose was to guide a way of life where human freedom could develop and be protected.  His approach would take account of God’s vision for the Kingdom, and connect human rights and responsibilities within a social context that could assure the common good of all its members.

The opening words of the Decalogue clearly identified God as the liberating God:

New Covenant. Furthermore, Jesus had an unparalleled insight into disciples’ close covenantal and filial relationship in God, enabled by Jesus’ eventual death and resurrection.  The Torah had been gradually moving in that direction.  Jesus went to its heart.  He sought to sensitise his hearers to that heart, to recognise it written on their own hearts, to develop their consciences and to discern, as adults, the consequences of their sense of God and of life in human society.

Centuries before, Jeremiah had dreamed of the new covenant God would enter into with his people.  Referring to the law, he saw God assuring his people:

Matthew would show that new covenant initiated in his description of Jesus’ last supper [26:28].  Matthew’s understanding of Jesus’ comment, that “not one iota or one small letter of the law will disappear”, would seem, therefore, to be metaphorical.  He was not referring to precise details of actual laws.  Rather, he had in mind the “law” in its totality, the slowly evolving truth embodied there.  Nothing of that law’s truth, however small, could be compromised.

Similarly, Jesus’ warning about “annuls one of the least of these commands” would need to be seen within the context of its essential relevance to the relationship of the disciples to God and to each other.

Fulfilling the Law in the Life of the Church.  There are certain personalities that feel insecure without clear boundaries and precise directives.  There are other personalities that feel suffocated by such things.  In the normal process of maturing, children love to have, to make and even to change rules, and rules remain important, even when quite arbitrary.

As they mature, they recognise that rules serve a purpose – indeed, societies need their rules if they are to survive and thrive. People need to be socialised. While some of these rules may be arbitrary, they recognise that others arise from the very nature of the human person and of human society.

With further maturity, they can come to recognise that, with the complexity of life in society, even rules that generally serve a good purpose can, on occasion, compromise the very values that they are meant to protect.  This gives rise to problems: stick to the rules or protect the value?  For laws to have any real chance of protecting values, the values themselves firstly must be clearly recognised and appreciated.  This may require maturity, wisdom and experience.

Personal Conscience. The task of deciding how to respond within the complexities of a concrete situation is the task of conscience.  The Church’s formal teaching has identified the voice of conscience as the voice of God within, and, therefore, to be obeyed.

Difficulties arise when personal preference, or internalised fears and anxieties, are mistaken for genuine conscience.  It takes experience, familiarity with the inner self, and, often enough, the assistance of a wise spiritual guide, to determine the difference.  Even then, it can be difficult to know for sure.  Certainly, given the importance of conscience, there is a clear prior duty to form and inform it well.  This gives a clear responsibility to the teaching Church.

During the course of the Church’s history, emphasis has moved back and forth between the importance to be given to rules and the importance of conscience.  Consistently, Jesus seemed to prefer clarifying values to spelling out precise rules.

Next >>Matthew 6:1-24