“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and 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” (Matthew 5:38-42). And now we get controversial again by discussing non-violent life. If murder gets some blowback and disagreement, then “Do no resist an evildoer” is bound to make folks even more oppositional. BUT that is what Jesus says. It isn’t that we forget what those folks have done. It isn’t that what those folks do have no affect or effect on us. It is that we have more important work to do. I have Kingdom of God work to do.
There are going to be a variety of folks that do a variety of things, whether on purpose or by accident, that rightfully anger us and probably an equal if not excessive amount of things that we need not take offensively that we do anyway. I need to get over all of that. And that is a lot of work. I have been working on loving my neighbor and loving God all throughout my walk and I haven’t gotten that part down yet. It’s a struggle. People are not easy to love. I spent a series on this blog just looking at how people are not easy to love. And what I need to remember is that I am not easy to love either because I am a people.
Jesus doesn’t say retaliate when you have a good reason, we can always justify retaliation. Resist when folks are threatening your life, He surely didn’t. Resist when your property is at risk, He wasn’t too worried about treasures on earth. Jesus asks us to do more for the evildoer than even they ask. He wants us to go out of our way to be helpful even when their intentions were to do evil. An evil heart needs something and that is probably going to take doing things differently to get through to them.
I used to think that the way to change the world was to just get the right people elected. I used to think that the way to change the world involved getting everyone to see my truth. I wanted to remake the world in my own image and my own philosophy and my own ideology and even my own theology. What I want to change now is me. Doing things the same way as the rest of the world leaves me with the same void. I have a better purpose through Him. I have to work on bringing about His Kingdom now. Not to be a spoiler or anything BUT later on in this sermon He teaches us what to pray for and one of those things is, “Your kingdom come./Your will be done,/on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). I think I need to be working on making that Kingdom a reality in my life first before I can expect others to adopt it as well. And a lot of that goes with letting things go. Forgiveness. It is so difficult BUT again, spoiler, He teaches us to pray about that too, “And forgive us our debts,/as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). It doesn’t matter if those debts are real or imagined, Jesus doesn’t want me holding on to being owed something and feeling like I have some righteous indignation for being wronged. Jesus was wronged all the way to His death and He didn’t retaliate. He didn’t call down armies of angels. He didn’t go scorched earth on the Romans. He saved us all. He forgave us all. And that is my example.
Grace and Shalom to your home.
