You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! – Jesus, Matthew 5:38-39a NLT
In Middle School, I was shadow boxing with a good friend of mine, Stephen. He was super fast, half my size, a lot better looking than me, and every girl wanted to be his girlfriend (which didn’t mean a lot in 6th grade). One of these details is relevant. The others are pure bonus. Unfortunately, I was a little off on my range, and when I went to fake-punch him in the face, I connected! I don’t know who was more surprised, but I do know who was more pissed off. It was clear Stephen was unhappy and wanted to return the favor – an eye for an eye. So, he came at me. I took off running all over the gymnasium and, much to my surprise and his astonishment, I outran him! Fear-driven adrenaline comes through again! Praise God! Eventually he stopped chasing. I thought it was over. About fifteen minutes later he came up to me all calm, cool, and collected. I apologized for accidentally hitting him. He popped me in the face. We were even.
Many years ago, we were enjoying vacation at Kings Beach with Lynne’s family. The hotel was right on the waterfront of Lake Tahoe. Looking south you could see Heavenly way across the lake. Stunningly beautiful. One sunny, warm afternoon I was talking to Lynne’s sister and her husband who were standing knee-deep in the chilly alpine water. Very calm, cool, and collected, I grabbed a bucket that was being used for sandcastles, pretended to rinse it out, filled it with water, and doused my poor brother-in-law, Bill. No accident this time! Naturally, he grabbed a bucket and came after me. Adrenaline kicked in and gave me extra speed and quick thinking. I went to the safest place I could find where he wouldn’t dare try to drench me – right behind our mother-in-law, Carolyn. It worked! I never apologized, of course, because I wasn’t sorry. Yet I don’t remember him getting me back. Maybe he was a better Jesus follower than me. It seems so.
This is a challenging statement from Jesus, isn’t it? It begins a series of instructions about what to do when faced with violence, which we will look at in coming weeks. It is important to be cognizant of the origin and purpose of the statement he is taking issue with. “An eye for an eye” represented the principle of proportional retribution: the punishment should fit the crime. If I punched someone in the face, getting punched in the face in return isn’t unreasonable, but punched in the face and kicked in the jewels – and I believe every brother would agree with me – would seem excessive. The “eye for an eye” principle was meant to limit inappropriately severe retribution. Apparently, it needed to be codified. It still does.
Yet the law didn’t require retribution.
When we are attacked, we might find ourselves fighting back, fleeing, freezing up in shock of what has happened, and in some cases, fawning over the abuser as a means to get them to stop. You are likely familiar with all or part of these responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. How have you reacted or responded to attack? Are you more inclined to one reaction more than another?
What was Jesus directing? Certainly not fight, which gets problematic. Was he encouraging us to run away, to take flight? Or freeze in inaction? Or fawn all over the evil person?
Over my years as a pastor, when this subject comes up, very often we end up talking about Hitler, rapists, and/or serial killers. You know, situations we all face every day of our lives. I think we go there because it allows us to dismiss Jesus outright. If we hadn’t stood up to Hitler’s Nazism or Tojo’s Japan with military force, the war would have been lost, and with it our way of life. Let’s take extremes off the table. War is failure from the outset and violent military solutions should be avoided at all costs. Rapists and murderers should be defended against. Jesus wasn’t calling us to be doormats.
It is also important to appreciate Jesus’ context. He did not enjoy freedom the way we do. Israel was under Roman occupation. He didn’t have rights. He was not guaranteed due process like we are supposed to in the United States (unless we’re illegally deported, of course, then we’re toast). If the evildoer was a Roman soldier, fighting back would result in death. Given his context, his advice is quite sage. If you want to live, do not resist such an evildoer.
Since this statement was not in isolation but rather began a section where he talks about specific, nonviolent action to take when mistreated. Perhaps his prescribed nonresistance is itself a form of nonviolent resistance that may even be a response of love.
Giovanni Papini, and Italian philosopher and author who spent some time as a fan of fascism and Mussolini, eventually found himself at home in the company and thought of Franciscans:
The fact that someone has wronged me cannot force me to act wrongly... To answer blows with blows, evil deeds with evil deeds, is to meet the attacker on his own ground, to proclaim oneself as low as he. To answer with flight is to humiliate oneself before him and incite him to continue. To answer a furiously angry man with reasonable words is useless effort. But to answer with a simple gesture of acceptance, to endure for three days the bore who inflicts himself on you for an hour, to offer your chest to the person who has struck you on the shoulder, to give a thousand to the man who has stolen a hundred from you, these are acts of heroic excellence, supine though they may appear, so extraordinary that they will overcome the brutal bully with the irresistible majesty of the divine. Only he who has conquered himself can conquer his enemies. Only the saints can charm wolves to mildness. Only he who has transformed his own soul can transform the souls of his brothers and transform the world into a less grievous place for all. – Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Kindle Edition, 131
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a brilliant author who noted:
At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men’s sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that, once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it. – Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Kindle Edition, 132
Finally, consider mystic Howard Thurman’s insights:
“No one ever wins a fight.” This suggests that there is always some other way; or does it mean that man can always choose the weapons he shall use? Not to fight at all is to choose a weapon by which one fights. Perhaps the authentic moral stature of a man is determined by his choice of weapons which he uses in his fight against the adversary. Of all weapons, love is the most deadly and devastating, and few there be who dare trust their fate in its hands. – Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Kindle Edition, 134
Considering the wisdom offered, I don’t doubt that love is the answer, expressed at times as nonresistance, even though it is rare. Why are they so few who choose this response?
Consider our culture’s blockbuster films. How many of them celebrate nonresistance or nonviolence? Not many. We like the Avengers who kill the naughty, evildoing aliens. We like rooting for the Resistance as work to take down the Imperial regime. We like to watch Tom Cruise save the day by wiping out the bad guys on impossible missions. We rejoice when “bad people” get what’s coming to them. This is the culture we live in that deeply informs us. We love it. We invite it. We mimic it. To deny it is to choose to live in denial.
But what if we really want to follow Jesus? Won’t that override culture? What if we even strategize about how we can be nonresistant in the way Jesus is talking about, and nonviolent in our resistance in the ways we will examine soon enough? As leadership legend Peter Drucker quipped, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Ugh. Are we sunk?
I wonder if our hope resides in our dreams. Not to say that our hopes may only be realized in our dreams, but that what we dream about, what we truly long for, what we genuinely desire influences the direction of our steps, our speech, our attitude, our passion. This is a profound truth that, if worked into our lives may have the capacity to be incredibly transformative. The reason we don’t foster it more – I think – is because it isn’t easy and requires ongoing attention. Harder at first, but then with time gets easier. And since life changes constantly, this truth needs recommitment perpetually because of our lizard brains.
Our lizard brains are our friends. The response to threat is incredibly helpful in getting us out of burning buildings and away from all manner of threats. Our lizard brains are activated when we are threatened, and is a key force behind the fight, flight, freeze and fawn reactions and responses. Most lizards I’ve talked to, however, are sucky friends. They’re not very mature. I don’t think they can help it because they are lizards. Now, I know I am generalizing and not being fair in this depiction of our cold-blooded neighbors. No offense to all the mature lizards out there! For all lizards who may be tuning in, please forgive me for maligning your good name!
When we live from our more primitive wiring, we live on alert all the time. We read the tea leaves, see danger, and act accordingly. That is a necessary mode of life in threatening situations, but not a great life, not a life we dream of. When we live mainly using our primitive hardwiring, we easily become part of the problem we want resolved. We give into the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
The Good News that Jesus discovered and then taught and modeled was that there is a more fulfilling life to be enjoyed – that we are invited and empowered to enjoy – that is rooted in the presence of the divine. It is well-being personified, sometimes despite and in spite of circumstances, so that even in awful situations we may still have love, joy, peace, etc. To live in that Good News is a choice. We can choose it, or we can choose to ignore it and stay on whatever autopilot that’s more or less working for us right now. When Jesus would invite people to follow him, he was making it clear – you must leave something behind in order to follow, in order to experience the new.
In my experience, the biggest shift happens between our ears, in the way we think. Jesus invites us to choose the way he discovered that leads to an abundance of life, implying that we leave behind ways that don’t. It means letting go of ways that destroy joy in favor of those ways that foster it. Believe it or not, it can be hard to stop drinking the poison that is killing us because we’re so used to it. It becomes a part of our lives. Sometimes it takes over and becomes abusive, like drugs, alcohol, and other things we become addicted to. Like those things, getting out of our destructive ways of being can be very hard to do.
Richard Rohr, in his seminal book, Everything Belongs, talks about this related to nursing grudges and wounds, holding it over those who hurt us. He maintains that holding onto these grudges – thus keeping the wounds open in perpetuity – is an act of controlling and demeaning others. Such a perspective keeps us in the stronger moral position, with our foot on the necks of those who wounded us. It feels good to exert such power, doesn’t it? I’m serious – that’s why we keep doing it. Obviously, having our feet on the neck of someone we are in relationship with (of any level or form) ensure that the relationship will not thrive. What we fail to appreciate, however, is that when we have our feet on someone else’s neck, we are placing a foot on our own necks as well, making it hard for us to breathe.
We are only able to breathe fully and freely – and thus live fully and freely – when we take our foot off the neck of others (and ourselves). I think somewhere deep within us, we all know this to be true.
Jesus’ instruction reminds us to not live as neck-steppers, to not be tempted into the very natural yet primitive way of restricting breath – wanting death – for our enemies, because it strangles us at the same time.
The shift? It’s hard – fasten your seatbelt. The move is love. Love your enemies. Desire and dream shalom for those who have harmed you. Pray for that. That’s why Jesus says do not resist an evildoer – because we become evildoers when we do. It is only when we opt for the divine way of love that we truly thrive. This may be hard. Letting go is hard. But a life of nursing grudges is harder and robs us of the life we’re trying to protect. It’s not living the deepest dream – it’s perpetuating the nightmare.
What are you nursing? Is it time to let go and choose. A bigger dream of shalom? Wishing shalom even for our enemies, because that is the only way that will bring life and peace.