We live in a culture that seems to be increasingly focused on individual rights. In some ways that is not all that surprising since our country was founded, in large part, in order to protect the rights of the individual. Our founding documents contain many references to those rights:
• The Declaration of Independence contains these familiar words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
• The Constitution was ratified only after promises that the first Congress would amend the Constitution to protect certain individual rights. Ten of those amendments were ratified on March 1, 1792 and are known as the Bill of Rights.
I know that I am personally grateful to live in a country where our individual rights are codified like that. But I’m also increasingly concerned about how the propensity to pursue personal rights above all else is impacting our lives As people live more and more on the basis of their rights, the associated selfishness and self-centeredness actually result in the kind of lawlessness where people invariably tread all over each other in order to protect what they view as their rights. And in the process, our freedoms become curtailed and true justice is denied.
But not surprisingly, this is not a new problem. Jesus faced a culture in which the religious leaders had hijacked some of God’s commands that were instituted to protect the rights of individuals and turned them upside down. But their emphasis on individual rights was actually hindering, rather than promoting true justice.
In the hard saying of Jesus that we’ll examine this morning, Jesus not only addresses those religious leaders, but He also addresses those of us who are His disciples and who live under His rule as part of His kingdom. And He’s going to show them, and us, that by relinquishing some of our individual rights, we actually gain, and not lose, real freedom.
So go ahead and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5 and follow along as I begin reading in verse 38:
“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 the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
(Matthew 5:38-42 ESV)
Like much of Jesus’ teaching, this passage has been misused to justify many ideas that Jesus just isn’t teaching here. I’ve seen this passage used to argue against the death penalty, to advocate for pacifism, to provide justification for being a conscientious objector to serving in the military or to urge people to distrust our system of law and justice. In fact, the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, used the Sermon on the Mount, and this passage in particular, to develop a doctrine of pacifism and non-violence and to advocate “Christian anarchy”. He reasoned that if there were no police, no armies, no soldiers, and no authorities in society, we would have utopia.
Regardless of what your own personal thoughts might be about some of those issues, we will clearly see this morning that none of them were the subject of Jesus’ words here. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is describing what life in His kingdom is like and in this section of that sermon He is making the point that in His kingdom, the way His disciples respond to being wronged is to be completely different from the way we desire to respond in our flesh.
In the “flesh”…
• When I am wronged I demand my rights
In Jesus’ kingdom…
• When I’m wronged, I am to relinquish my rights
When Jesus used the phrase “an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth”, He was quoting from three different places in the Old Testament where that phrase was used (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21). In each of those three cases, God was establishing for His people an ancient law code which came to be known as the “lex talionis” or the “law of retribution.”
This is a concept that is found even in the ancient secular law code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian king, as far back as 2000 BC. That same concept has been carried forward to our modern system of laws, where it is sometimes also referred to as “tit for tat” or “quid pro quo”, which is Latin for “something for something.” Simply put the idea is that the punishment should fit the crime.
In the Jewish law there were…
Two purposes for the “lex talionis” (law of retaliation):
(See Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21)
1) Prevent excess punishment based on personal vengeance
In each of the three cases where we see this concept given in the Old Testament law, it is part of the civil law where God is setting forth how the nation of Israel was to handle conflict and disputes among the people. And in those sections of the law, God laid out a framework of magistrates, judges, courts, and duly constituted authorities who were to handle those matters.
So the first thing we have to note here is that the concept of “an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth”, whatever it was, was meant to serve as a guide for how the civil law system was to operate, and not govern the actions of individuals outside of that system.
Unfortunately we don’t have time this morning to go back and look in any detail at the Old Testament operation of this principle, but if we were to do that, we would see that the whole purpose of this command was actually to prevent individuals from exacting punishment that went well beyond whatever harm had been done to them. It was not a mandate to seek revenge, but rather a guideline to prevent a reaction to a wrong that would be more severe than the original infraction.
But the Jewish religious leaders had perverted this teaching and were now using it as the basis to justify an individual’s license to seek vengeance against the one who had wronged him. Instead of recognizing the idea of “an eye for an eye” as the merciful principle establish by God to prevent cruelty, they had turned it into a license to seek revenge.
2) Curtail further crime
We see this idea clearly in Deuteronomy 19:
…So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
(Deuteronomy 19:19-21 ESV)
Even though punishment is to be limited to be appropriate to the offense committed, it is also true that justice is to be carried out quickly and without pity so that it will be an appropriate deterrent to others. We can’t spend much time on this idea since it is not really central to the main point of Jesus’ words, but understanding that this was also an important aspect of the law of retaliation will keep us from using Jesus’ words here in the Sermon on the Mount to wrongly defend positions that Jesus clearly does not have in mind.
In verse 38, Jesus makes reference to the part of the law He is going to address and then in verse 39 He lays out the general principle when He says, “Do not resist the one who is evil.” Jesus is clearly not saying here that His disciples are not to confront evil in any way. If that were the case, Jesus would have violated His own words with His response to the moneychangers in the Temple.
Given the context, what He is saying is that His disciples are not to follow the teaching of the Jewish religious leaders and remove this idea of “an eye for an eye” from the legal system and use it in their own personal relationships to justify seeking revenge. What Jesus forbids here is seeking to exact their “pound of flesh” when someone wrongs them. And in order to do that they are going to have to live in a manner that is contrary to their culture and their own human nature and relinquish their rights rather than demand their rights. Once again, he is reminding them that:
In the “flesh”…
• When I am wronged I demand my rights
In Jesus’ kingdom…
• When I’m wronged, I am to relinquish my rights
Jesus then goes on to give four simple illustrations that are representative of the rights that we must be willing to relinquish if we are going to be His disciples and live according to the principles of His kingdom.
Four “rights” that a disciple of Jesus must choose to relinquish:
• The “right” to self-worth
But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Notice that Jesus specifically mentions the “right cheek” here. And I’m going to ask you to help me out here in figuring out what Jesus had in mind. Now I know we all have a few lefties here, but just as in Jesus’ day, most of us are right-handed. So I want you to turn to the person sitting next to you and figure out what it would look like if a right-handed person strikes another person on the right cheek. Please don’t carry this too far and actually slap him or her! [Let people try it]. What part of your hand did you use to slap the other person? [Wait for answers]. The back of your hand right?
Would you agree that it would be pretty unlikely to inflict serious bodily harm on someone slapping them like that? So before we go any further, we need to be clear that Jesus is not saying here that if someone is threatening real physical harm to you or your family or someone else that you are merely to stand by and let that person physically harm you.
What he is referring to here is a common practice of His day which was considered to be a great insult to another person. The kind of calculated backhanded slap to the face that Jesus is talking about here was intended to cause harm to a person’s dignity, not physical harm.
In today’s culture, it is unlikely that anyone is going to give us a backhand slap to our cheek. But there are a lot of other ways that people are going to attack our sense of self-worth and our dignity. As Jesus reminded His disciples, some of those attacks will come merely because we are His disciples.
If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
(John 15:19 ESV)
But most of the time people are going to attack our dignity because we live in a fallen world where we are led to believe that we can somehow elevate our status by belittling others.
And if we cling to the right to self-worth, our immediate reaction is going to be to strike back against the person who offends us. But as Jesus’ disciple, He is calling for us to give up that right and to refuse to retaliate.
• The “right” to self-preservation
And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
Once again, we need to be careful to note what Jesus is not teaching here. He isn’t saying that if someone sues you unfairly you are to just give him what he is asking for and then throw in a little something extra.
The implication here is that a person is being sued for a legitimate reason, probably for the repayment of a debt. And because the person had no other assets with which to pay the debt, he had to give up his tunic. In Jesus’ day the tunic was an undergarment, similar to a full-length shirt. In fact, this is where we get the phrase “to give the shirt off one’s back.”
And Jesus’ says that if the court determines you need to give up your tunic, instead of being angry and bitter, go ahead and show you’re really sorry by giving up your cloak, too. The cloak was the outer garment, kind of like a coat. And it was often needed to keep warm at night. In fact, it was so essential that the Jewish law required that if it was taken in pledge for a debt that it had to be returned before the sun went down:
If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep?
(Exodus 22:26-27 ESV)
That cloak was a means of self-preservation in that culture. In today’s culture, our means of self-preservation are certainly much different. It might be some of our material possessions – we’ll address that some more in a few minutes. But it might also be something like our job, or our social position, or even our time. And what Jesus is saying here is that someone imposes on any of those things, don’t begrudge them and certainly don’t retaliate. Instead give the other person even more than he asks for.
• The “right” to self-determination
And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
The Romans had adopted what was originally a Persian idea and developed a system in which a Roman soldier could conscript a person to carry his pack. But the law limited that conscripted service to carrying the load for no more than one mile. We see that practice come into play when Jesus was carrying His cross to Golgotha to be crucified and the Roman soldiers conscripted Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for Him.
You can imagine how a Jew would feel when a hated Roman soldier would interrupt what he was doing and require him to carry his pack for a mile. Not only was this an infringement on his right to self-determination, but it was possible that this hated Roman soldier who he considered to be an enemy was even asking him to carry something that might be used against him and his people.
While we don’t still have that kind of conscripted service in our culture today, we do have people who infringe on our right to self-determination. That could be anything from a police officer who pulls us over on the way to work to a family member who calls late at night to ask for some help. And when that occurs, Jesus says that we are not just to do what we’re asked but that we are to “go the extra mile.”
• The “right” to self-indulgence
Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Once again, we need to be clear here about what Jesus is not saying. After all if Sally and Derek and Steve and some of the other bankers here in our congregation applied this literally in their jobs, they would be out of work pretty quickly. Jesus is not saying here that every time someone asks us for money or other material possessions that we are to automatically give them what they are asking for. The implication here is that there is a real need and that by giving to that person you will meet that need in a legitimate way.
Sometimes when someone asks for a handout, the worse thing we could do for them is to give them what they are asking for because that often just further enables some underlying behavior that is causing their need in the first place. Sometimes just giving money to a homeless person enables them to continue their drug or alcohol habit that is the reason they are homeless in the first place. And sometimes giving or loaning money to a family member who has a financial need because of the poor decisions that person has made only enables that person to continue making those poor decisions.
But what Jesus is addressing here is the tendency to hold on to our possessions for the purpose of self-indulgence when there is a legitimate need that we have the ability to meet. Both the Old and New Testaments confirm that God provides us with material resources so that we can use them to do good to others:
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.
(Proverbs 3:27 ESV)
So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
(Galatians 6:10 ESV)
In this world, people are going to wrong us, probably a lot. Usually we can’t control that. But the thing to remember is that what they may do to us or claim about us doesn’t reveal our character and it often says nothing about who we really are. But how we respond to their accusations, insinuations and other forms of attack does reveal who we are.
We certainly see that was true of Jesus. In His humanity, people constantly wronged Jesus. But in every case, He willingly relinquished all of the rights we have discussed today:
• The “right” to self-worth
• The “right” to self-preservation
• The “right” to self-determination
• The “right” to self-indulgence
He did that to demonstrate that life in His kingdom is different from life in this world. He did that as a living illustration that…
In the “flesh”…
• When I am wronged I demand my rights
In Jesus’ kingdom…
• When I’m wronged, I am to relinquish my rights
Obviously relinquishing our rights like this is not a natural response. It is a supernatural response that can only be carried out by a citizen of the kingdom of God who is controlled by the Holy Spirit because he or she has completely surrendered his or her personal rights to Jesus.
But when we choose to follow Jesus’ example and relinquish our personal rights the result is that His life, and His love, grace and mercy are manifest in our lives.
This is not something that I do particularly well in my life, but, with God’s help, I am working on it. My wire is actually much better at this and so I’d like to close by sharing just a couple of practical tips that I’ve learned primarily from observing how she handles these situations.
Practical tips for how to relinquish my rights
1. Put aside petty ways of “getting even”
Over the past few weeks, Mary has faced two separate occasions in which she was treated in a way that pretty much violated all four of the rights that we’ve focused on here this morning. And in both those situations she was hurt deeply. In one of those cases, the person who hurt her was someone who claims to be a Christian who didn’t act at all like a Christian.
Mary certainly had a right to be angry in both those situations. So, as her knight in shining armor ready to come to her defenses my immediate response was to figure out all the ways that I could help her get even with these people. And I came up with some pretty good ideas. But fortunately, Mary handled the situation with much more class, relinquishing her right to retaliate in some way.
My guess is that I’m not the only one prone to coming up with petty ways to “get even” with someone who has wronged me in some way. And to prove it, I’m just going to ask all of you one question: How do you react when someone cuts you off while you’re driving? Need I say anything else?
Sometimes the petty ways we try to retaliate against others – our spouses, our children, our parents, our co-workers, our friends and others – don’t seem like a big deal. But ultimately they have a way of revealing whether I’m going to live according to the flesh or according to the ways of the kingdom.
2. Focus on the well-being of the other person
This is really the essence of relinquishing my rights, isn’t it? Instead of focusing on my own rights, I look at the situation and think “How can I respond in a way that is going to point the other person to Christ? How can I act in a way that is going to reflect the love, mercy and grace of Jesus?”
Once again, this is an area where I struggle. But with God’s help, I have become a lot better at having this mindset. I do know early on in our marriage, whenever I felt like Mary had wronged me in some way or if there was some kind of conflict my goal was to win at all costs, and to hang on to my rights. And often I did “win”, but at the cost of inflicting great pain on Mary. Ultimately that not only hurt her, but it also hurt me. But even worse, my actions certainly didn’t reflect the love of Christ that the Bible tells me I am to give to my wife.
I certainly don’t do it perfectly by any means, but over the years God has developed a totally different mindset in my life, where I now consider how my reactions are going to impact the other person and my witness for Jesus before I respond to my wife and to others. And having that mindset has made it much easier to willingly give up my rights in those situations.
As Americans, we have certain individual rights that are protected by the Constitution and our laws. And as a Christian, I also have certain personal rights that are protected by God’s Word. But as a disciple of Jesus, living in His kingdom is not a matter of hanging on to my rights, but rather of relinquishing them for the good of the kingdom and the good of others. And the ironic thing is that when I give up my rights, I actually gain the real freedom that I can never experience as long as I insist on hanging on to my own rights.
