Turning the Other Cheek
I’ve been trying to figure out a realistic application for turning the other cheek ever since as a young person a mentor of mine once pointed out to that to teach his son this attitude was a license to getting him bullied at school. No way am I going to encourage my son to get beaten on the premise that that’s what Jesus wants was more like what he said.
Pedagogy? No
As we look at this passage it is good to remember that the Bible is a record of how God communicated and dealt with human civilization as it developed. That to take out any verse written to a culture of 2000 or 4000 years ago and seek to enforce it on all people today may sometimes be more an abuse of the Bible than its intended use. As such I don’t think all of the Bible is written to be directly applied to children, but more to understanding adults, who will then appropriately filter these truths down to their children in culturally appropriate ways.
Progress - Yes
It’s also good to remember that the Bible records the progression of God’s self revelation as human history advances. Genesis records a number of positive commands and one prohibition. It’s not till much, much later that a detailed legal system is presented through Moses to God’s people.
The concept of an eye for an eye is detailed not so much to encourage vindictiveness but to control excessive vendettas and to establish fair justice.
2000 years after the concept of an eye for an eye is well and truly established Jesus appears with the next breakthrough, not just fair justice but a mind-boggling forgiveness where the victim willingly goes a second mile on behalf of the antagonist.
Personally I think the biblical development can be played out in the development of children as well. Initially a basic invitation to explore and develop with minimal boundaries and consequences outlined. As they gain a little more life experience a more complex system of rules, fairness, consequences and punishments can be introduced. Once the concept of fairness and justice has been established then would be a good time (maybe in late adolescence) to challenge them with the concept of turning the other cheek.
Which brings us to the issue of us adults; the intended audience to whom Jesus addressed these concepts. Did Jesus really expect us to live by this principle in all seriousness or is it meant to be one of those nice religious sayings that people like to quote but of course no one actually expects to apply.
Possible – Perfectionism – Legalism
We could have immediately shot this off to the oblivion of religious nicety if it wasn’t for some people who just had to go and live by it.
Ravi Zacharias relates the story of a man who leaves his wife for a woman overseas creating much hardship for the wife and children that he abandons. Years later the wife is shocked to find the man writing to her, informing her that he is dying of cancer and demanding that as a Christian she look after his new wife and child. The real shock of the story is that she actually considered his request seriously. Furthermore unable to financially take care of his second family she offers to sponsor them across to the US and help them to find their own financial feet.
It’s not that it is impossible to live by turning the other cheek or walking the second mile, it is just that it’s not possible to maintain the quality of life we are used to and take as our birthright, while living this way.
If we allowed every person who wronged us or cheated us or attacked us to get away with it we would rapidly throw away our quality of life not to mention encouraging gross wrongdoing.
But considering the fact that living in this manner is possible, to go the next step and make it a requirement for all Christians, to insist on perfection and become legalistic about it’s application is to do exactly the opposite of what Jesus intended. His messages constantly highlight the moral bankruptcy of the legalistic righteousness of the Religious leaders. They kept external religious requirements down to the letter but completely missed the relational care that the rules were introduced for. This is what Jesus means when he says that our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees. Further when Christians tend to legalistically demand each other to turn the other cheek the church is certain to head for hurt and even abuse.
Impossible
(Now if we think of all the possible applications of this: divorce, bad business deals, shoddy workmanship, neighbourhood disputes, defamation, discrimination – the list could go on) Society as we know it could not function. We would be encouraging malpractice and abuse. All the things we value and cherish as a society would be trampled in a one way dash for power and greed. This is not a workable social ethic.
Does that mean for all intents and purposes we then chuck this and other difficult to apply statements on the Scrapheap of irrelevance? Where do we draw the line between relevance and irrelevance? What is left to challenge and change us? Is faith then simply about worship, fellowship meals and Sunday School? As Jesus says so simply if we love only those who love us back – what’s the point of religion? (5:46-47) Even the criminal do that.
So how do we deal with this passage? I think there are two clear intentions apparent.
Intention #1 - An insight into the heart of God
First and foremost these passages reveal to us the character of the Christian God. These are not idealistic commands he expects his creatures to keep, this is very much the way he himself behaves with his creation that continually dishonor him. (5:45) He turns the other cheek, blesses when ignored and cursed and even pays the price of death for a rebellious creation.
By virtue of who he is we see mirrored a true picture of who we are. As my neighbour pointed out as we patted each other on our backs about the generosity of Australians in the face of the Tsunami, it would be a different picture if we realized that the total gambling bill of Victorians was many times greater than the generosity of all Australians put together (He mentioned the astounding figure to me but all I remember now is that they were astounding). Similarly in the face of God’s character we see a definition of good that makes our best and most honorable deeds look like filthy rags. I often hear people arguing the case for good people, but the question must be always asked, according to whose definition of good. People will say I don’t murder, I don’t rape or steal, but as Chris talked us through last week, in God’s definition lust or anger in the heart is good enough to qualify as adultery or murder in His sight.
Intention #2 - An invitation to relate to God
It’s quite interesting how the alternative behaviour of one person can make others in a group feel uneasy. If you have a group drinking and one person doesn’t on the basis of principle, you can cut the tension with a knife. As a result in the long term we tend to hang out with people who share our values and lifestyle because it’s uncomfortable to move with those who have an alternative value set. On the other hand as we get closer to groups of people or as we grow deeper in marriage we increasingly begin to share those other people’s perspective and begin to change attitudes and behaviour as well. We give up bits of our treasured self and takes on bits of who they are. As we grow in relationship with God it is no different and we find that our values and attitudes also begin to mirror his. If they don’t it just means we aren’t seeing him or meeting with him. It is after all possible to come to church every Sunday and go home without seeing Jesus.
(An ever present warning to the Church whether it be Pentecostal Evangelical or Liberal – that it is possible to create church values that look nothing like Jesus’).
So the Sermon on the Mount is an invitation – to taste and see this God, to join his club and deepen his kind of life skills. The rich young ruler approached Jesus, believing he could offer him eternal life. To his dismay he found that his current achievements were undervalued and that he would have to give up his life investment in order to receive what he came looking for and chose to walk away. Zacchaeus found himself unexpectedly hosting Jesus for diner and enjoyed the experience so much he righted every wrong transaction and got rid of his ill gotten gain in order to experience this new relationship.
Sounds good in a Bible story but to give up what you’ve spent your life working for is never going to be easy. Yet if we aren’t willing to we won’t be able to get to know Jesus.
So whether it be to turn the other cheek or walk the second mile, it seems impossible to apply it to all of our life at once. But to trial it in parts of our life, to live by these radical values opens us to a whole new relationship with God that is both scary and exciting.
On the other hand if we are not constantly facing the tension of making our lives more like our Father in heaven who is perfect, maybe its been a while since we’ve allowed ourselves to see him as He really is.
For more sermons from this source go to http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sttheos/
