5:38-48 The New Righteousness Toward People: Reconsidering Revenge, Hate, and Love
In Matthew 5:38-48 (Year A Epiphany 7), Jesus continues his proclamation of the rule of God that moves us toward understanding and practicing a better righteousness. He expands the command to love the neighbor to the love of the enemy, removing any expectation of reciprocity for such love. Yet, such sayings suggest provocative responses to persons and circumstances designed to elicit a response that defuses the tendency toward revenge, hatred, and violence. A casuistic interpretation could lead to more violence, which is not the intent.
Confucius memorably said that if you devote your life to seeking revenge, dig two graves. Many of us want to think that hatred is an emotion that we cannot help to have or a feeling we cannot overcome. If we hate someone, so we tend to think, we simply cannot help ourselves. We are human and thus have no choice but to hate. We believe this to excuse our hatred. We are not at fault when we hate. Our problem is that we can help it if we hate, and hatred is our fault. Hatred is a choice, even as love is a choice. Love and hate are matters of the will.[1]
Matthew 5:38-41 are exhortations around non-resistance in a legal style.[2] In the part of this segment unique to Matthew, we find Jesus drawing a sharp contrast with a well-known saying, the first clause containing the opposing standpoint: 38 "You have heard that it was said in Ex 21:22-25, Lev 24:17-21, and Deut 19:15-21 that one can administer justice equitably, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' The Old Testament context occurs in three casuistic legal texts. The first instance of the maxim is found in Ex 21:22-25. This case addresses an altercation between a pregnant woman and another individual — or a situation when a bystander inadvertently injures her — that causes harm beyond a miscarriage. According to the statute, the one who injures the woman is to be punished in the same way: “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex 21:23b-25). We also find the expression in Lev 24:17-21, embedded in a series of ordinances that stipulate the kind and degree of retaliation that the Law permits when one individual suffers the loss of an animal or another person give harm. Specifically, in such cases the law required that “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered” (Lev 24:19-20). The phrase occurs a third time in Deut 19:15-21. In this instance, the expression “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” is set within the context of one who bears false witness against another with the intent to do that person harm. In such circumstances, the Israelites were not to show any pity to the perpetrator. Instead, they were to exact “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” to do to that one what he or she intended to do to another (Deut 19:21). They had the purpose of curtailing excessive retaliation. In practice, when applied to ordinary encounters, life became transactional. Each person was to pay back others. Such a practice was common in the honor-shame culture of the ancient world. People were to reclaim the honor of the family by exacting revenge. In fact, the greater the revenge, the better. Genesis 34 contains one such story of the brothers of Dinah exacting revenge. Once her brothers discovered that Shechem had violated her, Simeon and Levi set a trap by requiring him to submit to circumcision before they would allow him to marry Dinah. Three days later when Shechem and his comrades were still sore, Simeon and Levi took up the sword, slaughtering all of them. Jacob was horrified by his sons' deed, certain that they had made him "odious to the inhabitants of the land," and was convinced that they were in danger of destruction. Nevertheless, Simeon and Levi were unfazed; they maintained that they had done what was honorable and asked, "Should our sister be treated like a whore?" (Gen 34:1-31, esp. vv. 30-31). In Judges 13-16, Samson exacted revenge, and in II Sam 21:1-14 the Gibeonites exacted revenge. The disciples of Jesus, James, and John, wanted to exact revenge when the Samaritans did not welcome Jesus (Luke 9:51-56). Jesus seems to reject such a personal application for his disciples. 39Thus, in direct contrast with the Law of Moses, the second clause contains the new standpoint, But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. Can one still say that Christ has fulfilled the law? Of course, the Old Testament law of retaliation was already a limit on revenge, and thus a positive approach in the direction of the way of Jesus in overcoming force. Negatively, love means renunciation of counterforce and resistance. In context, the next antithesis will make the positive influence of love clear: (Luke 6:29-30), But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, a blow with the back of the hand is a special insult,[3] turn the other also. Instead of giving in to the natural inclination of striking back. In that culture, a slap in the face was an expression of hate and insult. It was a sign of challenge in which the aggressor was ready for a real fight. In this verse, a certain proactive strategy of passive resistance is apparent. Not always successful, the same behavior may nonetheless frequently produce a holding pattern, delayed attack, bewilderment, and retreat, if not defeat on the part of the predator. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, in a similar vein: "Does anything seem strange to him? Does he not expect worse and harsher treatment from the wicked than befalls him? Does he not count it as gain whenever they fail to go to the limit? 'So-and-so reviled you.' I am obliged to him for not striking me. 'But he also struck you.' I am obliged to him for not wounding me. 'But he also wounded you.' I am greatly obliged to him for not killing me." He also said, "Now the Cynic must have such patient endurance that most people will think that he is insensate and a stone. Nobody reviles him; nobody beats him; nobody insults him. But his body he himself has given for anyone who wants to use it as they see fit." 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well (Luke 6:29b), an injunction that could leave one naked. Such an action would move against the natural inclination of suing in return. This notion is a case parody, with an extremely narrow focus that has broad application. In this case, it points to a situation that rarely occurs. One could not take such a saying literally without comic effect. When taken literally, it can produce insight, prompting the listener to react differently to acts of aggression. By not feeling the need to protect what they had, Jesus took every material means of manipulating and imposing oneself on Jesus and his followers in Galilee out of the hands of the enemy. Under the circumstances, such injunctions were smart moves. We cannot meaningfully understand such statements as the demand for an extraordinary exercise of moral virtue, but only as the marching order never to allow the rejection and opposition that they encounter to divert them from their accepted role as witnesses of the reign of God in which they must love, do good, and bless. They cannot be witnesses of the rule of God in any other way. They must witness in this way, even though they meet with enmity, hatred, cursing, and affliction.[4] Jesus opens an indirect opposition to the OT law of pledging. To the poor man, who must give his cloak as a pledge, one must return this cloak every evening so that he can sleep in it.
Exodus 22:26-27
26 If you take your neighbor's cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; 27 for it may be your neighbor's only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.
Deuteronomy 24:12-13
12 If the person is poor, you shall not sleep in the garment given you as the pledge. 13 You shall give the pledge back by sunset, so that your neighbor may sleep in the cloak and bless you; and it will be to your credit before the LORD your God.
The point of the saying is that one should not get involved in such lawsuits at all.
The philosopher Crates once said: "You will be able to open your purse easily and to give away freely what you draw out with your hand: not as you do now, calculating, hesitant, trembling, as those with shaky hands. But you will regard a purse that is full as full and after you see that it is empty, you will not complain." Note the casual approach to cash and collateral. This is subversive wisdom of the Cynic regarding money and its proper management. Significant deviation from the usual habits for handling such an issue belongs to the teaching of Jesus and his effort to upset the social order or disorder created by these patterns of both thought and action. One should see everything in these verses as part of the regular daily grind of a subjugated people's struggle to survive. Personal violence and theft are as normal a part of everyday existence as the more peaceable exchange of goods and services. It provides yet another example of how one should express the love of the enemy. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. A reference to the occupying Roman army, resisting the natural inclination to resist such conscription by the occupying force.
In a secular proverb,[5] 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. The use of the singular “you” makes the difficult response direct and personal: “You give go beggars.” “Whoever gives to the poor will not want” (Prov 28:27). “Don't refuse to help a beggar who is in distress. Don't turn your back on a poor person or give the poor any reason to curse you” (Sirach 4:4-5). “Be kind enough to lend to your neighbor when the neighbor needs help. You are keeping the Lord's commands if you help the neighbor. If neighbors need something, lend it to them. And when you are in debt, pay it back as soon as you can” (Sirach 29:1-2). “Give generously to anyone who faithfully obeys God. If you are stingy in giving to the poor, God will be stingy in giving to you” (Tobit 4:7). Obeying Jesus here could leave one naked. Here is another case parody. If taken literally, it is ridiculous; the person would soon be destitute. It cuts against the social grain. The philosopher Crates once said: "You will be able to open your purse easily and to give away freely what you draw out with your hand: not as you do now, calculating, hesitant, trembling, as those with shaky hands. But you will regard a purse that is full as full and after you see that it is empty, you will not complain." Note the casual approach to cash and collateral. This is subversive wisdom of the Cynic regarding money and its proper management. Significant deviation from the usual habits for handling such an issue belongs to the teaching of Jesus and his effort to upset the social order or disorder created by these patterns of both thought and action. One should see everything in these verses as part of the regular daily grind of a subjugated people's struggle to survive. Personal violence and theft are as normal a part of everyday existence as the more peaceable exchange of goods and services. It provides yet another example of how one should express the love of the enemy. The use of the singular “you” makes the difficult response direct and personal: “You give go beggars.”
Scholars call these parenetical hortary sayings, aphorisms, and parody. They are a form of discourse that exaggerates certain traits for comic effect. Such sayings have the design of producing insight, prompting the listener or reader to react differently to acts of aggression. The supreme art of the world government by God is to cause good to come from evil, and in this way to overcome evil with good, as Jesus commanded his disciples to do. That may well be the intent in such injunctions.[6] Yet, at the least, the demands of Jesus do not consider their consequences, which might be very ambivalent: it also could happen that the one who strikes winds up for another hit, that the poor person without a cloak must freeze and that one strengthens the hostile occupation power! There is a piece of conscious provocation in such sayings. It is a matter of alienation, of shocking, a symbolic protest toward the regular rule of force. They are the expression of a protest toward any kind of spiraling of force which dehumanizes the human being and of hope for a different behavior of the person from that which is the everyday experience. In these sayings, we might find a gentle protest and an element of provocative contrast to the force that rules the world. These commands intend to find obedient persons to obey them. One understands provocative renunciation of force as an expression of love. In the circumstances of the first centuries of Christianity, the church applied these sayings literally. Christians could not be part of the armed forces of the Roman Empire. The reason is obvious. The Empire could call upon you to arrest and kill Christians. As history moved to a different historical setting, Christianity no longer experienced persecution, the application of the rule changed. Once Christianity had some responsibility for the culture, the application of the rule changed. The point is that a provocative use of this saying intends that nonviolence lead to the possibility of change in the aggressor. However, we also have experience of people for whom such nonviolence is a sign of weakness that invites more violence. The point is that an absolute application of this rule without regard to context is hardly the intent of Jesus. The point is not simple literal obedience, but re-discovery of their truth in new situations, in freedom but in a similar radicality. The arrival of the kingdom of God indirectly determines their motivation and context. They fit well into the eschatology of Jesus, who repeatedly speaks not of the rule of God itself but of the everyday life that the rule of God influences. If this is correct, then one may dare still a further statement. For Jesus, the limitless love of God for the people makes possible the love of human beings among themselves and even for their enemies marks the arrival of the kingdom of God. One understands provocative renunciation of force as an expression of love.
Jesus confronts us with a profound insight into the root of human violence. A common philosophical insight is that human beings learn by imitating others. This especially leads to shaping what we desire. Even at an early age, we learn to desire what those who care for us desire. We desire to have what they have. This can be good, such as when we learn the language that others use. It can also lead to a mimetic crisis in that what we desire encounters rivals. This rivalry can lead to resolution through violence. Jesus is not inviting us to renounce imitation, but to move us toward nonviolent imitation. For example, consider the wisdom of “turning the other cheek.” If you want to put an end to mimetic rivalry, you must surrender everything to your rival. This will suffocate rivalry at its core. This is not just a matter of political strategy; it is much easier and more fundamental. If the other places outrageous demands on you—because the other is already under the spell of mimetic rivalry—he expects that you play along and attempt to outdo him. The only way to take the wind out of his sails is to do the exact opposite: Instead of outbidding him, yield to him doubly as much. If he demands that you run a mile, run two. If he strikes you on the left cheek, turn to him your right cheek. The rule of God means nothing else; but that does not mean it is easy to reach. A Christian existence does not denote an extinguishing of desire, but rather a redirecting of desire towards an end free of violence and rivalry.[7]
One way to think of such a command from Jesus is that Jesus taught consistent living and suffering of the truth of the soon arrival of the kingdom of God in contrast to and provocation of the world. Yet, a simple back to Jesus movement is impossible for basic theological reasons. Rather, we need to interpret the exemplary nature of the text considering the situation one faces. Will a non-violent response reduce violence or will it expand violence? A fundamental change took place at the Constantinian reversal, a change that had to have its effects on the interpretation of our text if one is to deliver it anew in each situation. Until then, what confronted the Christians was the question of how they should carry out and live their testimony in the world of law and politics, a world for which the Christians were not at all responsible. Only now a tension existed between, first, the Christian commission to carry the testimony of the gospel to the world and to live in the community itself and second the Christian commission to help in shaping the realm of the world, including politics, for the best of humankind. To forgo the use of force is a contrasting sign of the rule of God or a part of a new way of righteousness that Jesus has opened up. Jesus understands the renunciation of force as an expression of love.
To address the matter most directly, one does not use this saying in a provocative way by giving in to the aggression of others in every situation. A provocative use of the saying looks to changing the behavior of the aggressor toward peace. In some situations, the nature of the aggressor has no possibility of such change. On a personal level, to stand by and allow an aggressor to kill one’s neighbor when one could use force to stop it is not an act of love nor is it provocative. Rather, such a stance is cowardly. On a corporate level, to do nothing to free slaves in the south, to stop the extermination of Jews in Europe, or to stop Muslim militants who want to erase freedom from the earth and replace it with shira law, far from provocative behavior, becomes cowardly, unjust, and lacking in love for the betterment of humanity.
Matthew 5:43-48 are exhortations, in the form of a brief proverb enlarged with an illustration,[8] offered in legal style,[9] concerning love for enemies. 43 Beginning with the source unique to Matthew, the first clause contains the opposing standpoint: "You have heard that it was said in Lev 19:18, "You shall love your neighborand, in a saying not directly in the Old Testament, but possibly implied in Ps139:19-22 and 137:1-9, hate your enemy.' The second clause contains the new standpoint: 44 In sharp contrast, (Luke 6:27-28) But I say to you, Love your enemies. Quoted often in early Christian teaching, they consider it a Christian distinction and innovation. The opinion of the church fathers that Jesus' commandment to love one's enemies is something new is only conditionally correct. In Greek philosophy, particularly in the Platonic and Stoic tradition, there are basic statements like those of Jesus. Diogenes, a Greek Cynic philosopher, gave similar advice: "When asked by someone how to repulse an enemy, he replied, 'You be kind and good to him."' In contrast with this, it is striking that Jesus speaks explicitly of the love of enemies. Nelson Mandela took this approach in South Africa when he said, "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." It creates the condition of the possibility that now permits the reader to imagine the heretofore inconceivable notion of overcoming evil with good, to use Paul's terms, or the defeat of enmity through different means than those of hatred and retaliation. The saying is memorable because it cuts against the social grain and constitutes a paradox. Enemies are not those we love; those we love are not usually our enemies. Those who love their enemies have no enemies. The secret hope is that such love could turn an enemy into a friend. The phrase "love your enemies," would lose its rhetorical force, if the activity of love in the imagined confrontation were somehow to eliminate or ignore the hostile character of the stated enemy. It is a strategy for handling unfriendly opposition. Love your enemies becomes a way to take care of the jerks. It rejects the potential violence inherent in hate of the enemy. Abiding hostility provides the context for the injunction. This counsel to love your enemies has the purpose of forming a certain social character. One of the morally salient features of the teachings of Jesus was precisely this ability to handle hostility with notable restraint and calculated inversion.
Further, on a practical level, one wonders if it asks too much of a disciple. Paul is not squeamish about writing of his enemies. II Peter 3:12-22 has a separate way of handling enemies in calling enemies irrational animals, and so on. Not only that, if one reads Matthew 23 from the perspective of a scribe or Pharisee, one might not feel the love. One could even wonder if the ethical teaching of Jesus is so high that it fails to produce solid and practical results in the followers of Jesus. Some people would say it violates the basic biological, anthropological, and psychological dimension of the human being. Church history, with its crusades, wars between Protestant and Catholic, forced missionary endeavors, and anti-Judaism in Christian Europe, all suggest as much.
Jesus of Nazareth lived among enemies. The follower of Jesus has a vocation in which he or she will need to have the courage to live among enemies Christianly. The rule of God is amid its enemies. If we only want to be among friends and among those whom we think of as devout, then we are avoiding the suffering that is part of our vocation.[10]
As a general note, the various injunctions of Jesus as to how deal with opposition had the objective of some form of liberation from the menace of unresolved hostility and sporadic military repression, with personal enmity and the permanent threat of abuse. We must assume the pervasive and seriously destabilizing nature of all colonial rule as such. "Organized" political projects of resistance and revolt did not fully articulate themselves in Galilee and Judea until much closer to the outbreak of the first Jewish war than scholars used to assume. However, it could hardly have been business as usual after the Romans arrived on the scene even though they compelled commercial and other businesses to function more productively than before. How do you love your enemies?
You love your enemies in the following way. And pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Being a child of the Father is an eschatological gift of salvation,[11]applied to those who take the perfect love of the Father as their model.[12] Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, expressed a similar thought: "... the Cynic has made all persons his children ... In this way, he approaches them all and cares for them all. ... It is as a father that he does it, as a brother and as a servant of Zeus, who is father of us all." Jesus speaks of the love of God, that causes the sun to shine on good and bad, that causes rain to fall on the just and unjust, as a pattern of the love his followers are to have.[13] Followers of Jesus abide in the love of God and in fellowship with God only as they pass it on to others, and therefore are children of God. They live in a special and filial relationship with the Father.[14] If the work of God as the creator and sustainer who causes the sun to shine on the good and the bad is a model and basis for the command to love, then we must see the creation of the world as already an expression of the love of God.[15] We can also see here connection between the love and goodness of God in creation as the basis for the love and goodness of God in sending Jesus to seek and save the lost.[16] Generally, love is not so much a command but living reality, an impulse proceeding from the love of God for the world that lays hold of us and catches us up into its movement. Participation in the kindness of God as Creator ought to be the natural consequence of thankful acceptance of this kindness.[17] Jesus teaches the notion of the creative activity of God, especially in the providential care for the creatures of God, bringing such notions into the picture of the fatherly goodness of God. Jesus teaches the patience of God involved in this basic goodness expressed in creation.[18] Jesus calls his listeners to imitate God's penchant for meeting out unmerited mercies and love. It a natural conclusion of the message presented to have Jesus remind his followers not to judge others. Being the children of God is the essence of the Christian life, which we see here in the promise that the love of enemies makes us children of God.[19] Such sayings suggest that divine love is not restricted to those whose moral performance is superior.[20] We find here the perfection of the goodness of the Father demonstrated in the sun shining on the good and bad alike.[21] The theological tradition applies references to creation here to the whole Trinity in its involvement in creation.[22]
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Part of the religious language of the time was that of merit, a notion followers of Jesus are to detach themselves from.[23]Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? This phrase suggests the motive clause for the phrase "love your enemies." Only by behaving in a patently different fashion from the normal patterns of typical collegiality would they be able to realize their distinctive virtue. Jesus is advising that the wall of the exclusiveness of fellowship and love that is at iue here, and of which all groups at all times have been guilty, is what Jesus is trying to break down as he forms his community.[24] 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.[25] Such perfection suggests a pure, undivided heart oriented toward fulfilling what Jesus has commanded of disciples. We find here an echo of the statement in Deuteronomy that the people are to be holy since the Lord is holy. Belonging to God in this way means separation from the world of sin.[26]
[1] Philip Gulley, For Everything a Season (Multnomah, 1999), 204.
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[10] Inspired by —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (Harper Collins, 1954), 17-18.
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[12] Schneemelcher, TDNT, VII, 390
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[24] Stahlin, TDNT, IX, 160-1.
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