Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The last two examples, like the first four, can be broken down into three steps: reaffirmation, radicalization, situational application.
• V. 38-42: Love Does Not Retaliate
• Reaffirmation: V. 38: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye…’” This line from the Old Testament (Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21) sounds overly harsh in a modern context. But it was not a command for revenge, but rather an attempt to curb the tendency to unlimited private revenge (Genesis 4:23-24: “Lamech said to his wives: ‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.’”).
• Radicalization (moving to the radix, the root, of the command): “Do not resist an evil doer.” Not only are the disciples of Jesus not to seek unlimited revenge, but they are to completely reject the principle of retaliatory violence. The command is unqualified, the “evil doer” is both an individual evil actor and evil itself. Because the kingdom of heaven is already near/here in the presence of Jesus, this perspective takes evil seriously but does not consider it ultimate. So the command to not resist evil is not a passive resistance but an active strategy of positive action in the interest of the aggressor.
• Situational application: v. 40-43. There is a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Christmas Sermon that goes: “We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-co-operation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is co-operation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we'll still love you. But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.” This quote is a demonstration of what Jesus meant by not retaliating. Non-retaliation does not mean standing aside and letting others abuse you, but it is an active move toward justice. There is a subversive element that topples power through love.
• V. 39, “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek.” Striking someone on the right cheek indicates a backhand blow, meant more for insult than for injury. By turning and offering the left cheek, you are forcing the aggressor to make the decision to strike you with their forehand, and thus treat you as an equal.
• V. 39, “if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.” Someone could sue for a coat, but it was illegal to also take the person’s cloak as that would leave the person with nothing. So instead of resisting, the disciples are encouraged to hand over what could not be legally taken, thus exposing the injustice of the system. This would also leave the accused naked in the courtroom, indicating a security in God to be empowered to renounce ones rights in the interest of others.
• “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” Soldiers had the right to force someone to carry their equipment a certain distance, but it was illegal to go beyond that distance. By continuing on, disciples were opening the soldier up to discipline and pointing out the injustice of any forced service.
• V. 43-48: Love Extends to the Enemy
• Reaffirmation: “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” The Old Testament is clear on the importance of love for one’s neighbor, though “neighbor” was defined as fellow Israelites. There actually isn’t a command to hate one’s enemy, though there are lines about how God “hates all evildoers” (Psalm 5:5; see also Deuteronomy 23:3-7; 30:7 (“The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on the adversaries who took advantage of you”); Psalm 26:5 (“I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked”); Psalm 139:21-22 (“Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies”).
• Radicalization: The legal question at stake is how to define “neighbor.”
• “Be perfect” (v. 48) seems a complicated request. The word choice here is complex. Neither should it be diluted for comfort, nor understood in the Greek sense of absolute, moral perfection, an impossible ideal. Perfection in the Sermon on the Mount is concrete involvement in the relativities and ambiguities of this world, which is God’s good creation despite its brokenness. The Hebrew word is tamim, which means wholeness. So, to be perfect, is to be single-minded.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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