Fulfilling the Law (Part 2)

Last time, we saw how Jesus turned the idea of religious perfectionism on its head, arguing that if we truly want to be like God, we have to guard not just our actions, but the thoughts, feelings, and intentions that lie behind them. So, we can’t pat ourselves on the back if we don’t murder someone if we hate them, or if we don’t commit adultery if we’re lusting after a neighbour’s spouse. Likewise, according to Jesus, divorce is not the problem, but the hardness of heart that causes it, nor is bearing false witness, but the evasion of the truth that motivates it. His point is that the Law is good — it points us in the right direction — but only scratches the surface of true holiness.

But there are two more areas of the Law that Jesus touches on in this section of the Sermon on the Mount in which he does something different, albeit to make the same general point. These are the of retributive justice and doing good to one’s loved ones; rather than radicalize and internalize these principles, he rejects their premises entirely. Let’s look at them now in turn.

The principle of retributive justice is found, for example, in Exodus 21.23-24: “If any harm follows [an altercation], then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” With our own rather different approaches to justice, it’s easy to see this as barbaric, but within the context of the Ancient Near East, its intent was not an overly simple tit-for-tat, but rather to stop cycles of escalating violence. Here retaliation is permitted, but also limited. Any response must be proportionate. So the Law isn’t quite as bad as it seems in its intent, but as the saying (generally attributed to Gandhi) goes, “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” It limits violence, but does nothing to create justice and peace. And so we come to Jesus’ take on this principle:

You have heard that it was said: “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist a malicious person, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other too;  and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give them your cloak as well; and if anyone force-marches you one mile, go a second mile too. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5.38-41)

In response to the teaching, directly from the Law of Moses, to return violence with (proportionate) violence, Jesus says instead to give the offender the opportunity to come back for more. The rest of what he says seems to be aimed at preemptively addressing the natural response to this idea, namely the fear of being taken advantage of. And to that he says, essentially, by all means, be taken advantage of, but be taken advantage of for the glory God.

This teaching is as shocking today as it was two thousand years ago. It seems like a very good way to perpetuate violence and encourage abuse in the world. But, it has also inspired generations of political activists and proponents of nonviolent resistance. It wasn’t until I encountered the thought of Howard Thurman, a leading Black theologian and activist in the first half of the twentieth century, that I really got my head around what Jesus could be getting at. According to Thurman (see especially his powerful book, Jesus and the Disinherited), turning the cheek or going the second mile takes the initiative away from the oppressor and gives it to the oppressed, thereby reinforcing not only their humanity, but also their power and freedom. It reminds the oppressor that they really don’t have the power or authority they think they have. This connects perfectly with the next teaching:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise over the evil and over the good, and sends rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same thing? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than anyone else? Do not even the Gentiles do the same thing? (5.43-47)

So, after rejecting the premise of retributive violence contained in the Law, Jesus goes even further, refusing his followers the possibility of treating anyone as their enemy at all. The Gospel is not a narrow, parochial thing, in which we love only those who are like us. No, as the parable of the Good Samaritan tells us, ‘our neighbour’ includes those people with whom we have the least common cause, those whom we’re taught to despite, or who might despise us. That story is told from a Jewish perspective for a Jewish audience, so the punch line is that it was the Samaritan, someone they looked down upon as heretics and halfbreeds, who acted like the beaten man’s neighbour. But how much harder was this for the Samaritan himself, who had to see that this man, who was a member of a people who despised him, was his neighbour in God’s eyes, and requiring his love and care!

There will be hatred in the world, but it must not come from us. There will be division in the world, but it must not come from us. There will be violence in the world, but it must not come from us. As we saw the other week, it is the peacemakers and the merciful who are blessed.

It’s not for no reason that all of these teachings of Jesus about the Law have been known as ‘the hard sayings’. In fact, they’re impossible to live out fully in the world we’ve inherited. But they’re still the goal to which our lives — hearts, thoughts, and actions — are aimed. To spin it in the wonderful words of Fr. Alexander Men, this is the “eternity” to which “the Gospel arrow is aimed.” And we are indeed “still cavemen in spirit and morals” who have “only taken the first steps” on that journey.

Once again, this passage ends with Jesus telling his hearers to “Be yourselves perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (5.48). And so we’re left with that wonderful set of Gospel truths: We are to be perfect. We will never be perfect and can’t expect anyone else to be either. But this is to be a wellspring of grace and compassion for others, just as we will receive grace and compassion from God, who is perfect.

And to that I say, ‘Amen.’