[March 2006 journal entry] I wrote the original draft of these reflections for a 1987 public lecture I was invited to deliver on the ‘turn the other cheek . . . love your enemies’ section (5:38-48) in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ material found in The Gospel of Matthew. I have reworked the original draft (minus the introduction and first section) a couple of times since beginning in 1992. The reference in the first sentence to ‘this text’ is to the ‘turn the other cheek . . . love your enemies’ section in the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ material.
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I confess two reasons why I balk at this text. First, I am a participating member of a society that rewards self-promotion, coercion, power, intimidation; a society with values that promote a weak benevolence at best; a society driven by a ‘survival of the fittest’ economic ethic. Predictably, but lamentably, the roots of self-preservation, retaliation, and revenge continue to taint my attitudes and habits.
Language reveals the heart. How often have we heard/felt/said -- “sweet revenge”, “even the score”, “I’ll get you”, “serves him/her right”, “just wait”, “your time is coming”, “make my day”, . . . ? Have we learned to dehumanize an adversary? Do we draw demonic caricatures of adversaries? Do we start each day poised like a boxer? Do we justify resisting evil with evil of like kind? Do we even relish the kill? Are we not ready for ‘Jesus’ to say, “Don’t fight back”?
Second, I balk at this text because so many collisions in life test me. Every day people who sit by us, live by us, work by us, or drive by us put us on the defensive:
- a couple walks out of a restaurant to find their car window smashed and possessions stolen;
- a teenager is taunted by classmates for refusing to participate in their ‘fun’;
- a local fisherman discovers that tourists have absconded with the prize fishing boat he lent them the night before;
- a WWII veteran, still offensive to look at after nineteen operations to minimize the damage from being shot in the face, returns to Iwo Jima;
- a Jewish physician, imprisoned by Soviet authorities for political reasons, has to do emergency surgery on a ruthless prison guard;
- a grief-stricken mother views the mutilated body of her son, beaten to death in Mississippi for noticing a white girl;
- a physician considers a counter-suit after three slanderous years weathering a frivolous lawsuit;
- a husband’s marriage is threatened by a third party who is trying to rekindle in his wife an old romantic flame.
