Talking Matt 5:38-42

I had a friend of mine ask for my take on Matt 5:38-42, so I thought I would share my thought here too.

Matt 5: 38-42: 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

I think to understand this passage we need to start off by understanding the context. In Old Testament Jewish law, if someone killed someone you killed them, whatever someone did you did it right back to them in the same way and the same measure. I believe that Jesus is taking different aspects of our interactions with difficult people and showing us new ways to do that in forgiveness and love. Verse 39, I believe, speaks of forgiveness when people hurt you or cause you pain. I do NOT believe that it means "Don't defend yourself", but that if someone hurts you to not turn your back on them, to keep you face towards them. I also do not believe that it means setting yourself up to be hurt over and over again by them either. There are times when it is wisdom to separate ourselves from toxic people and even family members that are consistently and willfully hurting us, but this should never be our first choice. I was reminded of the passage from the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis on forgiveness and what it means and what it does not mean in regards to people that hurt us, "Our Enemies"

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life – namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again. Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 7, C.S. Lewis

Another quote that I found that really speaks to me on this subject of forgiveness is from Corrie ten Boom. One of the things that Lewis was dealing with in the previous quote was the issues after WWII with people forgiving the Nazi's. Lewis states that he is not sure how he would react or whether he could forgive. This quote from Corrie ten Boom cuts right to the heart of the matter.

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face. He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile; I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your Forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” Corrie ten Boom

I really think this says it best on how we interact with those who hurt us or betray us.

Verse 40, I believe, deals with circumstances where we have done the wrong. If someone is suing you, there is a perceived wrong by the other person, whether justified or not. In those cases, go above and beyond to make things right. If it's your fault, take care of it, if it's not, do everything in your power to smooth it out.

Verse 41 deals with a practice where any Roman soldier could walk up to any Jewish native and make them carry their stuff for one mile (no easy feat, their stuff weighed up to 100 lbs.). Jesus is saying that sometimes it is OK to give up our perceived "rights" to advance the Kingdom. I also believe he was addressing issues of submitting to authority and always going beyond what is expected. This is very applicable to a work environment. 

Verse 42 deals with having a generous heart at all times.