Feb. 9, 2003

Pastor Marcia Sietstra

[Matt. 5:38] ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’

[Matt. 5:39] But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

[Matt. 5:40] and if anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well;

[Matt. 5:41] and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.’

You have heard the text read, and now several of our youth are going to act out this text, and as they do so, I’ll comment on what is happening. My comments are based on the work of Dr. Walter Wink, a New Testament theologian whose knowledge of the culture of Jesus’ day profoundly changed the way scholars are interpreting this text in recent years.

First, you should know that the word resist in verse 39, where it says do not resist one who is evil, in the Greek is the work antistenai. It means, ‘to stand against,’ i.e. to resist, but the majority of the time when it is used in the New Testament, it means to resist in battle, i.e. to make war. It implies a violent level of resistance. So Jesus, when he said do not resist, very likely meant do not resist violently.

And then Jesus offers 3 examples of how not to resist in battle. First he says, if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. I will explain as Matt and James demonstrate. First Matt, turn your right cheek toward James and point to it so he is sure to know which cheek to hit. Notice how James must hit Matt in order to strike the right cheek—it has to be with the back of his hand. It’s very difficult to hit someone on their right cheek unless you give a backhanded hit, since most of us are right handed. This fits the culture of Jesus’ day, when a master would hit a slave with the back of his hand as a symbolic blow. It was meant to be an insult as well as to cause pain. In that culture you would only hit an equal with the palm of your hand.

Jesus’ audience was made up of poor Jewish peasants and slaves. They were used to being hit with the back of the master’s hand. But now Jesus says, ‘When someone hits you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also,’ i.e. turn your left one so if he wants to hit you again, he will be forced to use the palm of his hand and hit you as an equal. By turning the other cheek, you are defiantly saying, ‘I refuse to be humiliated by you any longer. You can’t take my dignity even if you can strike me.’

The 2nd example Jesus gives is, if anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well. Now before we demonstrate this, you need to know something about the common practices of Jesus’ day. Land was usually given as collateral for a loan, but the very poorest of the poor could use their long outer robe, or coat, as collateral. They often did so in order to borrow money short-term, e.g. for seed they were apt to borrow from a wealthier landowner. If they didn’t pay their debt, the creditor could take their coat, but in Deuteronomy we read that the creditor had to return this outer garment at night because the debtor needed it for warmth on the dessert where nights get very cold. The creditor could come back and get it every morning and harass the debtor but the debtor could ask for it back at night as protection from the cold, i.e. Old Testament Hebrew laws put limits on the suffering a creditor could inflict.

Jesus’ audience was made up of poor people, the kind of debtors who often had no collateral but their outer coat, and they would know what it’s like not to be able to pay a debt. They also know that the law is on the side of the wealthy. So Jesus says to them, ‘Okay, you aren’t going to win this case, so do what the court tells you, but take it to the extreme. When you are forced to give up your coat, give them your cloak too.’ Cloak means the garments next to your skin, the ones that cover or cloak you. [Youth demonstrate.]

The people in Jesus’ day did not wear underwear, so to give up one’s cloak, or clothing, would leave the debtor completely naked. In Hebrew society, nakedness shames the one who views the naked person more than the naked person. Remember Noah, when he became drunk and fell asleep naked and his sons walked into his tent backwards to cover his nakedness. Imagine this poor person stripping down to the skin, piling his clothing in the arms of the creditor, and then walking down the street, where surely people will ask, ‘What happened?’ Everyone will be pointing, as he replies, ‘That creditor has got all my clothes.’ Imagine the embarrassment of the creditor; I can imagine it is going to be a long time in that village before that creditor takes anybody else to court. This destitute debtor is not so powerless as he thought. He has the power to shame his oppressor.

Looking at Jesus’ 3rd example: if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. The situation in 1st century Palestine is that the Romans occupy the country. Roman soldiers patrol the country, carrying packs weighing 65 to 85 pounds, not counting weapons, so by law they were allowed to force a civilian to carry their pack, but only for one mile. The Romans were known for their system of roads, and had mile markers on every Roman road, some of which are still visible today. If a soldier forced a civilian to carry his pack more than a mile, he was in violation of military code, which was strictly enforced. So Jesus is saying, ‘Here’s what you do. The next time you’re forced to carry a soldier’s pack for one mile, keep going, don’t give it back when you get to the marker, keep going.’ [Youth demonstrate.]

The soldier was caught off guard. He expected the civilian to drop the pack as soon as the mile marker came, but instead found himself in violation of military law. If a centurion found out about this, he would be in trouble. Suddenly, the initiative was taken away from the soldier, by a poor peasant who turned the tables. This is defiant behavior. But nonviolent. It is creative, active, nonviolent resistance.

This text has been one of the most misunderstood in all the Bible. It points to the need to know about the setting in which the words in the Bible were spoken. Unfortunately many people think a plain, literalistic reading of the Bible is the most faithful and accurate. It rarely is. The plain, literal meaning usually means the most simplistic reading, without paying attention to the setting in which the Bible was written. A truly faithful interpretation considers the cultural context of the speaker and audience.

Walter Wink’s analysis of this text has dramatically changed the way many mainline Christian scholars interpret this text since his 3 volume study of domination systems was published. For centuries, Christians read this text and wondered if Jesus could really be asking us to be doormats for God, which is what it reads like on the surface? But now we see in this passage a call for something very different.

What Jesus was advocating here was not being passive, and letting someone hit you. But it certainly wasn’t violent resistance either. It was a 3rd way—the way of defiant, courageous, smart, tough, in-your-face resistance without violence. It was brilliant. His listeners, the poor peasants who were often victims of the wealthy and powerful, would have caught every nuance in his advice.

How many generations of victims of abuse have been told by the church to turn the other cheek? How many have been told to go the second mile and endure a marriage that is killing their spirit? Sinful behavior should not be tolerated in the interest of avoiding conflict. Jesus did not teach peace at any price, nor did he advocate doing nothing in the face of evil.

What he taught here, I think, is that the best way to stand up to evil is not to increase the level of evil by hitting back harder, in an endless spiral of violence, but instead to stand up to evil by exposing it. This fits with what he says elsewhere about defending one’s neighbor and loving one’s enemies. By exposing their injustice and refusing to allow their abusive behavior to continue unchecked, you give your enemy the opportunity to change.

Now if you think that sounds totally unrealistic, let me tell you it has worked in India under the leadership of Gandhi; in the United States during the civil rights movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.; in Chile where the dictator Pinochet was ousted; in South Africa, boycotted for decades by the rest of the world and finally by its own citizens until the white government was forced to deal with apartheid. In South Africa, shame was an important weapon in the battle against apartheid. Desmund Tutu, the United Methodist Archbishop who was a leader in the nonviolent movement that brought down the white government, is said to have encountered a white man one day while walking by a construction site on a temporary sidewalk the width of one person. The white man recognized Bishop Tutu and said, ‘I don’t give way to gorillas.’ Tutu stepped aside, made a deep sweeping gesture, and said politely, ‘Ah yes, but I do.’

I was fortunate to attend a workshop led by Walter Wink about 10 years ago. He said one of the best examples of nonviolent resistance he ever heard of was done by a boy with sinusitis, you know the constant runny nose, who was so sick and tired of a bully on the school bus that one day he blew a handful of mucous into his hand, and then approached the bully saying, ‘I’d like to shake the hand of a real bully.’ The bully, grossed out, backed down.

Last month at our once-a-month, Sunday afternoon gathering on theological issues, we were lucky to view an amazing, new video of news footage from the nonviolent overthrow of the dictator Milosevik from Yugoslavia just a few years ago. Did you know that he was finally forced out of office in the late 1990’s, not by 3 billion dollars worth of bombing by the U.S. and United Nations forces, but by the mass protests of hundreds of thousands of people in the capital when he refused to give up his presidency to the newly elected president? It was possible because a group of college kids had organized and united factions of the voters to all vote for the same alternate candidate. And then, because they had networking in place and had trained people in nonviolent protest, they were able to quickly mobilize massive demonstrations in the capital right after the election when Milosevik refused to step down and recognize the newly elected president. So many hundreds of thousands of civilians were demonstrating that the police and army refused to fire on them, knowing their own kids were in the crowd. These college kids were financed by a U.S. pro-democracy agency that gave them a total of $25,000, mostly for cell phones and computers so they could organize and communicate quickly. Nonviolent but active, brave resistance with only $25,000 worth of help, brought down a dictator that 3 billion dollars worth of bombs could not.

Some of you are old enough to remember Mahatma Gandhi, and the millions of people he was able to bring together in India to refuse to cooperate with British rule, to such an extent that they won independence from Great Britain. Gandhi was a Hindu who studied and admired Jesus, because Jesus modeled the kind of courage that stands up to evil. Gandhi was nonviolent, but he was certainly not passive in the face of evil. In fact he abhorred a coward who ducked a fight out of fear. He sought conflict and exacerbated conflict in order to uncover injustice. He said it took more courage and patience and cunning to fight nonviolently rather than resort to violence. And of course the advantages are not only that countless lives are saved when war is avoided, but also that the people who do succeed have established a higher moral ground.

This afternoon a video will be shown here at 3 pm, called A Force More Powerful. It shows how nonviolent movements have succeeded in recent years all over the world. You may wonder, Would they have succeeded in every instance in the past century? Would nonviolence have worked against a Hitler or a Stalin or a Pol Pot? In those situations what would Jesus have said? If all else failed, would Jesus have used violence as a last resort in order to defend his neighbor from aggression?

I don’t know; I don’t think we can be sure whether or not Jesus would have, as a last resort, used violence against evil in order to protect others. Many people believe he would not have; others believe he might have, and that’s why for over 2000 years we have debated if there is ever a time when violence—war—is appropriate.

But of this much I am convinced ‘Jesus would have first tried creative, smart ways to nonviolently confront and fight evil. He would not have resorted nearly so quickly to violence as people generally do. I believe he would have pursued this 3rd way between passively letting evil go unchecked and reacting with a violence that mirrors the enemy’s violence and contributes to a spiral of violence.

Knowing this, I believe the church is called to be the voice of restraint and caution in the world, the voice that advocates things like sanctions and working through the UN, the voice that calls for teaching nonviolent conflict resolution. We can ask for colleges with ROTC scholarships to also offer scholarships for students majoring in nonviolent conflict.

And over the long haul, day after day and year after year, whenever the church works for justice around the world, for human rights and access to education, food, and the basic necessities of life, we are actively resisting evil, and helping to avert violence, because people who have justice in their lives are less likely to resort to violence. For these reasons, I am glad to be part of the church and an advocate of Jesus’ 3rd way. Amen.