Matthew 5:38-42 Slap me please

Matthew 5:38-42 - SLAP ME PLEASE!

don’t use your brain too much... or your selfish human nature might get in the way of living in the upside down Kingdom

Ok so these are the ‘eye for an eye / turn the other cheek’ verses, which we’ve all kinda heard of in some way or other.

This whole concept is about upside down as it gets really. “Do not resist an evil person” seems like a pretty crazy thing to ask your followers to do... something that I would imagine could mean you’d run out of followers pretty quickly!

Is this just a piece of practical advice about what to do when someone slaps you? Or is this something else...? Well... kinda both, really.

This is where it is CLEAR what the ‘way of the world’ is. You only have to look around you now to see that the law of retaliation is in full swing. So are we not meant to retaliate? Are we meant to sit there and take it? If we did that, it would certainly be different, counter cultural and rather odd (which is sounding a lot like the way of Jesus), but I’m wondering if the point here is to NOT resist with force, but with PEACE. And not just peace, but generous peace! (cough cough... could we be working towards Shalom?... cough)

Here we see this annoying generosity in play again. Going the extra mile and blessing those that don’t deserve it (ie people that have just poked us in the eye’).

If we resisted with force, as would be expected – how are we any different? As can be seen with Jesus rebuking one of his followers for cutting the dudes ear off when Jesus was being arrested. Resist with peace.

This is continued in the next section where we are specifically asked to be ridiculously generous. Not just do what we’re meant to do, but do twice that. To give our shirt AND coat. Good thing we western Christians aren’t attached to our stuff! (oh... hang on.. bugger!)

So when this little section is finished off with ‘Give to everyone that asks and don’t turn away anyone that wants to borrow from you’, it seems like the only thing for me to do is hide in a corner so no one comes up to me!! Am I meant to give drugs to the druggie that asks? Or lend $$ to someone that will gamble it away? Actually, I think not. Yes, we are to be generous to the point of sheer stupidity (to the onlooker), but we are to use our brains in making sure we are good stewards of what God has given us.

But don’t use your brain too much... or your selfish human nature might get in the way of living in the upside down Kingdom

Matthew 20 - Backwards thinking

"Living upside down means being generous to the point that it annoys people, making sure people have enough to live on, embracing GRACE!, recognising the servant-hood and suffering required in following Jesus, being prepared to be unpopular and last but not least, showing compassion without conditions."

OK, so this passage (Matt 20) seemed quite abrasive to me at first. I totally thought it WAS unfair that the workers were all paid the same and I would certainly express a similar feeling that the workers employed first expressed!

Of course, all is not as it first seems... and with the first part of this passage there are a number of things that can be learned about the character and Kingdom of God:

-It's all about GRACE.
It's clearly not about time served / work done (eg earning!). That totally defeats the point of God's Grace. An interesting question about this is: are we willing to embrace ALL those in the Kingdom? Even if they are not as 'deserving' (forbid we actually think that!). Do we (we as Christians) see ourselves as more important / deserving as others?

-What's the real injustice here?
At first I thought it was the fact they were all being paid the same... no matter what work they have done. Once the payments are explained (ie the early workers agreed to that amount and therefore it was fair they received it) it does seem 'fairer'.
BUT... here's what's interesting: if the late workers had been paid a portion of the wage (it wasnt a big wage... just enough to live on), they wouldn't have been able to feed their family. Now THATS injustice and very unfair. The thing that we're missing here is the generosity. The grace. That's how the Kingdom of God is. That's how we should be living - transforming this world to be more like the Kingdom of God.


The next section I also found quite strange... with a seemingly random statement by Jesus about his future, followed closely by 'A Mother's Request'.

What this seems to be about is the mother being put up by her sons to ask Jesus for a special place in his Kingdom for them. There seems to be some discussion about this being an act of ignorant faith... but it seems more like focusing on the wrong thing. The focus was on the throne, rather than the serving and suffering in on the way. Just a second ago, Jesus was talking about what he will have to go through soon (his reward!) and here is this lady (well, probably her sons) asking "I want to be with you". Jesus of course says: "you really have got no idea!"

The cross of Jesus is not made of polystyrene... it's made of heavy, hard, splintered wood.


Finally, there is the act of compassion by Jesus towards the two 'annoying' blind men.
They really made fools of themselves, and were very unpopular with the crowd. BUT... this is what it takes!

An interesting point with this is the question Jesus asks... "What do you want me to do for you?"
He doesnt ask: "what can you do for me?" Can we apply this in our lives?

They also hadn't seen anything of Jesus or his miracles. What faith they had! They had the faith right from the word go too... ("Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!") By this we can assume that the end of this story (they followed Jesus) actually means following him and not just joining the crowd, which is cool because there was no preaching involved.


SO... living upside down means being generous to the point that it annoys people, making sure people have enough to live on, embracing GRACE!, recognising the servant-hood and suffering required in following Jesus, being prepared to be unpopular and last but not least, showing compassion without conditions.