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
