Down in east Tennessee, a drilling company struck a geyser on Farmer Logan's farm. Overnight the farmer went from dirt poor to filthy rich.
The newly-"millionaired" Mr. Logan decided that life in the hills was for the birds, so he purchased a mansion in the exclusive part of Knoxville. The house had everything: tennis courts, swimming pools, ceramic statues of cherubs, and a finely sculpted lawn in the back.
At first, the Logans' neighbor, Mr. Robinson, was friendly and polite. They got along very well, in spite of the fact that Logan was still a good ol' boy at heart and would never completely fit in with upper crust Knoxville society. Still, the Logans and the Robinsons became the best of friends.
But the longer they lived in the mansion, the more the Logans missed home. Their friendship's limits were tested severely when Logan purchased100 head of cattle and grazed them in his back yard. Mr. Robinson didn't say anything, but thought it pure crassness to let cows run loose on prime Knoxville suburbia.
One day a cow meandered over onto the Robinson's property and proceeded to make cud with $3,000 worth of begonias and African violets. Mr. Robinson tried to be nice. "Can't you keep your cows in the back yard?"
"Well, what do you want me to do, Mr. Robinson? Have a heart-to-heart talk with Old Bessie?"
The incensed Robinson slammed the door and vowed never to speak to his hillbilly neighbor. Ever.
Logan went to great lengths to make things right. He sold off all the cows except one, but that didn't satisfy Robinson. He constructed a brick wall all around the back property to keep the cow from wandering, but Logan's attempt at mending fences didn't make it. He thought very seriously of selling his remaining cow and tearing the wall down, but you know human pride: he kept the fence AND the cow.
Six years passed. Mr. Logan and Mr. Robinson would not think of trying to reconcile. But one day Mr. Logan's servant appeared at the front door of the Robinson's with a note that read: "Mr. Logan sends his compliments to Mr. Robinson, and begs to state that his old cow died this morning."
Mr. Robinson immediately went to his desk and wrote the following note: "Mr. Robinson is sorry to hear of Mr. Logan's loss, but had not heard that Mrs. Logan was ill."
An old bumper sticker once said, "Don't get mad, get even." Most of us can identify with this. If someone smacks my head, I want to knock his entire head off. If someone hurts my kid, I think of some very creative ways to use Limburger cheese. If someone insults my intelligence, I turn around and tell them that I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
When we are given a bad rap, a slap on the face, or any undeserving slight, we really want to get more than even, don't we? We want to do the same thing done to us and add more for good measure. If, however, you are a follower of Jesus Christ, how you handle the desire to retaliate is what separates you from everyone else.
Many scholars believe this is the oldest law in the world: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, tit for tat. It's found in the oldest known code of laws, called the Code of Hammurabi, and dates back to 2285 B.C.
This law became the cornerstone of the Old Testament ethic as described by Exodus 21:23-25: "If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
We of a cultured and refined ilk read this, turn down the pinkies from our teacup and say, "Absolutely disgusting and immoral." But before you pass judgment on the Old Testament and reach for the Brie and Chablis, let's examine the context of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
The law of tit for tat, far from being the ethic of sawbones, is what William Barclay calls "the beginning of mercy." In ancient civilizations, blood feuds were the hallmark of the tribes and clans in society. If a man from one tribe injured a man from another tribe, the innocent's tribe would exact revenge on ALL the members, females included, of the offending tribe. If a man from one tribe had his tooth knocked out, his tribe would try to knock out the full set of teeth from EVERY member of the other tribe, children included. That's what vengeance does: it escalates. It gets ugly. It builds steam and blood; people get carried away. The law of tit for tat was a way of limiting retribution.
Now before you buff your straps for the electric chair, please know that the law was never meant to be carried out literally. Our Old Testament predecessors argued that justice meted out this way would have the opposite effect. A guy who knocked out the GOOD eye of another man might have his BAD eye plucked out in return.
The practice of Old Testament justice went beyond physical retribution to monetary restitution. Let's say a person's arm was maliciously broken and the victim could not work. Five things were taken into consideration: for injury, for pain, for healing, for loss of time, and for indignity suffered. It was calculated how long the person would be deprived of wages. Then, the aggressor would have to pay the injured party lost wages, any medical costs, the amount of money the injured was willing to undergo the pain of the injury, and some money for the humiliation that the injury caused. Sounds like a television ad for a lawyer: "Personal Injury Cases. Accident Victims. Pay no fee unless we win the case."
We laugh about ambulance-chasing lawyers. Yet it makes sense to have your car replaced and your hospital stay covered when somebody crashes into your car. It would probably FEEL a whole lot better to take some old clunker and ram it into the other guy's brand new Mercedes. It would probably FEEL better if you could yank out the other guy's eye or break his arm. But that feeling would only sustain itself for a brief time. Then what? You'd BOTH be minus an eye, a good arm, and an Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra.
Some people think that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth sums up Old Testament ethics, but it's only a scratch. Far from describing a vengeful, blood-sucking culture, the Old Testament is chock full of mercy. If God is so vengeful and bloodthirsty, why does He include Leviticus 19:18 in the core code of behavior?
"You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the children of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD."
If God is so gung-ho on destroying those opposed to Him, why did He strategically place Proverbs 25:21 in the canon of scripture?
"If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they is thirsty, give them water to drink."
If God is so keen on retributive justice, why does He set the foundations of the Golden Rule in Proverbs 24:29?
"Do NOT say, 'I will do to those as they have done to me; I will pay them back for what they have done.'"
Says Jesus, "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." Let's say that a right-handed woman gets ticked off at a man. This is a very common occurrence, at least in my household. The following, however, is NOT common in my household, I assure you. Imagine that the right-handed woman wants to slap the aforementioned sexist pig's right cheek for espousing non-politically correct language. Unless the lady is some kind of contortionist, the only way she can slap the guy forcefully is to wack him a good one with the back of her hand. According to Jewish Rabbinical law, to hit a person with the back of the hand was twice as insulting as the flat of the hand. So Jesus is saying something like this: Even if a person hits you with a calculated and deadly insult, don't retaliate. And don't resent it.
We don't often get literally slapped in the face, but we DO get slapped in the face with words, don't we? It's not uncommon to be on the brunt end of mean remarks. Our very nature rises up like a cat arching its back; we want to strike back.
I once went to a seminar led by Joan Salmon Campbell, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA. Joan grew up as a Baptist in the inner city of Philadelphia. In the black Baptist church tradition, the pastor is like a little pope; he has the final say in every matter and more or less dictates what happens in that church. Her pastor was a very godly man. But sometimes those who are godly have a way of getting under the skin of others.
A very powerful group of ladies in this church constantly gave the pastor fits, gossiping and stirring up trouble in very imaginative ways. But they would never communicate with the pastor directly, with one exception: every year at the annual meeting, while surrounded by a large crowd, the ladies would stand up in the meeting and call this man every name in the book, and criticizing him silly for the most mundane things.
Now, most people I know in a situation would not tolerate this. They would yell back. Or, if they didn't yell back, they would arrange to have the ladies kicked out of the church, but not that pastor. When they would spout these non-Christian, vile words and tear this man to shreds, this pastor would only stand there, smile widely, and say, "Oh, you're so precious. You're so precious." Know what? This attitude only disarmed the malcontents and shut them up.
Joan went to the pastor after these meeting. "How can you do this?" she asked. "I would want to rip off their lips. I would want to scrape out their eyeballs and you're just standing there telling them how precious they are. How can you do that?" Joan said she was ever changed by what the pastor answered. "Why do I say that they are so precious? Because they are." You see, he had learned to turn the other cheek, to let God be the one to deal with these ladies. And in doing so, he had stolen their thunder.
So not only when somebody tries to exact your eye or slap your cheek, Jesus says that if somebody wants your coat, give him your cloak as well.
Gentleman's Quarterly and Glamour Magazines would have been a tough sell during the time of Jesus because fashion, per se, was non-existent. Men, for example, had one basic outfit, a piece of clothing called a tunic. The tunic was like a fishing hat in the Great Northwoods, a one-piece deal that a man wore no matter what the weather. Tunics were made out of cotton that was rarely dyed. (Coincidentally, the first garment made by Eli Whitney's cotton gin was the tunic, which, by the way, is where we get the term gin and tunic.) The poorest man in Israel would have at least a change of tunics. In warm weather, men would wear only a tunic, but colder weather would bring out the cloak, which was something like a poncho and served two purposes. It was like a coat in cold weather, but doubled as a blanket at night.
We've all heard the adage about people who are so generous that they would give you the shirt off their backs. And we have a saying that there are certain people who, in a fit of revenge, would sue your pants off. The latter is what Jesus is talking about. There were people so poor in the time of Jesus who, if sued, could give only a tunic in pledge. A man's tunic could be taken in pledge, and, on rare occasions, even his cloak could be taken. But the cloak was never to be kept away at night. It was always to be returned before nightfall. So a man's blanket and covering could never permanently be taken away from him.
But Jesus says if someone sues you for your tunic, go ahead and throw in the towel. Literally. Give him your cloak as well. The Christian may have rights under the Constitution. The Christian may have rights as a citizen. The Christian may have rights in a court of law. But the Christian does not have the RIGHT to hate or retaliate against an enemy.
Give the one who hates you both your eyeballs. Give the woman who slaps you on the right cheek your left cheek too. Give the one who sues the shirt off your back your winter coat and your blanket as well. Isn't that enough? Jesus goes even further. Says He, "And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."
Throughout its history, Palestine was constantly occupied. A long list of conquerors came and went: Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans. Its citizens were constantly compelled to forfeit their rights to help the occupying forces. For example, an army might take over your farmhouse to serve as a barracks. They might commandeer your barn to house the general's horses. You might be forced into labor, to fetch water for the governor, to carry a general around on a chariot. You might even be forced to carry someone's cross. Simon of Cyrene was forced into carrying the cross of Jesus in this way.
So here's what Jesus is saying: suppose your boss comes and compels you to drive somebody for a mile. Don't resent it. As a matter of fact, go the extra mile. Drive the person for two miles. Don't always be thinking of your rights to do your own thing. Always be thinking of the privilege of serving others.
We are often asked to do things we don't want to do. There are always two ways of handling these situations. First, you can do it, but have a lousy attitude about it. You will do what is asked, but you will gripe, bellyache, whine, moan and groan and make everyone all the way up to International Falls know that your rights are being violated and that you don't want to do it. But the other option is what Jesus demands: that you do it willingly and with good cheer.
So here's the deal. Give the one who insults you both your cheeks. Give the one who sues you your undershirt AND your knapsack. Give your boss more than he asks for. Give your enemy both your eyeballs.
A pastor during the American Revolution, Peter Miller, lived in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, and enjoyed the friendship of George Washington. Ephrata was also the home of Michael Wittman, an evil-minded sort who did all he could to oppose and humiliate the pastor.
One day Michael Wittman was arrested for treason and sentenced to die. Peter Miller traveled seventy miles on foot to Philadelphia to plead for the life of the traitor.
"No, Peter," General Washington said. "I cannot grant you the life of your friend."
"My friend!" exclaimed the old preacher. "He's the bitterest enemy I have."
"What" replied Washington? "You've walked seventy miles to save the life of an enemy?"
"Yes sir," replied Miller.
"This puts the matter in different light. I'll grant your pardon." And he did. Peter Miller took Michael Wittman back home to Ephrata--no longer an enemy but a friend.
I was once read the following. I can't remember its author, but it bears repeating here.
Your "enemies" teach you to love
I am within all your "enemies"
because all is made by Me; all is alive through Me
when you beat your "enemies" - you beat Me
when you hate your "enemies" - you hate Me
when you punish your "enemies" - you punish Me
when you love your "enemies" - you love Me
© Rev. Duane Brown, 2004
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