Reading
An Eye for an Eye
Mt 5:38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
Mt 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Mt 5:40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
Mt 5:41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
Mt 5:42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Love for Enemies
Mt 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’
Mt 5:44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Mt 5:45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Mt 5:46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
Mt 5:47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
Mt 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Prayer
Introduction
[Cheesemakers video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDmMBIyfsU
Does the sermon on the mount leave you as confused as it obviously does these Characters?
I am certainly not going to be looking at this passage and making any unjustified generalisations about dairy products
In out reading today Jesus is at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Some commentator believe he was talking for about two hours, and that Matthew has just provided us with high lights. Lets take a look at this passage and try to make some more sense of it.
An Eye for an Eye
What do you think of when you hear this phrase. Perhaps it just reminds you of the Sermon on the Mount, then you glaze over and switch off. Perhaps, like a lot of people in the modern world it gives you a sense of how barbaric our ancestors could be. Jesus is referring back to
Lev 24:19&20 If anyone injures his neighbour, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. q As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.
And
Dt 19:21. Show no pity: k life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
The laws were given like this to act as a deterrent. What ever you do to someone else will be done to you. They were also given to limit revenge:
Lev 19:18. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD
The law will also put and end to vendettas. The just punishment has been applied, no more retribution is called for. Whereas we may recoil from the barbarity, Jesus' audience would have immediately had the Jewish law courts system in mind. By Jesus time the law no longer required literally an eye for an eye, there was a detailed system of compensation put in place for these types of injuries.
Much like our system today, people were encouraged to take some one who had injured them through the courts to get whatever they could for this injury. You only have to watch commercial television to see the adverts for Personal Injury Lawyers.
Interesting isn't it - “I was looking for justice, and I found Claims Direct”
Insult
The Jewish system however provided for some types of recompense that our system does not provide for today, the most notable one for this passage is insult. Here Jesus gives us examples of what he is talking about, the first of these relates to insult. The slap, if we assume a right handed person, is with the back of the hand, because it lands on the right cheek. The slap of the face like this is an insult, it is not referring to the physical harm done, but to the insult given. As I have said there are ways to get satisfaction in the courts system for this, but Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek”. Jesus says “don't go to the courts for settlement, rather see if the perpetrator is prepared to repeat the insult”. He does not suggest that you should stand there and allow the person to continue to mock you or beat you.
Legal Action
If somebody wants to sue you and take your tunic, give him your coat also – SO, now we are already inside the legal system, but there is still the opportunity to avoid a judicial ruling. The Jews of the time would have had two main pieces of clothing, the tunic, and an outer coat. The law protected the outer coat, and it was forbidden to take it from someone as a penalty. If you are to take this option, giving your coat as well as your tunic, you will be left with you loin cloth, your sandals, and your turban. No Jew would be seen in public without his cloths – nakedness was a sign of shame. He would be ridiculed. Jesus does not suggest that you should give up you loin cloth, sandals and turban, neither did he use the example of your house. The tunic and coat, while not trivial in those days, are replaceable with relative ease.
Impressment
If someone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. The only person that could force you to go one mile would be a Roman Soldier. If he had something difficult to carry, could take someone off the street, and enforce them to help in the process of transportation. The Roman law was very strict. One mile and one mile only. It was a right that they had, but it was one that was monitored. Imagine being the soldier and having to explain to the centurion why this person had carried your load two miles “Sir, He volunteered, Sir”
“Volunteered, soldier? Volunteered, as in volunteered to stay ahead of your spear in his back?”
“No, Sir. Just Volunteered Sir”
“Right Soldier, he volunteered of course he did, 'appens all the time – You're on a Charge”
The intent was that the people were not inconvenienced to too great a degree. Jesus is suggesting that you should voluntarily, and of your own accord, do another mile. Jesus does not then apply the same rule at the end of the second mile.
Jesus followers now have a unique way to interpret the law. Jesus then goes on to explain his way of life in more detail.
Love your Enemies
Of course you can only have heard what was said this time, because nowhere in the Bible will you find any instruction to hate you neighbour. It was however in the Jewish oral tradition, and in a hundred years or so would appear in their writings. So Jesus is going against tradition.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Love your enemies? How can that be, and what would be achieved?
Example of a little girl
A little girl one day went to her mother to show some fruit that had been given to her. "Your friend," said the mother, "has been very kind."
"Yes," said the child. "She gave me more than these; but I have given some away." The mother inquired to whom she had given them. She answered, "I gave them to a girl who pushes me off the path, and makes faces at me."
When asked why she gave them to her, she replied, "Because I thought it would make her know that I wish to be kind to her, and then she may not be so rude and unkind to me again."
Romans 12:17-18 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.
Luke 6:28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
Bless means to speak well of them.
Pr 25:21-22. If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.
Story of Robert E. Lee
General Robert E. Lee was asked what he thought of a fellow officer in the Confederate Army who had made some derogatory remarks about him. Lee rated him as being very satisfactory. The person who asked the question seemed perplexed.
"General," he said, "I guess you don’t know what he’s been saying about you."
"I know," answered Lee. "But I was asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!"
We are to pray for them, not against them - not to send them to hell. Take the example of Stephen in
Acts 7:60 Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" Having said this, he fell asleep.
Or Jesus as he was being crucified:
Luke 23:34 But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."
The text here has the sense that Jesus continue to pray the prayer as they nailed him to the cross.
Next there is a promise in what Jesus is saying – that you may be 'sons of your father'. This is one step to the last verse. Jesus then goes on to remind his disciples that God provides for both the good and the evil, the righteous and the unrighteous.
If you love those who love you, what is so special about that?
Corrie Ten Boom and the Nazi Officer
Corrie Ten Boom shares this true story in her book, The Hiding Place: It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing centre 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, Fraulein," 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.
If you don’t love your enemies, then you are no different than the world.
Peter Miller, friend of General Washington
In the days of the American Revolutionary War there lived in Pennsylvania, a Baptist pastor by the name of Peter Miller who enjoyed the friendship of General Washington. There also dwelt in that town one Michael Wittman, an evil-minded man who did all in his power to abuse and oppose this pastor. One day Michael Wittman was involved in treason and was arrested and sentenced to death. The old preacher started out on foot and walked the whole seventy miles to Philadelphia to plead for this man’s life. He was admitted into Washington’s presence and at once begged for the life of the traitor. Washington said, "No, Peter, I cannot grant you the life of your friend." The preacher exclaimed, "My friend, he is the bitterest enemy I have." Washington cried, "What? You’ve walked seventy miles to save the life of an enemy? That puts the matter in a different light. I will grant the pardon." And he did. And Peter Miller took Michael Wittman from the very shadow of death back to his own home -- no longer as an enemy, but as a friend.
Hudson Taylor's boat trip
Hudson Taylor, dressed in a Chinese costume, while waiting for a boatman to take him across the river, stood on a jetty. Presently a richly dressed Chinaman came and also stood waiting. When the boat drew near this man not seeing that Mr. Taylor was a foreigner, struck him on the head and knocked him over into the mud. Mr. Taylor said the feeling came to him to hit the man, but God immediately stopped him. When the boat came up, the Chinaman looked at Mr. Taylor and recognized him as a foreigner. He could hardly believe it, and said, "What, you a foreigner, and did not strike me back when I struck you like that?" Mr. Taylor said "This boat is mine. Come in and I will take you where you want to go." On the way out, Mr. Taylor poured into that Chinaman’s ears the message of salvation. He left the man with tears running down his face. Such is the power of the Gospel of Christ.
How do we react?
These stories illustrate the power of the message Jesus is giving us through these few verses. His way of living is so very different from the worlds way, the love that is shown in these examples, is so radically different from what is expected that it has a momentous effect.
What does this mean for us though? We are not ministers of religion, or missionaries, neither are we put in such extreme situations of evil as Corrie Ten Boom. How can we live this message that Jesus has for us today. Well because we are not put in such extreme situations, we should go back to look at the first few verses.
When were you last insulted? How did you react?
Did you shout indignantly, and protest that the comment was unfair?
Did you go and complain to a friend at the way you'd been treated?
Did you let people know what you thought of the person who insulted you – what you thought of them because they insulted you?
or
Did you take a step back, and allow for the possibility of the insult to be repeated?
My small example
Let me give you a very small personal example. When our children were young an playing in the garden, quite often the ball they were playing with would end up in our neighbours garden. Sometimes it was my fault that the ball ended up there. When we requested our ball back we were told that it would be returned in due course – next time they felt like walking round their garden looking for balls. They did not want the continued disturbance. This cause us to have some quite upset children (and adults) on many occasions. Their children are now of an age when balls occasionally come over the fence. When ever we are asked we return the ball immediately. It would be very easy for me to adopt the same policy (that would be fair wouldn't it), but I am determined not to.
What effect will this have on our relationship with our neighbour? Probably very little, its just one small way I can show that I'm different.
Live the life, not just talk the talk
That I believe is the essence of what Jesus is saying. His message must be lived out at all levels.
There are many people in the world who can talk the talk – perhaps one of the most famous was Karl Marx. He spoke up for the poor and oppressed, his ideas for a fair society caused revolutions, but in his private life was constantly in and out of debt, lived like a recluse, and was largely supported by Friedrich Engels, the son of a prosperous textile manufacturer .
Those in the world talk about it, but Jesus lived it, and our challenge is to do the same - Live the life, not talk the talk.
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