Reflection on the word for the Sunday of February 20, 2022.
PRAY FOR THE LOST TO BE FOUND - Luke 6:27-31: "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. “
This part of the sermon of the mount is again one of the most quoted Jesus teachings of all, and the most misunderstood ones, as well. Not even as if they would have been original thoughts of a wise genious on a Jesus level, because all are quotes from the Jewish Bible or common wisdom, including the love your enemies commandment or advice. For example, it is written in the very book of Exodus, that “ If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again. (Exodus:23:4)
Moreover it is also written in the Book of Proverbs that “Don't rejoice when your enemy falls. Don't let your heart be glad when he is overthrown; ... If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; If he is thirsty, give him water to drink: For you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
Regarding the Golden Rule, it was not invented by Jesus either, it was well known by the Greek for long, as it is called the ethic of reciprocity, and Rabbi Hillel and the famous Jewish scholar, Philo, had jotted it down in their writings before Jesus said it, or the written Gospels recalled it.
Living mostly in the first century BCE, the great Jewish sage, Hillel was born in Babylonia, around 110 BCE and died 10 CE, having an enviably long lifespan of 120 years, just as Moses, according to the legends. As a young man, Hillel came to Jerusalem to study the Torah with the great sages of the Holy Land, in Judea. He was extremely poor, but was also a more than brilliant student. Eventually he evolved into a famous Torah scholar and became the Nasi (president), the very head of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court and High Council. He is also established a clan-like philosophical school, the house of Hillel, often mentioned together with the house of Shammai, founded by Shammai, with whom Hillel often disagreed on the interpretations of the Law of Moses.
Tradition has it, that Shammai was the stricter rabbi, whereas Hillel’s understanding of the religious Law was more lenient.
There was an incident with a gentile man, who came to see Shammai and said to Shammai, that please convert me on the condition that you teach me the entire religious Law, while I am standing on one foot. Shammai pushed him away with the builder’s cubit in his hand, as Shammai was a builder by trade. Being chasted away, the same gentile person went to Hillel, and Hillel converted him by saying: “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go and study.”
However, we should notice that the Golden rule requires some learned wisdom to be applied to it, because often we do not really know what is really good or bad for us. So an other saying might be also relevant about the Golden Rule that watch out what you wish for. In order to do to others what we also want to be done to us, we must be able to distinguish not only between what might be pleasant or not pleasant, but also what is right and what is wrong, as the apostle Paul says, that everything is possible (to pursue), but not everything is useful, or the right thing to do.
Let us see, for example, the famous Jesus quote about the turning of the other cheek after a slap. Actually we do not really know what Jesus said by the letter, because both the authors of Matthew and Luke wrote in Greek, and Jesus spoke Aramaic.
The popular view tend to be a literal interpretation of the teaching, like the people who wants to obey to this commandment or advice, they should give up self-defense entirely and become mindless pacifists by any cost. An interesting approach of this literal view was put on the TV screen, when a Peace Noble Price winner, but otherwise an American president elaborated it to a journalist, that the advice of Jesus can not apply to the US Defense Department, because its operations can not be based on the turning of the other cheek principle, especially in real life, or in a life-taking warfare.
The president was only right in one segment in his uneducated opinion, that whatever is written anywhere, in real life we have to do the right thing. And in real life, self-defense is a must, almost by any means, like a pre-emptive strike. It looks brutal in one hand, but if we really love our enemies, then we should prevent them to commit sin, aggression, warfare, as much as we can, reducing sin in the world, and preventing innocents to suffer.
If we lay down the tools of our self-defense at the feet of violent aggressors, who came to slap us or nuke us, then we support them in their wickedness, we become complicit in their sins, ergo we push them further on the road of perdition. By doing this we do not really love them, or at least not well enough, because we support sinners in their sins, adding fuel to their fire.
So, if the self defense is the right thing to do, why Jesus wanted the disciples to turn their other cheek, instead of fighting back or acting pre-emptively? It is so, because in this case Jesus did not offer a military strategy, neither martial art coaching, but a moral code, which is deeper than it looks at its first reading or at the first slap. It is a traditional approach to find explanation of a Bible text by looking for similar places in the Bible. Fortunately the answer is not too far. It is in the same Sermon of the Mount, where Jesus says that “If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. (...) If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna”.
It is obvious that in real life Jesus did not want anybody to pluck out his eyes or cut off his arm, because of stumbling. It is a figurative speech, with the meaning, that like folks, do not take it literally, but otherwise it would be almost better for you to have this mindset, rather than loosing Heaven from sight. In parallel, turning the other cheek is not better than a disciplined and proportional self defense, but it is better than getting angry and carried away by indiscriminate hatred, as Mark Twain noted that “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which is poured.”
Ezekiel adds, that God says that “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” … “and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?”. Applying any necessary measures of self defense in a conflict, still we have to pray that the wicked should return from their wicked ways, repent and turn to God. May we always pray for the people who lost their ways to find the meaning of life in serving the Creator, where it is also said, that you have to serve the Lord not for a reward, but out of love. Calling upon the Spirit, we pray, Amen.
