Reflection of the Word on the Sunday of FEB 23, 2025
SELF DEFENSE IS A MUST Luke 6:27-31
6:27 "But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; 6:28 bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. 6:29 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. 6:30 Give to everyone who ask of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. 6:31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
A lot of maxima, Jesus said in the Gospels, got misinterpreted, misunderstood, sometimes taken out of context and even arbitrarily twisted by the next generations.
It is not at least accurate to depict Jesus as a mindless pacifist.
The famous quote here is that Jesus asserted in the Gospel of Matthew that " I tell you, don't resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also."
However, in the frame of the Sermon of the Mount, in a figurative speech, he taught also that “ If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out 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. 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. ”
Taking this speech out of the context and taking it literally, it could cause, that the majority of the serious followers of Jesus on Earth would lack an eye or two, or losing a hand or both. Regarding the turning of the other cheek, the context is “that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be in danger of the judgment.”
It means that whatever are my grievances, if I get ragingly angry with my neighbor, it will be counted against me on Judgment Day.
Figuratively, turning the other cheek for the slapping would be better than getting angry or taking a raging revenge, just similarly as plucking out my stumbling eye or cutting off my stumbling arm would be better than going to the Judgment Day, and letting them defile my soul before the Creator.
It is a figurative speech.
In real life, we should not turn the other cheek to the obviously wicked, but we have to defend our families, our community, our town, our country, our planet, our galaxy.
Aggression and cruel revenge is absolutely forbidden, just like dancing on the grave of our fallen enemies, however, self defense is a moral obligation, it is a must.
However, we can expect God to fight on our side only, if we are on the right side, which is the side of God. If we are on the wrong side, God will fight against us.
Nonetheless, this part of the sermon of the mount certainly is 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 genius on a Jesus level, because all the declaration of the Sermon of the Mount are almost ancient quotes from the Jewish Bible aka the Old Testament 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.”
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, which was a quote too, 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, Rabbi 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. 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 chased 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.”
It is the same with the famous Jesus quote about the turning of the other cheek after a slap.
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.
And in real life, self-defense is a must, almost by any means, like a preemptive 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.
Although 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 is a must, 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, as we have to serve the Lord not for a reward, but for the sake of the love of the Lord. Calling upon the Spirit, we pray, AMEN.
