Small Revolutions--October 30, 2019

"Small Revolutions"--October 30, 2019

"If anyone strikes you on the cheek offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not without 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.  If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return..." [Luke 6:32-35]

Jesus is at his most radical when he is at his most everyday, I think.  He is at his most provocative when he speaks about our small actions in daily life, because he makes it clear that his revolutionary way of living in the world is not reserved for some select class of spiritual superheroes, but for all of us in our ordinary interactions with others.  

That leaves us nowhere to run when we hear his words--we don't get to use some excuse like, "But this is for saints or monks or nuns or pastors--not for the rest of us ordinary Christians living out our lives day to day!" There are no draft-deferments or exemptions if you have a doctor's note.  Nor are we permitted to say, "We have to live in the real world, where people are mean and cruel and sometimes people want to take your stuff!  Jesus can't be referring to my everyday life here!  This must just be for a set of special people or special circumstances!"  All of that is just our attempt to run away from the radical vision of Jesus' kind of love.  (It's funny, by the way, how often you'll hear folks stake out their positions on some issues by insisting, "The Bible is clear about...!" and yet look for every possible excuse to dodge taking Jesus seriously about loving enemies and giving without seeking reciprocity, when Jesus sure seems to be "clear" about his teaching on those points.)

So if we have no excuse nor escape route, we'll have to listen to Jesus' words here and let him do his radical transformation of us in the midst of our ordinary lives--where we interact with people who are sometimes rude or rotten, and where we run across people who ask for our help in the course of just carrying out our weekly routines.  And at the core of all of these teachings of Jesus, there is a beating heart of unconditional love.  Jesus is heaven-bent on making us into people who live, speak, and act on the basis of unconditional love--both God's for us, and ours for others.  Jesus really is convinced that God's love is lavished on us regardless of our goodness or badness, and that God does good to us apart from considering whether we "deserve" it or not.  Jesus is further convinced, it appears, that the people of God will live as though the universe is an economy ordered by grace, rather than by transactions, deal-making, and revenge.

All of the specific, ordinary situations Jesus describes in these verses are ways of resisting the conventional wisdom that says the world is run on the basis of tit-for-tat (or to use a Latin phrase that is getting a lot of use in the news these days, "quid pro quo") exchanges, in favor of doing good without regard for what will be gained in return.  From Jesus' vantage point, this policy of doing good, even in return for rottenness, is as plain as the nose on your face, because he sees this as God's policy toward the whole world already.  God loves the world despite our unloveliness. God is good not only to the well-behaved religious people, but to stinkers and sinners, atheists and agnostics, outcasts and undesirables all the same.  And from Jesus' vantage point, that is not a design flaw on God's part--that is in fact the defining feature of the Kingdom of God--or, if you like, the Yahweh Administration.

Therefore, Jesus says, we who dare to live in light of this God's values will practice the same kind of audaciously unconditional love in our day-to-day dealings with others. We will give without expecting to get favors done for us in return--because we know that God doesn't demand a proverbial "pound of flesh" in exchange for daily sustaining our lives.  We will not answer violence with violence, and we will not sink to the level of doing evil to the people who do evil to us.  And in our refusing to sink to their level, we are making our protest against their rottenness.  Answering evil with goodness is not giving permission to evildoers to keep being rotten--it is a refusal to spread evil by adopting the tactics of those who see us as their enemies.  It's not about being wimpy doormats--it's about having the moral courage not to cheat those who cheated you or insult those who insulted you or hate those who hate you.  

And that insight helps make more sense even of Jesus' teaching about turning the other cheek.  As other commentators have noted before (see, among others, Walter Wink on this one), in Matthew's recounting of this teaching, Jesus talks about someone striking you on the "right cheek" and then offering your "left" in response.  In a culture where everyone uses their right hands for everything but the bathroom (sanitary reasons forced a practical right-handedness on everyone, including those naturally left-handed), striking someone on the "right cheek" with your right hand requires you to be giving someone a back-handed slap in the face--in other words, that's the way you hit someone when you intend to insult them or regard them as a social inferior.  When Jesus says to respond by turning your left cheek, it is therefore a refusal on the part of the person who was struck to accept being treated as a social inferior, but to insist on being struck as an equal.  It is as if to say, "You are trying to insult me by slapping me on the face, but if you are going to strike me, I insist you treat me as an equal." The idea is to shame the person who has struck/slapped you into seeing what a total buffoon they have been, and to get them to back off by the power of that social shaming.  In other words, when someone tries to belittle you or treat you as inferior, you don't sink to their level, but you don't accept their assessment, either--you insist that you are of equal worth while refusing to play by their rules.  So, despite all the ways this passage has been misused by preachers before (usually male preachers on this count) to tell people in abusive relationships that they must stay in abusive relationships, Jesus doesn't really seem to be talking about staying in abusive marriages.  Rather, he insists that when others try to insult us, we will not answer those insults with rottenness of our own, but rather we can stand up for our own belovedness and worth without attacking the other person.

And in all of that, Jesus is downright radical.  His way of loving seeps down into little moments and small actions of every day life, which means that our revolution against the old order of tit-for-tat will happen in quiet ways, right under the nose of the world's deal-makers and talking heads.  Jesus really is incendiary. He truly does advocate a revolution against the old way of seeing the universe as an economy of transactions, revenge, and self-interested deals. It's just that his revolution is not waged with an army or an insurgency, but rather through small acts of unconditional love by ordinary people in everyday life.  And to every loud shouting voice that says, "Self-interested deal-making is just how the world works, and you have to answer rottenness from others with rottenness from you," Jesus says, "No, it isn't.  No, you don't.  You never have to accept those terms or play those games."  

The small revolution happens in little actions that defy the old tit-for-tat mindset.  And today Jesus dares us to join it.

Lord Jesus, let us show you radical love in ordinary situations today.