A Part of the Solution

Do you know that really inconvenient line in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount about ‘turning the other cheek’? He says:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well… (Matt 5:38-40)

Paul says something similar in Romans chapter 12. He writes:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil… Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (12:17, 19-21)

Okay. We get it. When someone wrongs us, we aren’t supposed to try and get even or get payback. When we’re attacked, we don’t return fire or seek revenge. Message received.

But… why not? Clearly, that’s what Jesus expects from us, but why turn the other cheek instead of slapping theirs back?

I think that commands like this in scripture aren’t arbitrary. This isn’t just what Jesus expects from his followers, so deal with it. Our Lord actually has a good reason for saying something so seemingly crazy.

With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this Monday, I thought I'd look back through Where Do We Go from Here, to see if Dr. King might have a word for us this week. And he, in a pretty famous passage, discusses this same topic. Only, he gets at the why: why on earth not slap back?

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it… Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. (64-65)

When you slap back, fire off that stinging retort, or somehow try to give them a taste of their own medicine, you’re only begetting more of the thing you sought to destroy. You’re contributing to the hurt and viciousness. Like Paul said, you’re adding to the evil: repaying more evil for the evil done to you.

But our aim as followers of Jesus is not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. Not to embrace hate, supposedly to drive out hatred, but to drive out hatred with love.

We’ll never heal the problems in our homes, churches, communities, or world by contributing to them. Christians should never be a part of the problem. We’re called to be a part of God’s solution.