This is a scripture that oppressors love to misinterpret. Far too often people take “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” and use it to silence people who have experienced injustice. Be the bigger person, don’t sink to their level, don’t fight hate with hate. Jesus’ words here have been turned into a command for passive acceptance of evil and abuse. Don’t resist people who hurt you, accept your place in the status quo, your reward in heaven will be great if you just do the “loving” thing and don’t say anything. In reality, this scripture is used to prevent those in power from being held accountable. Those who have been subjected to injustice are guilted into staying silent, told that if they resist, they are not being real Christians.
You have heard it said don’t fight hate with hate, but I say to you, demanding justice, holding the oppressors accountable, and asserting our dignity and humanity is not hate. For years we have been gaslighted into believing that our anger at injustice is the same as the hate and anger that fuels that injustice.
But this is not a text for silencing those who have been wronged. It is a text of resistance.
Now you’re probably thinking right now, how can this possibly be a text of resistance? It says right in verse 39, do not resist an evil person. It tells people who have been slapped, sued, and forced into labor to passively submit. But let’s take a closer look at those verses.
This passage is part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount. In that sermon he takes traditional interpretations of Jewish law and interprets them in new ways. In this example he begins by saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’” Now nearly every English translation go on to say “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.” But there’s a problem with that translation. The word resist there is actually a military word. It was used to describe an army facing off against the enemy in battle. It’s difficult to translate with only one word in English because we don’t really have an equivalent. A more accurate translation would be don’t resist evil with violence, or do not violently fight evil. Jesus is not telling us to allow evil to go unchecked. He is telling us not to respond with violence. And if we look closer at the examples that follow, we see that he is instructing us to use non-violent resistance in response to evil and injustice.
His first example is probably the most well-known: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Now this is one of those verses that illustrates just how important it is to understand the historical and cultural context of the Bible when we read it. In order to understand this, we need to know, what did it mean in Jesus’ time to strike someone on the right cheek? Why does Jesus specify the right cheek? Why not just say, when someone slaps you on the cheek? Well at that time it was taboo to use the left hand for anything but unclean tasks. So if someone is slapping you with their right hand, and they hit your right cheek, that means they are backhanding you. And backhanding was reserved for people who were considered inferior. A master might punish their slave by backhanding them, or a Roman might humiliate a Jew that way. The expected response from the one being slapped was that they would cower in fear and grovel and beg for forgiveness. They could not respond with violence of their own, because it would result in their death most likely. But what would happen if they instead said, ok, now slap my left cheek? Well, the person who slapped them has three options: they can backhand them again with their left hand, bringing shame upon themselves for breaking the taboo, they can hit them with their fist or palm of the hand, or they can do nothing. But hitting someone on the left cheek with your fist or palm was reserved for equals as a challenge or insult. If a master hit a slave in that way, they would be acknowledging the slave as their equal. If they do nothing, they are forced to confront their own unjust act and the person who was struck has just asserted their humanity into the situation. By turning the other cheek, they have called out the injustice and maintained their own human dignity, while simultaneously humiliating the one who slapped them.
So turn the other cheek is a form of non-violent resistance, but what about the other two examples? Next Jesus says, “And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” Now this one is a little unclear on what garments Jesus is talking about. In Luke it is reversed, if someone takes your coat, give them your shirt as well, and that actually makes more sense in terms of first century Jewish culture. When someone took out a loan, they had to put up collateral. For a poor person who does not own property or anything else, the only thing they might have for collateral is their coat. Jewish law required that if a debtor had nothing but their coat to give as collateral it must be returned to them every day at sunset. However, the issue with the system goes deeper than just a creditor taking a poor person’s coat from them. It goes back to how the people ended up with nothing but the clothes on their backs in the first place.
When Israel conquered the Promised Land, the land was divided among the tribes, which was then divided among each family. Every family in Israel had ancestral land that was handed down from generation to generation. Even the poorest would not willingly give up their ancestral lands. But then the Roman Empire came in, and the people were subjected to excessive taxation so the Empire could pay for their wars. Many fell into debt and had to take out loans. The wealthy wanted to force people off their land, since land was the safest investment, and so they would charge exorbitant interest so that their debtors would have no choice but to part with their land. By Jesus’ time a small number of people owned all the land, and the majority of Jews were left as poor tenant farmers, day laborers, and slaves, with the added insult that they were working on land that once belonged to their ancestors. These were the people that Jesus was speaking to during the sermon on the mount, people who were fed up with an unjust system that had stripped them of their ancestral homes and left them with nothing but the clothes on their back.
So let’s say that one of those people is called into court to repay a debt, and they can’t pay, and the creditor demands their coat. Instead of just handing over the coat, the debtor strips naked and gives the creditor their undergarment as well. At that time if you saw someone naked the shame fell on you rather than the person who was naked. The rebellious action recalls the prophet Isaiah, who walked barefoot and naked through Israel for three years as a prophetic act to warn Israel of the exile that was to come. The debtor has made a prophetic statement and turned the shame of his debt around on the creditors and courts, the very system that has left him completely destitute. The creditor and everyone else who sees the naked man are forced to confront the injustice of this system they have created, and gives them an opportunity to repent.
And finally we have Jesus’ third example: “If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.” This is once again in relation to the Roman empire. Under the laws of impressment Roman soldiers could force any non-Roman citizens, which included most Jews, to carry their packs for them up to one mile. Many of Jesus’ followers had probably been subjected to this or knew others who had. There are many decrees from that period that suggest that abuse of these laws was common, and soldiers would force people to go farther than one mile. It’s not clear how often soldiers were punished for breaking these laws, but imagine that you are a soldier who has forced a Jew to carry your pack. After one mile you reluctantly go to take it back, but the Jew says, let me carry it another mile. Normally you would have to force people to do this for you, so you are immediately suspicious. What is this person playing at? Are they trying to provoke you? Insult your strength? Are they being nice for some unknown reason? Are they trying to get you in trouble? Planning to report you so you will be disciplined for breaking the law? In this situation the soldier has suddenly lost control. The person forced to carry the pack has now taken back the power of choice and is now in control of the situation. And just imagine how humiliating it would be for a Roman soldier who must follow a poor Jewish person for a mile begging them to return his pack.
It’s especially important to realize when reading this passage that Jesus isn’t giving these instructions to teach people how to build up merit in heaven or be faithful followers of God. This doesn’t have anything to do with heaven or what makes a good Christian at all. Jesus is helping marginalized people to find a way to reassert their dignity and protest unjust practices. Rather than telling people, endure your lot in life and you’ll have your reward in heaven, Jesus creates a worldly spirituality where people at the bottom can take back their autonomy and recover their humanity through non-violent resistance.
So Jesus teaches his followers three forms of direct non-violent action that can be used against his oppressors, and then he follows that up with “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” And you might be thinking right about now, isn’t that contradictory? How are we supposed to do all the things Jesus just taught if we’re also supposed to love these people who are oppressing us? Isn’t it the opposite of love to confront and humiliate them in this way? And by our society’s narrow definition of love, that is true. But the type of love that Jesus is talking about is much deeper than the shallow idea of love that just involves being nice to people even if we don’t like them. I believe that we love people who have committed terrible injustices against us by calling them to repentance, calling them to turn back to God, confess their sins, work to change and make amends for what they have done, so that true reconciliation can happen and that the harms they have been committing come to an end.
God loves all people, because we are all made in the image of God, but I believe that God loves different people in different ways. God has a special place in Their heart for marginalized people and a particular concern for those who are subjected to injustice. We see this over and over throughout scripture. God shows Their love for marginalized people such as LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, and many others by working for our liberation. And on the other side of things, God loves those who oppress us by calling on them to repent of the injustices they commit. God does not give up on people, and desires reconciliation with all people, but in order for oppressors to be reconciled to God, they must first repent of the evils they have committed against God’s beloved children and cease the harm they have been causing.
In the coming months, when things finally calm down after the attack on the capitol that occurred this past Wednesday, we can expect to hear leaders calling for unity, decency, reaching across the aisle, compromise. We can expect it because we’ve already been hearing this for years. We’ve heard it from our government, we’ve heard it from our churches, many of us have even heard it from our family and friends. But when people call out for unity and compromise in these types of situations, what they really want is for us to stop demanding accountability and justice. They want us to stay silent to maintain the status quo so that the privileged and powerful can keep ignoring how they contribute to the struggles we face every day. For far too long the blame has been placed on us for refusing to compromise with people who want to take our rights away or even see us dead. Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man, but when we take a step forward, he takes a step back. Meet me in the middle he says again. We’re not simply talking about different opinions. Opinions are for what kind of topping you like on your pizza. We’re talking about people rights and lives, these are morals, and we cannot compromise on these things.
In the coming months we’ll be told that we need to prioritize unity, but there can be no unity without accountability and repentance. People in places of privilege will tell us we have to love our enemies, or even that they’re not really our enemies, but allowing them to continue to harm our communities is not love. You have heard it said that you must love your enemies by compromising with them, but I say to you, we love our enemies by calling them to repent and holding them accountable for the evils they have done and making it so they cannot harm anyone anymore. There can be no healing, no unity, in this country, until we renounce evil and refuse to allow it to go unchecked.
Jesus did not teach us to stay silent, compromise, and allow injustice to flourish. Neither did he teach us to respond with violence. He taught us a third way, to respond to oppression with non-violent resistance, to reclaim our dignity and assert our humanity. He taught us that in the face of injustice love means holding people accountable and calling them to repent so that there truly can be reconciliation and unity between us. Our society has reached this point because the majority have failed to do this. Today let us renounce the evil that has taken root in this land in the form of white supremacy and Christian nationalism. Let us refuse to stay silent in the name of compromise or false unity. Let us work to bring about a world where God’s justice reigns, the oppressed are set free, and true peace can truly begin.