Matthew 5.38-42, Deuteronomy 15.7-11.
5.38
The following previously appeared on my religion blog, More Christ.
This is basically what Jesus has to say about reciprocity—or, as it’s popularly known nowadays, karma.
Pagans in general believe that good deeds means you’ll achieve a good afterlife. Karma is the Hindu variation of that teaching: If you’re evil in this life, you’ll be reincarnated as a lesser being. If you’re good in this life, you’ll be reincarnated as a greater being. Westerners—taking their cue from John Lennon’s song “Instant Karma”—skip the whole reincarnation idea and assume that karma means if you’re good in this life, you receive good in this life, and if you’re evil in this life, you receive evil in this life. That’s not what Hinduism teaches about karma. That’s actually a lot closer to the Judeo-Christian idea, “Evil will return on your own head,” loosely taken from 1 Samuel 25.39. The catch is that Jews and Christians believe it’s God who makes evildoers suffer evil fortunes. Pagans just assume it’s just one of the laws of the universe: It’s how nature balances itself out.
Thing is, we can think of far too many exceptions (Ec 9.11) to believe this is a valid law of the universe. One of the biggest complaints people have about God is that bad things do happen to good people; that karma doesn’t work like it ought. Good people suffer, bad people prosper, and what kind of God would permit a world so unfair?
Well, it’s actually we humans’ responsibility to make things fair. (I know that argument isn’t gonna work on the complainers, but let’s put them aside for now.) When bad things happen to good people, we need to step in and help the good people. We don’t presume they’re suffering because they were bad, lazy, or dumb. And even if they were, it makes no difference. It’s not our call to judge them worthy or unworthy of aid, or punish them by depriving them. It’s God’s.
In the land which Yahweh your God is giving to you, when you have a needy brother, one of your fellow Hebrews, at your gate: Don’t harden your heart; don’t close your hand towards your needy brother. Open your hand to him. Pledge to him enough to meet his need, whatever he lacks. Watch out, lest you come up with this worthless idea: “The Sabbath year, the year debts are canceled, is near,” and your eyes look on your needy brother evilly, and you don’t give to him, and he calls out to Yahweh about the sin in you. Give to him. Ignore that evil heart of yours when you give to him. On account of this, Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work, in every enterprise. There will always be needy people in the land, and because of this I command you: Open your hand to your brother, to the poor, to the needy in your land.
—Moses, Deuteronomy 15.7-11
I’ve heard this preached many times: “ ‘Fairness’ is nowhere in the bible. Go ahead and look.” True, you’re not going to find that specific word in most bibles. That’s because they use its synonym, justice. You know how “fair” and “just” are synonyms? “Fairness” and “justice” are also synonyms, exactly like when people ask “Where’s the justice in that?” But like karma, Westerners have redefined justice—which no longer means “fair behavior,” but “fair punishment.” You know, like “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (Dt 19.21) When people nowadays say they “want justice,” they mean they want to see people get what they deserve—but only in the negative sense. Never in the positive sense.
So reciprocity, or fairness, or justice, is part of the Law. God wants us to be fair with one another. God expects us to make things right when we see it go wrong. “Yahweh prefers doing rightness and choosing fairness, to sacrifice.” (Pr 21.3) And “ What does Yahweh seek from you? Fairness, a focus on love, and humbly walking with your God.” (Mc 6.8)
I say all this about fairness because I’m trying to explain the baseline that Jesus was starting from. Our culture doesn’t even understand this baseline. We refer to karma all the time, but we expect God or the universe to sort it all out automatically. Not us. We don’t think of that as our job. We actually think we’re going out of our way to be nice when we do get involved to this degree. It just goes to show how disconnected we are from God.
Because here, Jesus steps this up even further: “I tell you: Don’t fight the evildoer.” (v39)
We have, under the rules of reciprocity and fairness, every right to resist an evil person. If someone does evil to us, God said in the Law that it’s perfectly fine with Him if we punish them in a way that fits the crime. “Eye for eye” means if they rip an eye out, it’s okay to take their eye (and goes too far if we go further). Tooth for tooth says the same. Hands, feet, property, lives… There’s nothing wrong with a punishment that fits the crime. It’s entirely fair.
But what Jesus is trying to teach here is forgiveness and generosity.
“When anyone punches your jaw on the right, turn the other side to them.” (v39) It’s been pointed out by many that in order for a right-handed man to slap you on the right cheek, he’s basically gotta backhand you. Not that being backhanded was any less an insult than a regular slap, in that culture. Now, depending on how personally rebellious your preacher is, turning your left cheek to your assailant is either interpreted as an act of defiance—“Go ahead and hit my other cheek; I can take it”—or an act of submission. I sincerely doubt Jesus was encouraging defiance. After all, He just said to not resist an evil person. We have rights, and it’s entirely fair that we stand up for them. But here, Jesus tells us, when we’re the one taken advantage of, to allow what’s unfair.
“When anyone takes you to court to take your shirt, give them your jacket too.” (v40) Same deal. Why might your shirt be taken from you in a court case? Well, clearly you lost, but more than likely you lost unfairly: No one should become that impoverished in a court case. However, no matter how poor you became, the one thing people couldn’t fully take away from you was your coat: God commanded that if you took a person’s coat as collateral, you had to give it back at night so he could sleep in it. (Ex 22.26-27) Again, you’re within your rights to hold onto your cloak—but Jesus tells us again, when we’re the one taken advantage of, to allow what’s unfair.
“When anyone forces you to walk one mile, walk two with them.” (v41) Under Roman law, a soldier could pull anyone off the street and make him carry his gear for a thousand paces—a Roman mile (about 0.92 miles, depending on the soldier’s stride). The soldier had no right to demand any more work than that, but often they’d try to get people to carry their gear further—“It’s not a thousand of my paces yet”—or find other excuses to get more work out of them. And again, Jesus says when we’re the one taken advantage of, to allow what’s unfair.
Finally, “When anyone asks of you, give. When anyone wants to borrow from you, you may not turn them away.” (v42) If you recall Moses’s statement in Deuteronomy, the Hebrews were told to be generous to the poor; and of course the problem is that the poor, same as today, took advantage of this command and asked for help regardless of their own ability to provide for themselves. They milked the system. They still do. Jesus knows this. Even so: Allow what’s unfair.
This is a hard command for a lot of Christians. One we tend to ignore, actually: Look at all the Christians who are insistent, even proud, that they stand up for their rights, and stop people from taking advantage of them. In our culture it’s considered shameful to let someone take advantage of you. Yet Jesus orders us to do it.
Yes, we have rights. Yes, it’s not fair when we let others use us this way. Karma fans are expecting that, whenever we’re mistreated like this, the universe or God will step in and rectify everything. Sometimes they even preach this: “Jesus is telling us to turn the other cheek because in the end, that cheek-slapper will get his, and Jesus will see to it.” Jesus said no such thing. In fact, the opposite is true: Jesus wants that cheek-slapper to repent, turn to Him, and be saved. And get away with it.
He wants all of us to get away with it. That’s what grace is all about.
He wants His followers to demonstrate this grace. That’s why He taught this. Yes, we can try to balance things out, and make life fair, and we’ll certainly feel good about ourselves for doing so. Or we can be bigger people than that, and allow it to be unfair—unfair, that is, in favor of people who need saving. We can show them grace instead of righteous anger. We can show them forgiveness instead of a crusade for justice. We can show them generosity instead of “You get this much and no more.” We can. Jesus does.
Mt 5.38 Ἠκούσατε/you all heard ὅτι/that ἐρρέθη·/it was said ὀφθαλμὸν/eye ἀντὶ/in place of ὀφθαλμοῦ/eye καὶ/and ὀδόντα/tooth ἀντὶ/in place of ὀδόντος./tooth 39 ἐγὼ/I δὲ/& λέγω/I say ὑμῖν/to you all μὴ/not ἀντιστῆναι/standing against [or, to stand against] τῷ/to the πονηρῷ·/evil [one] ἀλλ᾿/but ὅστις/whoever σε/[at] you ῥαπίζει/he strikes εἰς/in τὴν/the δεξιὰν/right σιαγόνα/jaw [σου],/of you στρέψον/you turned! αὐτῷ/to him καὶ/also τὴν/the ἄλλην·/other 40 καὶ/and τῷ/to the θέλοντί/[one] wanting σοι/you κριθῆναι/to be judge καὶ/and τὸν/the χιτῶνά/tunic σου/of you λαβεῖν,/taken ἄφες/you sent out! αὐτῷ/to him καὶ/and τὸ/the ἱμάτιον·/cloak 41 καὶ/and ὅστις/whoever σε/[at] you ἀγγαρεύσει/he will force you μίλιον/mile ἕν,/one, ὕπαγε/you go away! μετ᾿/with αὐτοῦ/him δύο./two 42 τῷ/to the αἰτοῦντί/[one] asking σε/you δός,/you gave! καὶ/and τὸν/the θέλοντα/[one] wanting ἀπὸ/from σοῦ/you δανίσασθαι/to borrow [on interest] μὴ/not ἀποστραφῇς./you may [have] turned away
Dt 15.7
