Epiphany 7A Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Gotcha! By Howard Anderson, February 20, 2011 She was only about 5'2" but compactly built. And, she was very drunk. She was a woman that the church had given food and support to over the past couple of months, since her husband had left her with two little children. And she was in despair. When I tried to tell her she would have to be sober before we could help her, (that was an ironclad policy) she hit me in the chin with a round house punch that connected so well I fell against the wall. Both stunned, we looked at one another, and began to laugh. She said, "now you are supposed to turn the other cheek so I can hit you again." And we both began to laugh. She left. Sobered up. And came back, and sheepishly apologized. She later was in recovery became a member of my Duluth parish and her two boys became acolytes. Perhaps two of the most misunderstood of the teachings of Jesus in scripture are the "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," and "turn the other cheek." The original intent of these Old Testament legal principles was to limit the damage done in retaliation. When some one did harm to you, your family or village, often, the retaliation was total, final and terrifically violent. So to limit the scope of the retaliation to an eye for an eye was a huge step forward in civility. Perhaps even more vexing to us today is the turning the other cheek. Walter Wink's wonderful book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination points out that a blow to the right side of the face would indicate a backhand, demeaning slap by a superior to an inferior person. So turning the other cheek would mean that person feeling superior would need to hit you with a fist, acknowledging you an equal rather than an inferior. In absorbing that second blow, a person would be denying the aggressor's power to humiliate or dehumanize. Turn the other cheek. Gotcha! In those days Jewish men wore two garments; a tunic of linen worn next to the skin and a heavier cloak over it. The outer garment which was often used as a blanket, much like the Scots used their voluminous kilts, were protected by law, so that even a beggar would be able to keep warm on the chilly Palestinian winter nights. Because of the heavy burden of Roman taxes, many were deeply in debt, so Jesus was speaking of a law suit which demanded the linen garment as collateral for a loan, the debtor should also give up the outer garment protected by law. Thus,
the creditor would be breaking their own Roman enforced law, and, the defendant would be naked. Because seeing another person not your spouse or family was widely seen as shameful, the creditor would be shamed. Give them the cloak too. Gotcha! But Jesus doesn t stop there. He suggests that when the common practice of Roman soldiers who were by law able to press any person into carrying their armor and provisions one mile was enforced, they should offer a second mile. Here is yet another way an oppressed people could say to their oppressor, I am a child of God and you cannot take my dignity from me! Because if a Centurion found out that a legionnaire s equipment had been carried more than one mile by a person, they would get a severe reprimand and 10 lashes. to the extra mile. Gotcha! How clever Jesus was in finding ways to break the cycle of oppression without violence. Even on the surface level, Jesus is teaching us that a generous spirit can not only diffuse violence, not only help us retain our dignity, but also change the outcomes of our interactions with those who we might call our enemies. Those who Jesus says are, much to our deep chagrin, our neighbors whom God loves as much as God loves those of us who follow God s ways. Deeply rooted in the moral traditions of all three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is justice for and care of the poor and oppressed. In the season of Epiphany we have had one lesson after another which, if boiled down to there essence, would be the line from the Prophet Micah who wrote, And what does the Lord require of you, but to DO justice, Love kindness and walk humbly with your God. That is the essence of the faith and the very definition of following Jesus and he gives this advice again in today s gospel. Love one another! Jesus was formed in the crucible of a Jewish moral tradition given by Moses to the ages in among other places, Leviticus where we see that doing justice means not harvesting the grain fields up to the very edges and not taking all the grapes from your vineyard, but, rather, leaving some for those who have little or nothing. Now comes the gotcha for us. Jesus tells us love your enemies and give to people who beg. Okay Jesus, now you have stopped preaching and started meddling. All this turning the other cheek and such makes sense, but love my enemies? Pray for those who persecute me? And reward the improvident slackers who have not worked hard like I have by giving them money? I don t think so! I have a New Yorker cartoon of a man sitting with his friends and saying I m in the market for an easier religion!
Scripture holds deep and timeless truths. But we must seek not some sort of literal, scientific truth, but the abiding truthfulness in what Jesus teaches us. Jesus is asking us as we face the world to live out the love commandment, and in doing so, to be creative, bold and as Jesus tells us, wise as serpents and gentle as doves. One thing I have learned in 33 years of full time ministry, in attempting to follow Jesus, is to work with those who are motivated to change. We make a mistake if we think that giving our children, our spouses or those in need, everything they ask for can often enable destructive behavior. Until someone is motivated to change their behavior, the negative practices- abuse of drugs and alcohol, rampant consumerism (I call it shopaholism) and violent behaviors like bullying, we do them no good by placating them and tolerating these negative behaviors. This only makes things worse. Thus, Jesus is giving instruction to the oppressed in his day to not go along with the oppression, but to do a gotcha which shows, without violence, the fact that these oppressive or personally destructive behaviors take us no where good. Sometimes this tough love feels bad to us, but in the long run, it can often bear much fruit. Think about the thrilling events of the last two weeks in Egypt. Imagine if the young people in Trafir Square had responded to the attacks by the goon squads with an equal level of violence. They would have been crushed with military and police force, as the cruel Iranian, Libyan, Yemeni governments recently did as people protested the autocratic rule there. But by absorbing the body blows and even death, largely with only protective measures like creating a wall of sheet metal to protect themselves, the 30 year reign of Hosni Mubarak fell, despite the huge odds against that. Think of a true miracle of the 20th Century, the emergence of a democratic South Africa. Lester has spoken to us movingly about the violence against him, the rib breaking baton to a 12 year old s ribs, or the jack book on his neck, emblematic violence against all people of color, by the cruel apartheid government. Anyone who spoke out against the unjust ways of the government was severely punished. Klaas Vlietstra of our parish spoke of the secret police violating the home of his Dutch born South African parents because they were sympathetic to ending apartheid. In the dark of night they would break into his home and ransack it. It was terrifying to a child and to adults. When the African National Congresses more radical wing tried acts of
violence, the noose around the neck of the people only tightened. But when brave people like our own Archbishop Desmond Tutu repeatedly braved death by non-violent protest, apartheid collapsed. Perhaps one of the most powerful things I have ever seen was when a Black collaborator with the Apartheid regime was captured in the Soweto township, the people who were harmed by what he had done were intent on necklacking him- putting a gasoline soaked tire around his neck, lighting it and watching his excruciating pain as he burned to death. But Bishop Tutu was doing a visitation in a church in Soweto and people ran to get him. The diminutive Archbishop was knocked down twice as he fought his way through an enraged crowd. But he reached the informer just as someone was going to light the tire. He threw his arms around the traitor and said, If you are going to kill someone, kill me. The crowd sifted away, shamed by a Christ like act that might have cost Tutu his life, but as he pointed out afterward, I follow Christ. I could do no other, and he quoted today s lesson from Matthew that God loves even those who do unlovely things. And wonder of wonders, when Nelson Mandela was released from jail after 27 cruel years of incarceration under terrible conditions, and was very quickly elected president when all South Africans could vote, he showed us what the ethic the Prophet Micah and Jesus called us to looked like. He invited his jailers...let me say this again, his jailers, to sit in the front row at his inauguration as President of South Africa. Where violence has failed (think of most of the revolutions in the emerging world and their horrific blood baths), love and forgiveness succeeded. The predicted violent retribution many predicted for South Africa were avoided because leaders like Archbishop Tutu, Bishop Edward Mackenzie, Lester s grandfather,nelson Mandela- all followed the advice of Jesus and turned the other cheek. And in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission where the oppressors admitted what they did, asked forgiveness, and victims of the most horrendous crimes against them and their loved ones, forgave. And make no mistake about it, forgiveness costs. The seemingly unforgivable sins-abuse of helpless children, genocide, rape as an instrument of terror...history has proven that the only way to stop them is to not retaliate in kind, but rather, to give up the deeply engrained human desire to get even (and make no mistake about it there is exhilaration in getting even) and to live into the ethic of love that Christ showed us. It is a hard lesson. But we
are all called, at all times and in all places, to follow this example. Lucky for us, this hard ethic often leads to the very best results. My call to you this day, is to follow the teachings of Jesus and break the cycle of violence and anger. Do it at home in our most intimate relationships, at work, in the community. Do not retaliate. Do not return angry words when you have received them. Step back. Think. Then remember what Jesus tells us, The taunt to Jesus by the criminal on the cross next to him, if you are God, then save yourself echoes across the millennia. Dear Ones, it was not the nails that kept Jesus on the cross. It was love. And the cost of love can be high. But only love can save us. Only love can save the broken and struggling world. Only love...