Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Injury for injury. Offense for Offense. This is the wisdom of Moses and the Torah (Jewish law) from Exodus 21. Jesus has a deeper wisdom for us, but Moses was definitely onto something. If the whole world would practice “eye for an eye,” the whole world would be better off than it currently is. Eye for an eye means that retribution has a limit. When an injury or offense has occurred, it is repaid in equal measure and no more. No escalation, no “making them sorry they ever messed with me.” Just getting even and leaving it at that. Eye for an eye leaves no room for the ego to run wild and inflict a greater vengeance. Eye for an eye means a world where violence never escalates. But, as Jesus helps us to see, it also leaves no room for forgiveness. As the saying goes, eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
Jesus knows the better way. “Do not resist an evildoer. If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn the other cheek to them. If someone wants to take your shirt, give them your coat too. If someone forces you to walk one mile, go two miles. Give to all who ask of you. Don’t refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42)
Where there is injury or offense, do not retaliate at all. Do not resist. But Jesus takes it a step further than that! Don’t resist, but don’t walk away either. Instead, turn the other cheek. Give to the person who takes from you. Spend extra time and mileage with the one forcing unfair work on you. Practice a ridiculous and reckless generosity, even to those who deserve it the least.
The “golden rule” says to treat others the way we’d like to be treated. And Jesus certainly likes the golden rule. But what he’s saying here makes the golden rule look like a half measure in comparison. He’s telling us to go out of our way to do a favor for the people who make life difficult for us, the people who cause injury and offense. Respond to hatred, violence, and bullying with love, generosity, and forgiveness.
We should admit how impossible this feels. What Jesus is calling us to do is no doubt the hardest thing in the world.
But this is who he is. When he is slandered, he does not retaliate. When he is beaten, he does not retaliate. He does not even have angry words or thoughts for those who beat him. When a man suffers a bloody injury, while in the act of arresting Jesus, Jesus heals him. And from the cross, he prays a prayer of forgiveness for the people who are actively murdering him. Jesus can tell us to turn the other cheek because it’s what he does.
Non-retaliation is not a strategy. It’s not a sneaky way to trick the people we don’t like into changing. It is not a back door into getting what we want. The church that practices turning the other cheek, and practices radical, reckless generosity, is not guaranteed some automatic result. But it is how to be with Jesus, and how to be like Jesus. Turning the other cheek is the reality of eternity in which we are so at home with God that his love has crowded the anger and hatred and need for retaliation out of our hearts. Jesus is showing us how to live that eternity now.