Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are presented with a lesson from Matthew’s gospel which is familiar to all of us and many of our members. Some of the language in this lesson has worked its way into our vocabularies; “turn the other cheek,” and “go an extra mile.”
The problem is that what we mean by those phrases bears little or no resemblance to the original meaning, and in fact can completely obscure the lesson Jesus was offering his hearers. I urge you to take this opportunity to set the record straight, and provide a teaching for our members which can help them embrace Jesus’ call to participate in doing justice and mercy.
The scholarly work for what I am offering you here was done by Walter Wink in his series of three books on the ‘powers of this world.’ One volume, entitled Engaging the Powers, gives an explanation of this teaching and what it meant when Jesus said it. I had the privilege of hearing him offer this teaching in person – and it has stayed with me for lots of reasons.
The cultural context for this teaching is crucial to hold in mind; the people who were listening to Jesus took certain things for granted – understandings we do not share, and have completely lost over the centuries.
The passage begins with Jesus saying once again, “you have heard……but I say to you.” In this pattern he routinely tells them something which is more difficult than the original commandment – as in the lesson we had last week.
The lex talionis – “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” was a law which limited the revenge response. It permitted violence, but prohibited escalation of it. No more was to be exacted than had been taken. NO MORE than an eye for an eye, NO MORE than a tooth for a tooth. What Jesus goes on to say to them is that no violence is permitted. They are to be wise, non-violent, and yet effective by using the cultural norms and rules to their advantage.
We've been praying for the Episcopal Church in Haiti for months now, so it seems appropriate that when the church in Haiti makes the New York Times, we ought to let you know about it. Most of Trinity Cathedral's world-renowned murals depicting the life of Christ in a Haitian context were destroyed in last year's earthquake, but several survived, and the Episcopal Church and the Smithsonian institution are partnering to save them.
