Jesus’s Third Way
Epiphany 7C
The Sermon on the Plain in Luke continues. As if the choices Jesus offered in his Blessings and Woes were not challenging enough to his emerging Community of Love, along comes the commandment to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” [i] To love God, love neighbors, and to love ourselves is demanding enough for most of us most of the time. But our usual response toward enemies, whether within or beyond the Community of Love, is either to fight or flee – fight or flight. Love is about the last thing we might consider when confronted with those who hate us, those who curse us, and those who abuse us.
Fortunately, Jesus offers some examples that help us to see that this “Love” he is talking about is less a noun, characteristic, or emotional state, than it is an action. It helps to know that Jewish teaching [Exodus 23:4-5, Proverbs 24:17; 25:21] commands helping and aiding enemies “in order to ‘subdue the evil inclination.’” [ii] Perhaps Jesus is suggesting a sense of fairness toward one’s enemies.
Yet, the examples seem to point to the enemies of occupation: the legions and bureaucracy of Rome. By the time of Jesus there were reminders stretching all along the roadways of those thousands who had resisted the occupation now crucified and left as an example for all to see every day. By the time Luke was writing, the Temple and Jerusalem had been burned to the ground to quell the Jewish insurrection. It was common practice for a centurion or even a bureaucrat to slap an insolent person on the cheek. And it was typical of a landowner to demand of those indebted to him a cloak, an outer garment, as a pledge until the debt is paid-off. If you were to refuse, you might be taken to debtors-court. In either case, we tend to hear this giving away, or turning the other cheek, as a kind of passive giving in to injustice and becoming a “Christian doormat.” Attempting to fight or flee would carry dire reprisals.
Walter Wink, in his little book, Jesus and Nonviolence suggests that Jesus appears to be offering what he calls A Third Way. Instead of withstanding the punishing slap on the cheek, turn the other cheek. In a dominant right-handed world, the slap would be done with the left hand which in 1st century society was the hand used for unclean tasks. Backhanding was the common way to admonish inferiors: masters backhanded slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; Romans, Jews. But if you turn the other cheek, he is almost forced to slap with the palm of the hand or a fist, which is to acknowledge you are a peer. You rob the oppressor of the power to humiliate. And you seem to say, “Go ahead, try again! I refuse to be humiliated. You cannot demean me. I am a human being just like you.” Far from being submissive or passive, turning the other cheek becomes an act of nonviolent defiance! [iii]
Similar with the debtor and the cloak. The poorest of the poor could have their only cloak revoked. It was often one’s only source of warmth on the cold desert nights. Again, Wink suggests, if you not only give up your outer-garment, but also your under-garment, now you are naked. If this happened in court, you would surely lose the case, but now you have turned the tables. You have refused to be humiliated, and registered a stunning blow against an unfair system that spawns onerous indebtedness. In any event, nakedness was taboo, and the shame fell not on the naked party, but on the person viewing or even causing the nakedness. You nonviolent act of defiance has unmasked the creditor not as a fair money lender, but rather as party to a ruthless system that reduces an entire social class to landlessness and destitution. No Christian doormats here. This is one way to love one’s enemies.”
At the center of this portion of the Sermon on the Plain, is the imperative that in all situations in this life we are to be “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful… for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Mercy is a central dimension of what it means to love one another, even our enemies. To which Jesus adds an example not only of the quality of mercy, but the quantity as well. As to the qualities of mercy and love, Jesus piles up the imperatives: do not judge, do not condemn, always forgive, always give, and as Psalm 37 commands, do not fret and refrain from anger. These are meant to be qualities of life within the Community of Love, as well as qualities of mercy and love we might do well to apply to ourselves if we are to have any chance of loving others as ourselves, and as God loves us and is merciful towards us.
Jesus is essentially in agreement with The Beatles when Paul sings, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” But of course, this is Jesus Christ the Son of God who always challenges us to go one step further in our love and mercy for others: the measure of love and mercy you will get in return for loving others will be “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." We tend to overlook just what Jesus is really saying here. Whenever I in the past, or now in the present, have asked one of our children or grandchildren for a cup of flour when I’m in the kitchen, as Jesus says, they would always come with at least a cup and a quarter or more, spilling all over the counter, the floor, and all over my lap. It turns out the measure of love and mercy we give to others results in even more you get back from God our Father, who is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. With no offense to Sir Paul, but the love you take will be greater than the love you make when you love God and love neighbors and enemies as you love yourself!
There are always those who will say none of this is practical; fight or flight are the only things that really work; the Third Way of Nonviolence is pie in the sky. To which one might say, “Tell that to Ruby Bridges, or John Lewis, or Ghandi, or Oscar Romero, or Mother Theresa, or Dorothy Day, or St. Francis of Assisi.” There are those who have tried Jesus’s Third Way of Nonviolence and have made the world a better place. Again, Luke’s Sermon on the Plain presents a fork in the road; a choice to be made. Will I judge others, condemn others, be angry with others, or will I be merciful and love others, as our Father is merciful and abounds in steadfast love?
Walter Wink concludes, “Many people have not aspired to Jesus’s Third Way because it has been presented to them as absolute pacifism, a life-commitment to nonviolence in principle, with no exceptions. They are neither sure they can hold fast to its principles in every situation, nor sure that they have the saintliness to overcomes their own inner violence…. We can commit ourselves to following Jesus’s way as best we can. We know we are weak and will probably fail. But we also know that God loves and forgives us and sets us back on our feet after every failure and defeat…Jesus’s Third Way is not an insuperable counsel to perfection attainable only by the few. It is simply the right way to live, and can be pursued by many. “ [iv]
[i] Luke
6:27-38
[ii]
Levine, Amy Jill, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford University Press,
NY:2011) p.126
[iii]
Wink, Walter, Jesus and Nonviolence, (Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2003)
p.14-16
[iv]
Ibid, Wink, p.102-103
No comments:
Post a Comment