The End Justifies the Means

Matthew 5:38-48

But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. . . .

What a rich text. . . What a challenging text. . . Isn’t it a difficult one? There’s so much to think about here. . . Turn the other cheek. . .Give the cloak as well. . .Go the second mile. . . Love your enemies. These are some of Jesus’ most challenging teachings. But like the other parts of the Sermon on the Mount that we’ve studied in recent weeks, this passage is life-giving too. And it’s life-transforming as well.

You know, this passage has had a big impact historically. This text has been foundational for a lot of Christian pacifist movements throughout the centuries. And certain Christian communities have been created out of these pacifist movements – movements that have taught that violence should never be used.

The Anabaptists were one group who operated this way. The Anabaptists lived during the time of the Reformation when cities, towns, and villages in Europe were being torn apart in conflict – not only verbal conflict or theological conflict, but in the physical conflict of religious war. These conflicts were happening as individuals and government leaders and larger communities were breaking away from some of the teachings and practices of the Roman Church. The Anabaptists were persecuted for their beliefs and practices and often killed for them. They believed that they should not resist the persecution that came their way – at least, not with physical violence in return. From the Anabaptists, we get the modern Hutterites, the Mennonites, and the Amish – all pacifist groups that live in various places in the world today.

We also have the Quakers, another Pacifist group. Maybe when you hear that name, the first thing that comes to your mind is the Quaker Oats guy!

(And you know what? I found a picture of William Penn online, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania after he was pushed out his home because of religious persecution. And you know what? William Penn really does look like the Quaker Oats guy! At least in that picture.)

But Quakers are known for much, much more than oatmeal! The official name of the Quakers today is the Society of Friends, and they’re strongly against using any force – personal violence or violence through war. And they’re a witness to all of us, reminding us that Christians are called to peace.

And then, we’re a bit more familiar with some of the non-violent movements that have happened in the last forty years. Not too long ago, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s was pushing forward, but not without resistance from others. It was meeting all kinds of violence and hatred. Many of the Civil Rights advocates were actually using that violence and hatred to advance the cause for freedom and equality. Black men and women – many of them very young – were doing sit-ins, protesting racial segregation and Jim Crow laws in the South by refusing to give up their seats in public restaurants that only served whites. They were beaten, spit upon, mocked, and dehumanized. But they didn’t return the violence. And in their non-violent resistance, they put the violence and hatred of others on public television sets. Many of these scenes – these real life brutalities – were responsible for a national conversation on race, and they led to legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964. More than 40 years later, we still have a long way to go when it comes to the issue of racism in America, but without these young people – many of them, the same age as PPC's young adults – we certainly wouldn’t be where we are today.

Members of all these groups have looked to Jesus’ teachings from our passage, and their interpretations have reminded us that we are called to peace – to love our neighbor, and yes, to love our enemy even when it isn’t convenient, perhaps, when it’s incredibly inconvenient.

And so I wonder, what other interpretations of this text have impacted others? What have other people had to say? And what might we say – not just in these written words, but in the ways we choose to live because we’ve heard Jesus speak to us?

I wish I could say that Christian interpretation of this passage has always been sweetness and light, but there have also been some dangerous interpretations of this text throughout history.

Imagine this scenario: You’re a pastor, and a woman walks into your office. She’s in her forties, and you’ve known her for about two months. She and her husband and their three kids are relatively new to the church that you serve, and you’ve really enjoyed getting to know them. In fact, you felt that you really hit it off with them. And so, maybe it’s no surprise that this woman feels she can trust you. She can come to you when things get difficult. But there's a terrible surprise: When she comes in your office on a normal, run-of-the-mill afternoon, she’s bruised all over. You’re startled. And when you sit down, you learn something you would have never expected. Her husband beats her. Regularly. But as she tells you, this time was worse than it's ever been before. She wants to know what you think. What should she do? Retaliate? Leave him?

Well. . . she has the answer. She seems to want to impress you with her theological convictions. Or maybe. . she might be talking like this to convince herself that her convictions really are true – that they must be followed. Or maybe she’s testing you out to see what you have to say. After all, you’re a pastor and you’re supposed have authority on Jesus’ teachings, right?

She goes on to tell you what she plans to do. She tells you what other religious people have told her during her twenty years of marriage. “I made a commitment to my husband,” she says. “More importantly, I made a commitment to God. I know he shouldn’t hit me like this. But my job is to turn the other cheek. That’s what Jesus teaches me. My job is to continue loving him, and if loving him means that I have to take it, I will. But I do pray that he’ll stop this. Will you pray for that too?”

She goes on to tell you that her pastors and many of her Christian friends have sent her right back into this situation, quoting Jesus all along the way.

Difficult, isn’t it? But I think we all have a gut reaction that serves us well. This woman should not be abused, and we shouldn’t send her back in to take even more, additionally slapping some gospel label on it. So what is Jesus saying here? Just grin and bear it? Put on a smile and offer your other cheek for the hitting? Be a doormat?

I suppose if we just stayed on the surface level here, it might sound like Jesus is encouraging us to be doormats when we encounter all kinds of wrongs and persecution and abuse. “Just take it!” But if we dig deeper, we’ll be strengthened with deeper meaning as well.

Let’s think about these situations for a moment. . . turning the other cheek. . . giving the cloak as well. . . walking the second mile. They might sound ‘doormat’-like on the surface, but they don’t have to be that way at all! In fact, if we think a bit more deeply, they’re all pretty defiant! When an enemy strikes your cheek and you turn the other one calmly without hitting back, in a way, you are saying, “What can you do to me, really? You may think you’re powerful – that you can oppress me – but I can show you that you can’t destroy me. You’re no oppressor if I refuse to be oppressed!” In the spirit of this passage then, perhaps surprisingly, for the woman we’ve spoken about, turning the other cheek would mean that she stops taking the abuse – that she refuses to be oppressed, removing herself and her children from that situation. And we need to do all we can to support her.

Or if someone sues you for your coat in an attempt to have something from you, and then a few days later, you wrap up your cloak and send it the mail as a gift, there’s something defiant about that. In a way, you’re saying, “What can you do to me really? You can’t oppress me! Here’s my cloak. It’s on me, pal! You haven’t taken a thing, have you?”

Or if someone forces you to walk one mile and then you respond by going two miles, again, you are saying, “Look! Watch me! You may try to oppress me, but you can’t. If I go two miles, you haven’t forced me to do a thing, have you?”

These teachings aren’t really ‘doormat’ at all. All of them call us to walk the higher road – to respond to our enemies in a way that highlights grace and love – love for the enemy and love for ourselves, love that respects our worth and theirs. Jesus isn’t teaching us to just sit around and take it. No, not at all! He is telling us to defy it! To resist it! But how do we do that? We overcome it with love!

And also, with little spunk. Let’s look at Jesus’ own context to see what he might be saying in this sermon. Think about this: If you were to strike someone on the right cheek, how would you do that exactly? Go ahead. Put out your hand like you’re going to slap someone. (Don’t really do it! This is all hypothetical!) Unless you’re left handed – you would have to back-hand someone to hit the person on the right side of the face. Now in Jesus’ day, if a person backhanded you, he wasn’t only being violent. He was conveying that to you that you weren’t an equal. So when Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, he’s not only teaching us to be non-violent in love (though that is true). He’s also teaching us to say, “Hey, wait a minute! I won’t stand for that. I am not going to be oppressed by you. I am your equal. And as your equal, I will walk the high road in all of this. I will refuse to be backhanded.”

And then, there’s this: In Jesus’ day, people wore a coat and a cloak – basically an undergarment and an over-garment. If someone were to sue you for that undergarment, and then you were to give them your cloak – your over-garment as well – you’d basically be standing there naked! Weird, right? And in Jesus’ day and culture, nakedness wasn’t ultimately shameful to the one who unclothed – it was extremely shameful for the one who had to see it. And so again, Jesus is telling us to resist evil with love and with a little spunk. Now I’m not telling any of you to take a stand by getting naked! But I am trying to show you that if someone shames you, Jesus teaches us to lovely resist that shame with love by standing up for ourselves, and who knows? Maybe we'll even with a sense of humor.

And then, there’s this too: In Jesus’ context, the Jewish people were living under the occupation of Rome. There was a custom – an unfortunate one – that a Roman soldier could coerce any person to carry his pack for mile no matter how inconvenient or oppressive it may have been. Can you imagine walking outside for a simple stroll and having some soldier stop you to carry his stuff for a mile? Jesus is telling his disciples to walk the high road of love. If a soldier forces you to go one mile, go two. That way you teach yourself and the soldier that you can’t be oppressed. Don’t retaliate in violence. And don’t just sit around and take it either. Show kindness to that solider, that enemy. Show kindness to yourself. Value your humanity so much that you won’t allow yourself to be oppressed.

Aren’t these teachings incredibly profound? In studying them this week, I feel that I’ve learned so much. In fact, I discovered a little detail that really energized me. In the NRSV translation, verse 39 says, “But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer.” Wow. On the surface, that sounds pretty doormat to me. But then I fell upon something really interesting in the Greek text.

Okay, quick grammar lesson: Have any of you studied Latin or German? Both of those languages have cases. That means that words have certain endings to tell you what grammatical role they are playing in the sentence. Greek has cases too. And when a word is a direct object, it's in the accusative case. The word has a certain ending on it to tell you that it’s the direct object. And so, our sentence here is: Do not resist an evildoer – or it could even be, Do not resist evil. Again, pretty doormat sounding, right? In that sentence, ‘evil’ is the direct object. Do not resist – what? Evil. So we should find the word ‘evil’ in the accusative case with a direct-object type ending.

Well, guess what? We don’t. ‘Evil’ is the direct object, but it has a dative ending! And if that’s a foreign word to you – or if all of this sounds like grammar gobbily-gook, that’s okay. But it’s incredibly significant as we think about the passage. In Greek, there is a thing called ‘A Dative of Means.’ When a direct object is in the dative, it tells you the means by which something is done. So actually, what this text may be saying is this: Do not resist with evil – or – Do not resist by evil. Well, that really changes things, doesn’t it?

So Jesus isn’t telling us to be doormats when it comes to evil! Jesus is telling us that we should resist it! That we should oppose it! That we should withstand it! But here’s the thing: We do it with love. And if the end is love – if the goal is love – in the Christian faith, as it is, then the end ought to justify the means by which we act. If the goal is love, we are called to fight evil, persecution, and abuse with love – love of self, love of neighbor, and yes, love of enemy. The end justifies the means. Love is the end. Love is the means.

How will you practice that this week?

Renee Roederer

Director of Young Adult Ministries

PPC L.I.F.T.