Text: Matthew 5:38–42
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
Cheerfully Belittled
While you’re turning there, I’d like to ask you a question: What is your first instinct when someone insults you? When someone just blatantly treats you as less than human, or slights you, or whatever it is? Don’t you feel your heart swelling with warm regard for your opponent, a kind of deep hope for their good?
No, let’s be honest, often our first instinct is indignation, anger, and the immediate desire to give back what they gave.
This is probably the plot of something like half of all movies—main character is insulted by cool girl/boy, main character goes on to deliciously humiliate cool girl/boy while becoming cool girl/boy along the way.
It makes for satisfying revenge comedies, but this isn’t actually cute; there’s something in that desire and that story arc that betrays a deeply wrong bend in the flesh. How many wars have been fought, how many hundreds of millions killed, how many cities burned, nations destroyed, and lives ruined because of the human thirst for vengeance, because of a kind of sinful pride that responds to insults with fists, to fists with bullets, to bullets with armies?
This instinct—the instance in all of us that immediately fires up when we feel wronged, slighted, dishonored, or insulted, then races onwards towards fantasies of revenge… that instinct has caused personal slights to fester into bloodshed and war.
For example, in 1325, a war was waged between two Italian states, Bologna and Modena, that slaughtered more than 2,000 people—allegedly started over the stealing of a single wooden bucket from a well.
Think about rivalries in your own life—arguments, dissensions, feuds. Think about people you are not on speaking terms with. What started it? And listen, I’m not asking you to pretend, here. There is such a thing, there is a biblical category, for not being at peace with someone, having done all you could for peace, but failing due to the sin of the other party.
But often, it is some small slight or disagreement that could have been headed off by humility and repentance, but which grew and festered into a severed relationship that may never recover.
We are sinners, and one thing that means is that we are far too concerned with our own honor, far too easily provoked, and think far too highly of ourselves. The Lord Jesus will address this craven tendency of the kingdom of fallen men, and show us rather how his people—this people of his Kingdom, whose righteousness will exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees—will operate.
He does so in a text that is often considered scary and confusing, but which turns out to be a massively good gift once we hear it, understand, do the repenting we need do, and walk in grace in his good Kingdom. Look with me at Matthew 5:38. This is the Word of the Living God:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.”
-Matthew 5:38–42
Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith.
Let me give you a thesis statement up front here, my attempt at summarizing the heart of Jesus’ instructions to us here, and then tell you how we’ll handle the text.
A Conflict-Disrupting New Humanity
Part of the gospel of the Kingdom of God—the good news of this Kingdom which has arrived with Jesus, is being established by Jesus as he makes a new humanity in his blood—is that his Kingdom will be the antithesis of vainglorious, proud, arrogant, conflict-escalating, war-loving, brother-murdering, self-protecting fallen humanity.
Jesus is teaching us how to disrupt the vicious, downward spiral of quarreling, bitterness, and death with bold, cheerful, courageous redemptive love.
My aim is to demonstrate this thesis under three main headings this morning: First, we’ll need to establish what Jesus is not saying. This is particularly important, since there are ways we could take this text that would make nonsense not only of other parts of Jesus’ teaching, but also of his very actions. So we need to think carefully here and establish those guardrails up front.
Second, those guardrails established, we’ll simply walk through the five propositions he states here, seek to understand them, and also to get a picture in our heads of what it would mean to obey them here in Weber County, Utah, in the year of our Lord 2020.
Finally, we will simply ask the question, “But how?” How can we do what he is asking us to do? Because make no mistake, this teaching directly confronts the impulses of our flesh. It will force us to make eye contact with those sinful desires, and call us—in love and by grace and for our good—to put a stake through their heart, to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. So we will need to know how we are to obey this teaching.
What Jesus is Not Saying
Let’s get to work. What is Jesus not saying? Number one:
1. Jesus is not saying that the civil laws, particularly those built around the concept of lex talionis, are unjust.
See, when he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you,” he is quoting from Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, and Deuteronomy 19, all passages that say precisely what he quotes.
They each give some variation of that class of laws we often refer to as lex talionis laws—lex talionis, from the Latin, meaning “law of retaliation.”
These laws limited the punishment for crimes to be scaled to the extent of the crime. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Jesus isn’t saying that these laws are unjust. They are quite literally just; they prevent grossly unbalanced punishments for crimes. If someone slaps you unlawfully, you can’t strike his head off with a broadsword.
Lamech’s boast in the Old Testament was therefore ridiculous and unjust, when he threatened 77-fold vengeance on anyone who slighted him. Unjust, because the retribution is disproportional to the crime.
The New Testament assumes the justice of this principle: Paul, for example, says that whoever destroys the temple of God will be destroyed in 1 Corinthians 3:17. Jesus says that whoever is ashamed of the Son of Man will find that the Son of Man is ashamed of him in Mark 8:38.
So Jesus isn’t saying that God’s Law is unjust. We’ll get into this more in the next section, but what he is fundamentally forbidding is personal vengeance, undue concern for personal honor, and the general tendency of human beings to love mercy for themselves, but hate it for their enemies. This is wicked and it is self-righteous, and we must crucify it for the sake of Christ’s fame and our good.
2. Jesus is not establishing a new way for the civil government to rule.
Jesus isn’t teaching the overthrow of all civil penalty. Again, the New Testament makes clear that God’s deacons in the sphere of civil government are to bear the sword, and not to do so in vain.
The civil magistrate is required to uphold the just penalty of the law, in fact. In Deuteronomy 19, they are forbidden from shrinking back from administering civil sanctions.
To import this teaching wholesale into the legislature would be to make a category error similar to that which is made when socialists argue from calls to personal charity to pursue so-called “charity” in the form of state welfare programs. Those are totally different categories.
Individuals, as we’ll see, are to give generously to the poor, full stop. But to say that this command also authorizes a government to steal from its citizenry at gunpoint in campaigns of wealth redistribution is a category error—those are not the same acts, morally speaking.
This instruction of Jesus is much most relevant to our own personal dealings with one another and with our enemies than it is to do with civil penalties.
3. Jesus is not teaching universal pacifism and nonviolence.
A mistake that is often made in this text would be to say that Jesus forbids any kind of use of force in defense of life.
This would again be a mistake, because it fails to reckon with the specific examples Jesus gives. I have heard people teach through this passage that if you were to come upon a scene of violence against an innocent party—let’s say, you take a walk through the park late in the evening and come around a corner only to find a man assaulting a woman—that you shouldn’t use force to stop it.
Nonsense. You’d likely be sinning not to do so.
Jesus is teaching about situations where personal affronts are at the foreground, not threats to life and limb. We’ll see that in a moment.
4. Jesus is not teaching a kind of stoic realism.
Jesus isn’t teaching that we would become stoics, that when we’re dishonored, when we’re slighted, we would sort of grind our teeth and seethe quietly at the person while outwardly maintaining calm.
He’s not saying we should merely make peace with the world as it is—Stoic realism—and decide to do nothing since we can’t really change the fundamental injustice at hand anyway. Jesus isn’t preaching passivity, but rather a certain kind of bold, cheerful, strong action.
What is Jesus Saying?
So what is Jesus saying? Let’s read the text again and work through its parts.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.”
-Matthew 5:38–42
Jesus’ Kingdom is not going to be marked by petty, human vengeance-taking, but true and divine justice. It is not going to be marked by increasingly escalating disputes, born from the pride of arrogant men.
It is not to be a Kingdom whose citizens are eager for their own honor, but a Kingdom whose citizens are eager to be poured out, given away, and used up in the service of God and people—even if those people begin as enemies.
He would have us make eye contact with the instinct of our flesh to consider ourselves as little gods and demand the world’s worship, and show us how to put that devilish desire to death—even as we become instruments in his hand to disrupt cycles of human warring.
Jesus is not here teaching us passivity and weakness, but rather action and strength—strength born from love, and that love not our own, but the very love of God being poured through us like water from a spring.
So in that spirit, understanding the central aim of this teaching—to guard us against self-protective, vengeance-seeking denial of God’s justice, provision, and goodness to us, his people—let’s work through each of his points:
1. Do not resist the one who is evil.
Again, this is not an absolute statement, intended to stand on its own and be read on its own, but rather in its context.
It’s actually possible to translate this sentence, “Do not resist by evil means.” But whether or not we should take it that way or the way it is translated here in the ESV, it is not an absolute prohibition against any resistance to the works of the wicked.
Jesus resists Satan a chapter earlier, in Matthew 4. We’re called to do the same, to resist the Devil, that he might flee from us. Jesus resists the scribes and the Pharisees. Paul tells us to expose the unfruitful works of darkness—all of these are resistance.
But what he is telling us is that, in the context he is about to describe, we are not to resist in the way the world resists. What is that context? The context is resisting evildoers the way evildoers resist, especially in specific categories: Vengeance. Honor. Personal affront.
We’ll see it plainly as he gives us examples, starting with the second instruction.
2. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
He says,
“Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
Jesus is teaching us how to behave when dishonored. This text is about dishonor more than it is about violent assault. Remember, he is instructing his followers—who are going to be reviled for his name’s sake, who are going to have their names cursed and repudiated, who are going to be hated and rejected—how to conduct themselves when they are hated and reviled and rejected. That’s the context.
To hit someone on the right cheek isn’t an attempt on their life, but a serious dishonor. It either means a right-handed person is hitting you with the back of their hand, or it means that they are hitting you with their left hand—which was reserved for dishonorable work, such as bathroom-related things, in that time.
This person who slaps you is insulting you. He is saying you are less than himself. He is attacking, not your health, but your dignity.
Lex talionis would not be to defend your life, to draw your sidearm, but to slap him back, to escalate the disagreement. So what would have have us do instead?
Turn the other cheek and offer it to the one who has insulted you. Now, think about how strong an act this is. Rather than entering into the downward spiral of strike and counter-strike, his people are to disrupt the spiral with redemptive love.
It is a kind of love that says to a person who has treated you as less than human, “I refuse to treat you likewise.” It is a kind of love that says to your enemy, “I will bear your sin against me without sinning back.” It is a cheerful willingness to be wronged, and to care more about the person wronging you than your own honor.
3. If anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
The third instruction,
“Do not resist the one who is evil… if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.”
The tunic here is a kind of undergarment, warn against the skin, and the cloak an outer sort of jacket. It may seem strange to us that someone would sue to take something like this, but in the days before machine-woven fabrics and mass production, clothing was very expensive. It would actually be unlawful on the basis of Deuteronomy 24 to sue a poor person for their cloak, since that would have been used for a blanket at night.
So Jesus’ instruction here would actually heap shame on a person who sued you. It would do two things at the same time, both of them fundamentally loving: It would reveal the hard-heartedness of the one suing, and it would say, “I won’t come down to your level.”
Both of these are loving, because it is a grace to see your own sin, your own hard-heartedness.
4. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
Instruction four,
“Do not resist the one who is evil… if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
Roman law allowed for soldiers to require a Jew to carry a burden up to a mile without compensation. You can imagine how this law would have been used to insult the occupied people.
Jesus urges his people—rather than either begrudgingly fulfilling their duty, glowering at the offending party, or refusing—to cheerfully go double.
5. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Finally, the fifth instruction,
“Do not resist the one who is evil… Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.”
So we are not only to be generous with our honor and our enemies, but with our money. Give. Be free. The kingdom of fallen men are ruled by greed and conflict-escalating pride. Be not like them. Don’t worry about not having enough. Don’t worry about not having enough honor, enough money, enough clothing, enough whatever—but rather trust the Lord to provide for you and give.
Notice that in all of these, Jesus practiced what he preached. Not only did he come with healing and good news for the poor and the beggar, his tunic was taken from him. His cheek was struck. He was forced to carry a burden. He was dishonored and reviled.
We are saved by his obedience to his own teaching here—having mercy on the very people who put him on the cross by means of our sin. He is the suffering servant promised by Isaiah:
“The Lord GOD has given me
the tongue of those who are taught,
that I may know how to sustain with a word
him who is weary.
Morning by morning he awakens;
he awakens my ear
to hear as those who are taught.
The Lord GOD has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious;
I turned not backward.
I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face
from disgrace and spitting.”-Isaiah 50:4–6
He bore our sins and our reviling and our rebellion in his body on the cross. And so he calls us, not to do what he hasn’t, but to humbly follow after him.
But How?
And maybe you ask, as I ask at this point, “But how on earth can we obey this teaching? Won’t be become doormats?”
1. Obey this part of the sermon by remembering what Jesus promised us at the beginning of the sermon.
Blessed are you when others revile you. God blesses you when you are cursed.
2. Obey this teaching by remembering that God is just, and that he will bring every word, deed, thought, and action into harmony with perfect justice.
In Romans 12:19, Paul writes,
“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” -Romans 12:19
God will vindicate his people. He will avenge.
3. Obey this teaching by trusting God to provide for your physical and monetary needs.
“Won’t I be poor, naked, hurt, and helpless if I follow this teaching?” No, because God is with you. Seek first his Kingdom and all these things will be added to you.
4. Obey this teaching by believing that God will honor you.
We worry that if we don’t guard our own honor, nobody will. We worry that if we don’t vindicate ourselves, nobody will. But listen: God doesn’t just promise honor to his people, but glory. He is bringing us to glorification in the image of his Son. So the question is plain: Can you honor you better, or could, I don’t know… God?
Don’t be jealous for your own honor, because you won’t do a good enough job at it anyway. God will honor those who die to themselves and cheerfully face dishonor with humble confidence.
This is precisely how the Father responded to the willingness of the Son to face reviling and dishonor. Remember that passage in Isaiah 50:4–6? The very next verse, after describing the utter dishonor that Jesus faced, promises:
“But the Lord GOD helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame.”-Isaiah 50:4–6
Jesus set his face like flint, strong, bold, and courageous in his love, because he knew that reviling would not be the last word. He was no Stoic. He saw past the pain to the joy set before him, and so he endured the cross. We, too, have an unimaginable weight of glory and joy on the other side of every act of death to self for the sake of others. We don’t just die with Christ. We rise with him. We live in him.