Day 13

While I was reading today’s Scripture,(Matthew 5:38-42)  I was taken back to the story of Lamech in Genesis.  Lamech had carried out vengeance to an extreme (killing a man for hitting him).  So in one sense, “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ seems controlled, reasonable, limiting.  But Jesus takes the prohibition to the limit–actually putting revenge in reverse.  Rather than responding with violence, respond with nonviolence.  Why?  Violence for violence doesn’t challenge the culture of violence.  It confirms it.  A new response is required if we are going to be citizens of the kingdom and people of Shalom.

But is Jesus advocating that we be doormats?  I don’t think so.  A doormat does nothing.  Jesus expects an action.  Action implies ability and power.  Walter Wink in his short book, Jesus and Nonviolence, gives very helpful insight into how the actions Jesus suggests actually push the aggressor into the light so the injustice is exposed.  Jesus is not suggesting we “lay down and die” in the face of aggression.  He is proposing a new strategy that challenges the aggression without violence.