Matthew 5:38-42 NRSVue

³⁸“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, ⁴⁰and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well, ⁴¹and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. ⁴²Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

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Some thoughts on this scripture

Reflection
This is a hard one: to offer the wicked no resistance, but turn the other cheek. Where will it leave us? I think of Belloc’s couplet: /Pale Ebeneezer thought it wrong to fight, But Battling Bill who killed him thought it right./

Reflection
What do you mean by it, Lord? I watched when your face was slapped before the high priest Caiaphas. You answered calmly: /If I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?/ Your resistance was moral, not physical or violent. That calls for greater courage and strength than taking up arms: Gandhi, not Cromwell.

Reflection
I try to listen to these words of Jesus not as law-giving, perhaps not even as a sermon, but as a message that is given for my freedom. Jesus wants me to be free of limits that I may have set upon myself by imagining others wrongly. I pray that attitudes and actions may change by my acting in the freedom that Jesus gives.

Reflection
I often look to God for what I want and often receive what I need. I think of how I might be generous to those who look to me.

Reflection
Jesus calls us to look beyond the limit of the law. We need to be generous and imaginative if we are to rise beyond the restrictions that life presents.

Reflection
I think of how I might be free from the constraints I find by acting from a generous spirit. I ask God to inspire and help me.