You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.

For 1000s of years before the Jews, the rule that all people lived by was the “law of the strongman.” If you had money or power, your life was worth more than those without, and all people sought these things over everything else, and at the expense of everyone else. When God, on the mountain, gave His law to the Moses, He changed everything. “Eye for Eye,” elevated all of human life to the same level. It meant that all were equal, all were valued as persons in God’s kingdom. I cannot emphasize enough how different this thought was from the way people lived at that time. This law progressed society more than any other thing that humans have done up to that time.

But god was not done there. In Jesus’ teachings here, He changed people again with the command to turn other cheek. Important note here is that Jesus was not changing the law here, He was expanding it, or progressing it for the next evolution of morality. “Eye for an eye” was intended to help make society more moral and equal. “Turn the other cheek” was intended to help people learn to not return violence with violence. This teaching did two things that were ground breaking. First it caused people to not think of revenge on a personal level. Eye for eye was about equality, turn the cheek was about justice.

In those times, powerful people often struck their servants and lower class people with an open palm on their right hand, and sadly this was accepted and allowed. So in order to strike someone on the other cheek required the use of back of your right hand. The left hand was not ever used because the left hand was considered unclean and to strike with the back of the right hand was to treat someone the way a master would treat a slave or an animal, which was not permitted in Jewish law. So if you turned your other check to your aggressor, it meant that you were daring your attacker to strike you again, and to do it in an unlawful way.

Jesus then is clearly teaching us here to not return aggression with more aggression, but more importantly he is teaching a new type of resistance, saying to his attacker, I will not return violence with violence, but I will also not allow you to treat me like a slave or an animal. This teaching thus again moved society forward, raising the bar, teaching people the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, and teaching that God commands that we treat all people as if they are our brothers and sisters, and not our possessions.

Morality is a reflection of how things will be in the kingdom of heaven, and since we humans are so far from that high call, that high love. God has chosen to slowly moved society forward and show us how to evolve from living like animals to being beloved sons and daughters in the kingdom of heaven. That is our call too, to follow Christ Jesus, and learn how to be a saint, and then conform our lives to that call. Nothing unclean can enter heaven, so this is our life’s work, to do good and resist evil, and reconcile our sins with God before we die. You must accomplish this before the end of your time. It is better to start now, while you still have time, don’t wait to the end when it will be too late.

Oh lord, help me today to see and treat my fellow man as if they were my brother or sister, and to love them the way you do. Amen.