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Morning Devotion for the Season of Epiphany
January 8, 2025
Reading: Matthew 5:38-48
Jesus said, “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 an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the 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. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Meditation - Peter Vanderveen
Most of the time, I really like the idea of “an eye for an eye.” This may be because, most of the time, I feel that it’s a rule that wouldn’t be seriously invoked against me.
And this principle seems ultimately fair, unquestionably just, and supremely efficient. It’s a standard that has simple and direct application. And it leaves no ambiguity. When it’s applied, there’s no room for complaint, for everyone gets what is obviously deserved. Nothing could be cleaner.
Real trouble begins whenever an exception to this rule is made. Then choruses of objection quickly arise. For, in the absence of this measure, we’re left with no acceptable, shared recourse for the resolution of conflicts. And what then?
When Jesus dismissed this idea, the alternative he provided couldn’t have been more different. Fairness is out. So is justice. So is any objective measuring of one’s responsibility. These no longer matter – at all. They are in every sense completely irrelevant. And, as a result, what Jesus advocates is impossible to put into practice in any satisfactory way. How, for example, can one give something to everyone who begs from her? And what would that be? And how much? And how often? What, finally, would be sufficient? When would one’s giving come to a reasonable end? Nothing of what Jesus said helps with these important, intrinsic questions.
To never refuse giving a loan to anyone can’t be a rule. Just as to always offer more to someone than what she may be asking in a lawsuit can’t be a standard which we are responsible to meet. Readers often assume that what Jesus is providing in these verses is a new set of Christian principles that replace the harsher Old Testament law. What is missed in such a reading is the total impracticality of what Jesus advises. It leaves us all in an untenable place.
Jesus, however, isn’t telling us here how we should act, nor is he recalibrating the extent of our responsibilities to one another. He is telling us, rather, how God acts, and that God is capable of functioning far outside of – and independent of – all the laws, (and their subsequent judgments) that we imagine are necessary and inviolable. And in so doing, Jesus engages us in the Herculean task of uprooting what we most want from God, which is a final reckoning. For if we can dispense with this, then, in place of obligation, we can imagine a wholly different approach to one another, which is the freedom to love. And from this freedom all joy arises.
Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen
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