Matthew 5:38-42

"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 evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."

There tends to be a great deal of debate about this particular passage from the Sermon on the Mount, which is Jesus' great statement of intent. Many, not knowing any better, will rhetorically and sarcastically ask "what, are we just supposed to turn the other cheek?!?" They ask this as though it isn't exactly what Jesus taught. There does seem to be a trend in modern Christianity that treats Jesus' actual teachings like bumper stickers made up by hippies in the 1960s which noone has to actually pay attention to.

Others will point out that this whole "turn the other cheek" business actually has to do with civil disobedience rather than not using violence as such. And you know what? They're right! The passage which actually condemns the use of violence is the one that comes AFTER this passage, Matthew 5:43-46: "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 do good for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"

The "turn the other cheek" passage is, in truth, a pattern and call for non-violent resistance. To understand this, it is worth looking at each particular verse...

But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

In Roman occupied Palestine, there was a certain standard of class interaction. When slapping someone of the lower classes, a person would use the back of their hand, striking their victim across the right cheek. By turning their other cheek to their slapper, the one being slapped is demanding to be slapped open-palmed rather than backhanded. In so doing, they are asserting their equality.

This assertion of equality places the one doing the slapping in an awkward position. The person of lower class is, by asserting their equality, being defiant to their "better". For that they deserve to be slapped. However, the only way to slap them now is open-palmed, which would grant them the status of equal. The slapper is forced either to admit the equality of the person being slapped, or to cow down before them and, in so doing, admit inferiority. They could just start beating on the person another way, but to do so would be unjustified, since the person being slapped isn't fighting back or anything.

This teaching of Jesus, then, is a form of non-violent resistance to systemic classism and inequality. Yes it means someone is getting hit, but they are using their being hit to make a public statement which embarasses and disempowers the person of higher class.

If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.

This is a direct reference to a particular law in the book of Deuteronomy, chaper 24, verses 10-13: "When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not enter his house to take his pledge. You shall remain outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. When the sun goes down you shall surely return the pledge to him, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it will be righteousness for you before the LORD your God."

What this is saying is that a person to whom the "pledge" of the outer garment is owed will not actually take it upon themselves to obtain the shirt. This is especially true if the debtor is poor and has little but the shirt. The debtor needs the garment to keep warm in the cold desert evenings, and by allowing them to have their shirt back at night, they will praise the kindness of the person to whom they are indebted and this kindness will be seen as righteous in the eyes of God.

By the time of Jesus, this Law was being quite thuroughly ignored. You had the lenders demanding the shirts off the backs of the poor, even taking them to court and suing them for the shirts. They were not heeding the Law which provides for justice and dignity.

So in repsonse, Jesus is advocating that the person being sued not only give them their shirt, but their cloak as well: both the inner and outer garments. The typical outfit of a Palestinian peasant was a mere two-piece outer garment and inner garment. By voluntarily giving both, the person being sued is protesting an injust system which disobeys the Law. They are saying in effect "here, if you want the only thing that keeps me warm at night so damn bad, you might as well take everything!"

And everything it was: without both the garments, the person would be standing naked in the court, reduced to absolutely nothing. However, unlike our society, in Biblical society the shame of nakedness is upon the one seeing it, not upon the one who is naked. For example, when Noah's son Ham gazed upon his drunken father's nakedness, it was Ham who was cast out and cursed (Genesis 9:20-27). Not only is the person protesting an injust system, but terribly shaming the individual suing them.

Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.

Roman soldiers were entitled by Roman law to compell people in occupied lands to carry their military gear for a mile. For fear of excessive abuse, of course, they were only entitled to do this for a single mile and no more. Should they press the person to carry it for more than a mile, the soldiers could suffer discipline.

We see an example of this practice in the Gospels, when the Romans force someone to carry Jesus' cross. Matthew 27:32: As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross.

It doesn't take much to see where Jesus was going with this teaching. By advocating that people voluntarily carry the soldiers' gear for more than a mile, it places the soldier in a rather sticky predicament. If the person is allowed to carry the pack for any longer, it is the soldier who could get beaten and flogged.

Imagine a soldier from the greatest empire on earth, an empire which is brutally occupying this poor backwater land, who is reduced to PLEADING with one of the people of this land! The soldier would be BEGGING him or her to stop carrying their gear! This is an extreme devaluation: the oppressed person is asserting their superiority over their oppressor by forcing the oppressor to beg and plead with them.

If too desperate, the soldier might even resort to beating the person carrying their pack. But this only condemns and reveals the depravity of the soldier... It embarasses the soldier because they are reduced to beating someone for doing that which the soldier pressed them into doing to begin with as an imperial perogative. It exposes the corruption of the occupying force.

The final advice, Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you doesn't really require that much elaboration. It is basically saying to kill your enemy with kindness, not withholding anything from them, but joyfully working for their good and thus making them feel as guilty as heck. By this example of kindness, one is engaged in that most fundamental work of non-violent resistance: the conversion, rather than the defeat, of the enemy. This verse then segues into the passage about loving our enemies and doing good to those who persecute us.

So here, like in the Temple, we see Jesus advocating non-violent resistance and civil disobedience as the pattern for the improvement of society. Violence only breeds more violence, but by exposing injust systems and working to convert the enemy, we breed peace.