Turning the Other Cheek

Sometimes it’s discouraging to reflect on my own sermons. The Word of God is so profound, so deep, and I have the wonderful privilege to serve God’s people by studying the Word and preaching it, and yet often I feel like my offerings are so meager. It’s not just the listeners who need to have perseverance and faith!

To be sure, some of what I feel about this morning’s message is due to the limitations of the series—trying to do Matthew in 58 sermons, which is long but often feels not long enough—and the fact that I had a short week due to illness in me and among my family.

I am left with nagging things that I wish could have been said, or said better, in the sermon. “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies” are profound and have many implications, some of which are just plain confounding and confusing. And it’s not good when the sermon may have added to the confusion.

I had a brief discussion with a congregant after the service who was wondering when it is appropriate to turn the other cheek. I had said earlier that Jesus’ words did not mean that we were to accept all abuse in every circumstance, and yet the whole point is that there are times that we should suffer abuse rather than strike back or otherwise defend ourselves. How do we know when we should take the hurt that the world dishes out to us?

In America, we are blessed with a strong, albeit imperfect, system of justice and a wonderful legacy of human rights. Thus, we as citizens are very aware of our rights, and we have the ability through our legal system to see that we “get our rights.” It is quite foreign to us to think of relinquishing our rights or foregoing the opportunity to get what is rightfully ours.

Jesus calls us to be ready and willing to let go of our rights for his sake. This has something to do with thinking of others more than ourselves, but, more significantly in the Sermon on the Mount, it also stands as a complete antithesis of the way this world operates after the Fall. Followers of Christ do not enter the power struggle of this world. It’s not how the kingdom of God works, and it’s not the way the kingdom will come.

If we read this wrongly, we could conclude that Jesus calls us not to combat evil, but to capitulate to it. This is not so, as it is perfectly consistent with “turning the other cheek” to stand up for the rights of others. In fact, fighting for the oppressed or defending the widow and orphan may be what brings the world’s fist against you. But here’s a thought experiment: do non-Christians see us more often fighting for the rights of others, or defending our own?

I fear that, whether at a personal level, or that of the national stage, most people think that Christians are trying to defend their own kind, and their own way of life. We might think we are defending morality, but it is seen as scrapping for our piece of the pie. The world sees us as just another special interest group, and the thing we are most interested in is us.

Fundamentally, I believe that in each situation we have to wrestle with our own hearts as to whether or not we are seeking to defend our rights, and then be ready to relinquish them for the sake of stepping outside of the world’s ways of fighting. We may suffer injustice on the way to the only truly just society, the kingdom of God, but that way is indeed the way of the cross.