On the Plain Part 2: Enemies

Text:    Luke 6:27-38

The cluster of sayings about dealing with enemies probably goes back to the historical Jesus as a whole: “Love your enemies”; “When someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well”; “When someone takes away your coat, don’t prevent that person from taking your shirt along with it.”  Luke ends the series there, and adds: “Give to everyone who begs from you.”  Luke then offers explanations that generally soften the original.  Luke’s Jesus expands on “love your enemies” with“do favors for those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for your abusers.”  The admonition to “turn the other cheek” is associated with “pray for your abusers.”  This is all good advice for getting along in your local community, and collaborating with the foreign army that has taken over the town square.  

But Matthew’s Jesus tells his listeners, “Don’t react violently against the one who is evil; when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well.  When someone wants to sue you for your shirt, let that person have your coat along with it.” Matthew’s version is vintage Jesus (Matthew 5:39-42a), beginning with the suggestion that violence be countered with non-violence.  One theory about the “right cheek/left cheek” dichotomy certainly would undermine the Roman occupiers.  A back-handed slap (which is the only way to hit the left side of someone’s face with the right, dominant, hand) was a demonstration of master-slave contempt.  To then offer the left cheek as well transformed the insult into an encounter between equals.  Jesus’s next suggestion would leave most folks falling out laughing – the age-old counter to oppression.  In a society where most people had only one or two garments, giving up both coat and shirt would leave you naked.  Finally, Matthew’s Jesus advises subversion.  Walk a second mile when conscripted by a Roman soldier and force your captor to break his own law.  The JS Scholars suggest that Luke left that part out because Luke was highly likely to have been attempting to make Christianity look safe and legal for Roman consumption.  It would be politically expedient not to be too critical of his Roman readers, as represented by his mysterious friend, Theophilius (the “god lover”).  

Luke’s version removes the radicality that corrects the imbalance of power.  The commandment to love your enemies has been reduced to a suggestion.  Luke’s Jesus goes from turning the other cheek to “give to everyone who begs from you, and when someone takes your things, don’t ask for them back.”  The immediate objection among Luke’s readers would be, “but then I won’t have anything!”  In God’s realm of distributive justice-compassion, which the historical Jesus demonstrated, individual possessions are meaningless.  But outside the kingdom, in normal civilization, adjustments to God’s radical fairness must be made.  A fascinating quotation from the Didache of the 2nd Century, c.e., could have been written to the editor of any local newspaper just last week:  “Remember, if anyone accepts charity when in need, that person is blameless.  BUT if such a person is not in need, that person will have to answer for what and why he or she accepted it.  He or she will be imprisoned and put to the test for every deed performed, and will not get out until the last cent has been repaid. . . . Let your contributions sweat in the palms of your hands until you know to whom you are giving” (The Five Gospels, p. 295).

In that spirit, New York Times conservative pundit David Brooks wrote, “Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.”  The historical, social, and political realities that Brooks ignores and misrepresents have been discussed elsewhere.  The point here is that Brooks not only blamed the victims, he trotted out the usual “cultural” argument, which barely passes the racism smell test.  That his article advocates some kind of “tough love” treatment for marginally viable nations like Haiti does not redeem Brooks from his own culturally based disdain for Haitians (and presumably anyone else) who does not live up to Western standards.  He seems to have forgotten Luke's version of the Golden Rule. “Treat people the way you want them to treat you,” Luke’s Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?  After all, even sinners love those who love them . . . Even sinners lend to sinners in order to get as much in return . . . do good and lend, expecting nothing in return . . . and you’ll be children of the Most High.  As you know, [God] is generous to the ungrateful and the wicked. . . . Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. . . forgive and you’ll be forgiven . . . For the standard you apply will be the standard applied to you.”

Careful readers may be feeling a bit confused by this point.  Wait a minute!  Aren’t we mixing metaphors here?  We started with subverting an enemy, and now here we are talking about compassion toward the poor.  Indeed.  That is precisely what Luke apparently did with the tradition.  Luke was creating his gospel for non-Jewish “God-worshipers,” 30 years after the sacking of Jerusalem.  His readers were highly likely to have been part of the richer classes of villa owners, artisans (such as Lydia, whom we have met before and will meet again in Acts 16), merchants, and traders.  Most were citizens in good standing with the Roman empire.  Just as today, most Western citizens are in good standing with the global “Pax Americana.”

The tables have indeed turned, and the metaphor has become mixed.  Today, to speak about non-violence in the face of terrorism is close to treason.  Bringing it all back home, up close and personal, 21st Century Americans would rather continue water-boarding Khalil Sheik Mohammad than give him a fair trial by a New York jury.  Of course, the expectation that the jury will convict and impose the death penalty is hardly showing love to an enemy.  

Jesus’s radical indifference to the consequences of literally giving away everything so that others can live is considered detrimental to the poor, who ought to be able to save themselves with a few micro-business opportunities and surplus food from NGO providers.  As if that weren’t enough to illustrate the breath-taking lack of compassion of U.S. heroism, medical evacuations from Haiti were stopped for two days, while the Governor of Florida argued with the feds and other states about who would pay.  Apparently no one in any of the layers of administrative leadership realizes that the failure to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care to those who cannot get it on their own leads directly to the kind of reactionary despair that feeds terrorism.

The metaphor is not mixed.  The poor and disenfranchised, the oppressed, the disrespected, are all enemies of unrestrained business-as-usual.  The twist to Jesus’s original prime directive has been lost in familiar glibness.   Love your enemies and you have no enemies. 

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