5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:5:39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
It’s hardly the first time I’ve read these words of Jesus. So what is it about them that I still find so... “jarring”? Why is it that, as I read these words, it really does feel a bit like getting a metaphorical slap in the face?
I suppose it’s partly because they turn commonsense, and my entire world-view, completely upside-down. In fact, throughout the whole chapter, Jesus seems determined to overturn everything I thought I knew about life – just like he literally “overturned” the lives of a certain bunch of “moneychangers” in Matthew 21.
“If someone hits you with a left,” says Jesus. “Drop your guard, and give him a shot at the other cheek!”
“If that big bully hits you again,” says Mum. “You jolly well hit him back, and you can bet he won’t be quite so eager to pick on you again!”
Why should I listen to Jesus, when Mum told me to do the exact opposite of what he says? Why shouldn’t I listen to Mum, when what she told me to do turned out to be absolutely one hundred percent correct? (That big bully never ever bothered me again!)
Turn the other cheek? You must be joking! Why should I?
Well, for one reason, that’s what God would do...
5:45 He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
But whichever way you look at it, “sending rain” from a nice safe distance is a whole lot different to an up-close-and-personal slap in the face. With all due respect, what does God know about life on the street?
And then I read Matthew 26. And I realise that God knows more about turning the other cheek than I’ll ever know...
26:67 Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands.
But a small, pig-headed part of me still tries to argue that this is a special case, and it simply doesn’t apply to me. Jesus was the one-and-only Son of God, with a special and unique work to do. It was all very well for him to go like a lamb to the slaughter, but in the real world, it’s just not realistic, it’s just not reasonable, to expect ordinary people to live like that.
Ordinary people have to live in the world as it is, not as we’d all like it to be. Turning the other cheek is fine as an “ideal” – a beautiful, but totally impractical, moral standard – but the inconvenient truth is that people will walk all over you, if you let them.
If you don’t stick up for yourself, then who on earth do you think will!?
And then, just when I’m actually beginning to convince myself, I have to go and spoil it by noticing something about that last sentence – something that forces me to reconsider my whole position, and take another look at what Jesus has been trying to tell me.
Because at the middle of that sentence is the word... “self”. It’s a word that’s also found in Matthew 16...
16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Now there’s an “inconvenient” truth, if ever I’ve heard one! Because the truth is, if I want to “come after” Jesus, and through him enter into union with the life of God, my own life, my own “self”, must be repeatedly “denied”, and in a sense, continually put to death.
Whenever “self” is in the ascendency, the “life-of-God-in-me” has to take a back seat. Whenever I am self-absorbed, self-assertive, self-assured, self-concerned, self-confident, self-conscious, self-content... there’s just simply “no room at the inn” for the life of God in me.
So when Jesus says things like, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3) and then goes on to say, “A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:23) he’s not just referring to material wealth, but to the riches of a self-sufficient soul that has, within itself, everything it could possibly need to live a full and prosperous life – everything that is, but the one “needful thing” – the true riches of life-eternal dwelling within.
Which, in a round about way, brings me back to the prickly subject of turning the other cheek...
Now, before we go any further, I probably ought to confess that I’ve not actually been punched in the mouth, or even slapped in the face, since I said goodbye to the so-called “play”-ground of Queen Elizabeth’s School for Boys, a long, long time ago. But over the years I’ve discovered that grown-ups have their own ways of slapping you down, without even having to lift a finger.
And when you do find yourself on the receiving-end of a barbed comment, or a humiliating remark – when you’re given the cold shoulder, or deftly stabbed in the back – usually the first thing to be hurt is your pride. And, if you’re anything like me, your pride will usually have plenty to say about it...
How dare they treat me like that? – It’s about time I got a bit of respect around here! No, I’m not perfect, but I shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of treatment – and I’ll be damned if I’m going to take it lying down this time! Just who do they think they are? – That’s what I’d like to know! Who on earth gave them the right to treat me like that?
And already the damage has been done – long before pride turns into indignation, and indignation turns into anger, and anger turns into retaliation. No wonder Oswald Chambers called pride, “the deification of self” (go back and count the number of times you’ve just read the words “I” and “me” if you’ve any doubts on that score!) And wherever self is at the centre, wherever self is exalted, wherever self is made “god”, God’s life in me is quenched, and choked, and slowly but surely expires.
And so there’s a choice to be made. When I’m the lucky recipient of a good old-fashioned slap in the face – in the literal sense, or in that slightly more sophisticated, but no less painful, “grown-up” manner – I can either do what comes naturally, do what anyone in my position would do, do what I’ve every right to do, do what Mum told me to do, and jolly well stand up for myself – or I can waive my own rights, disregard my own desires, deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Jesus.
If I choose the former, I can walk away with my pride intact and my head held high, but the life of God within will almost certainly be weakened and diminished in the process. If I choose the latter, if I am prepared to lose face, turn the other cheek, and in a sense die to myself, then I will almost certainly find that the flip side of “dying to self” is “living to God”.
