17 June 2024 Matthew 5:38-42 Dr. David C. Campbell
“But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.” Matthew 5:39
This text is an object lesson on what happens when you read verses out of context. If they are read in isolation, “Offer no resistance,” “Give up your coat as well as your cloak,” and “Go the second mile” mean we show pedophiles where the children are. They mean we give people a lift to the abortion clinic, and shrug when fentanyl is for sale at the 7-11. Stripped of context, these verses make Christians into ignorant provocateurs and moral idiots.
Which is why it is so important to pay close attention to how this text begins: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye,’ and ‘A tooth for a tooth’” (Matthew 5:38). This is a text about vengeance, about getting even. If you are resisting evil to get even, then you are the moral idiot, because vengeance never works.
Every injury takes something from you that can never be given back, and the more serious the injury, the more that is true. Whatever is taken is gone forever, and you have been permanently changed. The notion that an equal and opposite injury can somehow restore the status quo ante is the sheerest stupidity, and has only ever multiplied the misery.
A boy’s mother neglects him, takes little interest in his struggles and sorrows, his passions and pastimes. At the same time, the mother takes elaborate interest in his sister’s life, encourages her, spends time with her, cultivates her interests. He decides to get even by being miserable and bad-tempered with his mother.
Does she have it coming? Yes. Is the boy justified in his anger? Emphatically yes. Does it solve anything? Does it make anyone any better? Certainly not. The opposite, in fact – it makes more people even more unhappy, and many of those people have no idea what is going on, don’t know why the boy is so mad.
So, what can be done? There are impossibilities. The mother cannot give the boy the childhood he should have had, the one he deserved. That ship has sailed. The son cannot have the relationship with his mother that he wanted, the kind his sister had, may still have. He can’t get even. What he can do is forgive his mother for the things she can no longer give. They can set aside the relationship they can’t have, and work on the relationship they can have.
That’s what Jesus is talking about when He says, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil.” Every injury takes something irreplaceable. Vengeance keeps the wound from healing, makes sure it always bleeds. Mercy turns wounds into scars. The scars may be there forever, but so is the mercy.
On the evening of Easter Jesus appeared in the Upper Room. He was not the same Jesus as before – they could see, and touch where He was hurt. But they were the scars not of a dead prophet but a Living Savior.
Resisting evil to get even is folly. Resisting evil to protect the innocent, to cast out demons, to prevent useless, unjust suffering is always on the Christian agenda. Knowing the difference is knowing the Living Savior.
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