Our text from Jewish Scripture (Lev. 19: 1-2, 9-18) and our gospel passage (Mt. 5:8-48) provide an interesting contrast. We finally encounter a portion of Leviticus that is not creepy and, in fact, does challenge the reader to honesty, humility, and compassion. Important traits. And these laws that inculcate them are very positive. Law, after all, deals with minimum acceptable standards of action.
Enter Jesus, with his torqued-up Torah, his radical righteousness calling us above and beyond what other religious traditions demand. First, he calls us to be radically peaceful. He begins by talking about the lex talionis, "an eye for an eye." It is certainly a fair and balanced principle, and Jesus repeals it. He tells us that when we receive the usual challenge to a fight in his culture (backhand to the right cheek), the proper response is turning the left check to be struck as well. I still remember having been told by one of my sons that he was struck by a schoolmate, refused to retaliate and told that offender that he wouldn't fight him, that any disagreement would be worked out peacefully. His antagonist looked confused, he said, and walked away. My son heard the Gospel, I thought, cool!
Jesus next tells us that one who has been compelled to go a mile with someone should go another mile voluntarily. Here is the key: the only person who could compel a person to go with him, and only a mile, was a Roman soldier. Such a soldier would routinely accost a Jew and make him carrying that soldier's gear for a mile. Jesus' response is both Nonviolent Resistance and a strong statement against imperialism. And that, folks, is political!
Second, Jesus called us to be radically generous. He says if someone would take our coat, then we ought to give that person our cloak as well. Only the super-rich had multiple suits of clothing, thus for one to give these two garments would leave the giver naked. Does this sound like Jesus' other admonitions to give all you have away and follow him?
Finally, Jesus calls us to be radically loving. This is the tough one. Actually there is no passage that says love your neighbour and hate your enemy -- we don't know where that comes from -- but the admonition to love neighbour is strong in the Jewish texts. Now Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who hassle us? Is he nuts? Such a practice might actually help us to realize that the enemy is a child of God too, in whose shoes we have not walked, whose story we do not really know, hence benefit of the doubt. From there he goes on to tell us to give to anyone in need, never refuse to lend to the needy. I know this was a requirement my paternal grandfather practised to constant scorn by my grandmother and other family members. Of an unreturned item he was often remembersed to say, "If my neighbour can live with it, I can live without it."
Jesus finally summarizes his crazy radical agenda by saying, "You must be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." Here he employs the rabbinic teaching tool of hyperbole. We humans cannot attain perfection. Still that is the goal to which we strive if we are to be like our celestial Father. I can only hope that occasionally, once in a while, people may see in me some family resemblance.
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