Aim Higher

The scriptures referred to are Luke 6:27-38.

I had to go to pre-school to pick up a certain someone who had hit a couple of kids. So since I had to watch that person the rest of the day, we had a long earnest discussion of the foundational principle of interpersonal ethics, the dictum included in the oath I and every nurse and doctor takes: first do no harm. It doesn't matter if someone takes the toy you wanted to play with or if someone was mean to you, you don't try to hurt that person. When you get older, they don't just call your parents to have someone collect you from school; they call the cops and put you in jail. Sadly some adults have learned or conceived of other ways to hurt or harm people, ways that may or may not be legal but which are definitely immoral. Thus big corporations, when blocked from doing something by individuals, will file dozens of nuisance lawsuits against such folks to bankrupt them. Politicians will smear their opponents with innuendo or false accusations that fall just short of libel or slander. Whistleblowers will endure character assassination and be called disgruntled employees so it is hard for them to get another job.

So “first do no harm” is a good start in how to act towards others. And I like using the word “harm” because as a nurse, you sometimes to have to cause pain to make the person better. Some dressing changes are painful because tissues stick and cleansing a wound can smart. Physical therapy can hurt but you need to do it if you are, say, going to walk again. Harm has to do with injuring the person. That's what you want to avoid.

But if that were the sole moral principle you followed, you would still fall short of being a good member of the community. The next step ethically would be to do what you can to see that no one is harmed by other persons or other means. You cannot stand by while injury and injustice is being done to someone else. We understand this when the person being harmed is a family member or friend. Hopefully we will step in to defend a loved one. But as Jesus says in today's gospel, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.”

In fact some people regard those they love as an extension of themselves. So they are not so much defending the other person as they are defending their possession. A lot of abusive partners are hyper-jealous, seeing their girlfriend or wife not as an individual but as wholly theirs. Whenever you hear of the murder/suicide of a woman by her ex, it is because he did not see her as a person in her own right. He cannot bear the thought of her outliving him or even having a separate life apart from him. The same is true if he also kills their children. Fortunately most of us do evolve morally to the point where we acknowledge that our loved ones are not “Mini-Me”s but people with the right to make their own choices.

So the next step in being an ethical person is to regard and treat everyone in the world as an individual having the same rights as yourself. And that idea is easy to accept if that other person is an abstraction. It becomes more difficult when you try to apply this to specific people you don't care for. It may be those who are of a different race or political party or sexual orientation or religion. They may belong to a different culture or country. They may speak a different language or speak with an accent or use different grammar or jargon than you do. When we lived in tribes or clans, we considered ourselves safer among those who looked, spoke and acted like us. The birth of the kingdom or the nation challenged that deep-seated assumption. We had to expand the circle of those we trusted. And in a world as intimately interconnected and mobile as ours, the challenge is to not stay mired in the parochialism of the past.

But let's say you have internalized the concept of accepting all of your fellow Americans, regardless of race, creed, gender, national origin, or sexual orientation. And let's say you have even gotten to the place where you think of yourself as a citizen of the world, not just the geographical place in which you live. The next step in being a good person is not just to not harm others, or not let them be harmed, but to work for the good of any and all. The priest and the Levite who walked past the beaten man in the parable of the good Samaritan did nothing to make the man worse but they took no positive steps to help him. The Samaritan went out of his way to help the man and get him healed.

Today we would just call 911. But that was not an option then. The Samaritan had no way of summoning aid. He was the mugged man's only hope. And he rose to the occasion. He got his hands dirty and his clothes bloody. He bandaged the man's wounds, pouring on oil and wine, the only disinfectants they had then. He put the battered man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. Then he paid the innkeeper to take care of the man in his absence, promising to reimburse him for any extra expenses. (Luke 10:25-37) He went above and beyond. If we had a world where everyone did that for any in need, the kingdom of God would have arrived.

But there is an important detail that we tend to forget when we examine that parable. As it says in John, “...the Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” (John 4:9) The Jews considered the Samaritans heretics and half-breeds. They were the descendants of the poor people of the ten lost tribes of Israel not taken into exile by the Assyrians. They had intermarried with the non-Hebrews who were brought into the land from other nations. The Samaritans had their own temple on Mount Gerizim, which the Jewish high priest John Hyracanus destroyed during the Maccabean Revolt. And in 52 AD Samaritans massacred Galilean pilgrims heading to Jerusalem. The two peoples were enemies. And in his parable Jesus made a Samaritan, an enemy of the Jews, the hero.

So small wonder Jesus articulates an even higher ethical standard than merely helping any person you can. He expects us to love our enemies as well. The Greek word literally means those you hate and even those who are hostile to you. You could render this command “love the hateful.” And in case we don't get the full import of that, Jesus elaborates: “...do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” So Jesus doesn't mean “be nice to the person you're not that crazy about”; he means “love the person who has set himself against you.”

I do have a quibble about the translation here and it is more the fault of the way the English language has evolved recently. The Greek word underlying “abuse” does not refer to what we call domestic abuse, sexual abuse or child abuse. Its root is the Greek word for “insult, slander, accuse.” Jesus is talking to his disciples and thinking about religious persecution. 

Jesus then goes on to spell out how this looks in action. “ If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also...” Again he is not talking about intimate abuse but the kind of religious intolerance he himself encountered in Nazareth. (Luke 4:22-30) Indeed at his initial trial before the high priest, Jesus was struck and insulted and did not retaliate. (Luke 22:63-65; John 18:22-23) He practiced what he preached.

Jesus then says, “...and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.” The words translated “coat” and “shirt” mean “outer garment” and “undergarment” respectively. So Jesus is saying let them strip you naked. Again this happened to Jesus at his crucifixion. (John 19:23)

Why is Jesus counseling this extreme pacifism? I think he is painting a picture of what his disciples will face when they are persecuted for following him. But notice he is not saying, “They will slap both of your cheeks” but “When they strike one cheek, offer the other.” “When they take your outer garment, don't stop them from taking your undergarment.” In other words, don't cower and pull away. Stand your ground and let them know you are not afraid of them or of what they can do.

Some commentators make much of the fact that in Matthew the right cheek is mentioned as the one slapped. That would be a deliberate insult in that honor/shame culture, especially since it would be presumably be done with the left hand. And the aggressor could be taken to court. Similarly, a creditor could not legally take and keep a debtor's outer garment. (Exodus 22:26-27; Deuteronomy 24:12-13) If the debtor was poor, it might be the only garment he has. By being overly cooperative with such an aggressor, you would be underlining how they are clearly doing wrong. And you would be shaming them. Essentially that is how Gandhi got the British Empire to capitulate and how Martin Luther King Jr. got the United States to recognize the civil rights of black citizens: by not fighting back and exposing the shameful behavior of a supposedly morally superior government. Many of us can remember how bad it looked when people in their Sunday best walking peacefully were attacked by dogs and knocked over by water cannons and beaten with billy clubs. Both the British and the Americans considered themselves mostly Christians but what their governments were doing to people merely asking for their rights were the opposite of what Christ commanded us to do to the oppressed. They shamed us into acting as we knew that we should.

Jesus then says, “Give to everyone who begs from you.” Some people balk at this. Will not the person begging just use the money for drugs or alcohol? In some cases, yes. But they may truly need it for food. And you can instead take the person to a grocery store or to a fast food place and buy them a meal. Some folks carry little homeless care kits in their car, consisting of tuna salad and crackers or peanut butter crackers, plus a single serving snack like trail mix or nuts or beef jerky, and a water bottle. Other items homeless people often need is wet wipes, toothbrushes and toothpaste, nail clippers, bandaids, and sunscreen. In cold areas, socks are the number one request, followed by gloves. (See more about this here.) There are a lot of homeless people where we live. This is a practical way to do what Jesus told us to.

Jesus then says, “...and if someone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.” This reminds me of the chapter in Les Miserables where Jean Valjean, offered shelter by Bishop Myriel, runs off with his silverware. He is captured by the police and brought to the Bishop who then acts as if he had intentionally given the silverware to the ex-convict. He also gives him two silver candlesticks that Jean had “forgotten.” This act of pure grace inspires Valjean to change his life and become a good man.

But is this practical—to not resist when someone takes your belongings? Again Jesus may be thinking of religious persecution. But I also think Jesus is challenging us to do the extraordinary. In verse 36 Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” According to the notes in the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, to which I am indebted for much of this material, there is an Aramaic word that can mean both “merciful” and “perfect.” Since Jesus was probably speaking in Aramaic, that word may underlie both this saying of Jesus and that in Matthew 5:48, where he says, “So then, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus is urging us to rise above the ordinary response of a moderately good person and aim for perfection.

And this is backed up by what Jesus says in the next paragraph: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.” We already have a world that is in the state it is because, in addition to a few people doing very bad things, there are lots of people who aren't deliberately evil but who do the bare minimum of what society expects of them. We will be good so long as it doesn't call for too much sacrifice on our part. We don't want to go too far out of our way.

And yet who, going into the Olympics, doesn't aim for the gold? Nobody sets out to win the bronze, or trains for the silver. Everyone is doing the best they can, seeking to transcend being just good and achieve excellence. Jesus is saying “Aim higher!” Even if we don't manage perfection, we should be pushing ourselves to do better than merely mediocre. Why is it we encourage people to do amazing physical feats but not superb spiritual ones? Why do we see Jesus' command to “Do to others as you would have them do to you” as the pinnacle of morality, rather than the most basic level of ethical conduct? Jesus wants us to transcend being simply decent, and instead try imitating the amazingly gracious God in whose image we are made.

Thus he says, “...love your enemies, do good, lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” As God is, so he expects his children to be. Even human parents expect their child to behave at least as well as they do, if not better. God wants us to be better than just harmless. He wants us to grow to be people who do his will on earth as it is done in heaven, who make the world a better place and so bring it closer to his kingdom which is to come.

Finally Jesus says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” We tend to treat others as they actually treat us. Jesus doesn't want us to take our cues from what others do but from what God does. On the night he was betrayed and taken to die for us, Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34) We are not merely to refrain from harming others; we are not only to prevent others from getting harmed; we are not simply to help one another as we would like to be helped; we are, if necessary, to step into harm's way to save others. We are to take the hit, take the bullet, for others. We are to take up our cross and follow Jesus wherever that takes us and whatever that requires we sacrifice.

But it takes faith. We need to trust that God will reward our efforts even if the world does not. We need to trust that the real stakes are not our life but our soul. We need to trust that the seeds planted today will come to fruition, if not now then in God's time. As Jesus says, “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” We can afford to be generous because God is generous to us. As Paul says, “He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) In other words, don't be miserly in sharing your time, your talents, your treasure, or even your life. There's a lot more where that came from.