Hi, everybody. Welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, the most exhaustive Gospel study you will ever read. If you would like to start over from the beginning, you can do that by clicking here. Reading this from the beginning is advisable.
Last week was a big gigantic important week for us here, as we began to study Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation," perhaps the most important teaching that Jesus Christ ever offered. You won't hear many American Christians these days talking about Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation." That's because they don't follow it, nor do they intend to follow it. Modern American Christians think that Jesus was talking out the side of his neck on this teaching, and that he isn't to be completely trusted. Instead, their true faith is in the police state, the military industrial complex, and their AR-15 assault rifles. "Jesus must have had a momentary attack of bein' an idiot during that Sermon on the Mount," modern American Christians think.
Jesus wasn't an idiot, though. Jesus was an enlightened teacher who offered a precise and narrow moral code to his followers - a moral code that can be sussed out only by studying and comparing his words as they are quoted in the Gospels and studying the writings and actions of his very earliest followers. I believe that said moral code is, and will always be, the perfect salve to heal the social ills of mankind. I also believe that modern American Christians have Jesus exactly wrong.*
Jesus, contrary to popular belief, is not on the side of an America that spends more resources than any other nation anywhere in history on mechanisms of war and death.
Jesus, contrary to popular belief, is not on the side of an America that has developed the world's greatest capacity to wage species-ending nuclear war.
Jesus, contrary to popular American belief, did mean what he said in his "Teaching About Retaliation." That is, "turn the other cheek."
Last week's writing was a joyous exercise, for us. Let us remain joyous today, then, as we finish up our present study of Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation," one of the most important sets of sentences ever uttered by any human ever.
Cheers, and Merry Christmas.
Jesus, contrary to popular belief, is not on the side of an America that spends more resources than any other nation anywhere in history on mechanisms of war and death.
Jesus, contrary to popular belief, is not on the side of an America that has developed the world's greatest capacity to wage species-ending nuclear war.
Jesus, contrary to popular American belief, did mean what he said in his "Teaching About Retaliation." That is, "turn the other cheek."
Last week's writing was a joyous exercise, for us. Let us remain joyous today, then, as we finish up our present study of Jesus' "Teaching About Retaliation," one of the most important sets of sentences ever uttered by any human ever.
Cheers, and Merry Christmas.
Matthew 5:40 through 5:42
40 If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well.
41 Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.
42 Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.
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Last we met, Jesus told his followers that they were not to continue on with the ancient Jewish and Mesopotamian tradition of stabbing one another in the eye with sticks as retribution for eye injuries and knocking out one another's teeth with rocks as retribution for tooth injuries. He instructed his followers instead to "offer no resistance to one who is evil." Obviously inherent in this moral tenet is the subjugation of one's person to the rest of humanity. That is to say that Jesus, in Matt 5:38-39, asked his followers to stop thinking of themselves as being innately more important than every other human on earth. This moral tenet is rare, if not totally unique, and is the keystone to true Christian morality.
Today, Jesus expands on what he was saying in Matt 5:38-39. He tells his followers that if someone wants to sue them for their tunic, that the follower ought to give up the tunic and their cloak as well. He says that if someone tries to lever some work out of his followers, that the follower should not only do the work, but do twice the work that was initially expected. He says that if someone asks for anything, his followers ought to give it, and if someone wants to borrow something, his followers ought to lend it, as a matter of morality. These tenets, like those previous, are also rare, if not totally unique. It goes without saying that today's verses go hand-in-hand with Matt 5:38-39.
Today, rather than our usual routine, I'm just going to riff a little on these teachings, and what they have come to mean to me. This is not exactly "off the cuff," as I've been studying the Gospel for years, but it will be closer to "off the cuff" than normal. I won't be quoting Josephus or Ovid, and the Greek lesson has been cancelled, just for today.
Some Riffing
So, what can we say that it means for a person to take "an eye for an eye?" It means, simply, that a person values their own eyeball as equal to, or perhaps more important than, the eyeball of their fellow human. Every individual who subscribes to "eye for an eye" morality values their physical body at least as much as the body of their fellow man, and probably more so. Valuing one's body more than another's probably doesn't sound crazy to anyone reading this. "If I don't value my body, who else will?" one might ask. The value of the body is taken for granted in an "eye for an eye" society. The value of one's physical life is taken for granted.
What does it mean, then, for Jesus to say that taking an "eye for an eye" is wrong? If we boil it down a little, it would seem that he is asking his followers to fundamentally devalue their eyeballs. He is telling his followers "your eyeball is not worth the eyeball of your attacker." By telling his followers that they may not participate in "eye for an eye" retaliation, he is telling them that their flesh is not as valuable as they had previously been taught - that their bodies are worth relatively less when compared to those of other humans. In this way, as I said above, he is asking his followers to subjugate themselves to the rest of humanity. If one's body is not valuable enough to warrant kind-for-kind retribution against any given assailant, than it follows logically that any given assailant's body is actually more important than one's own.
This idea is quite radical. Everything that the senses tell us points to the paramount importance of our own body. We feel pain so that we know when to protect our body from injury. We feel hunger so that we know when to feed our flesh. We experience libido so that we will extend that flesh into the future by generations, and we have every hard-wired instinct to defend ourselves and retaliate against an attacker. Jesus, in telling his followers to "turn the other cheek," is asking them to subdue their most primal senses. He is asking his followers to drastically devalue their human bodies relative to the value of all other human bodies, against every instinct that a body has.
Quite radical, indeed.
In today's verses, Jesus takes this one step further by asking his followers to reconsider the value of more than just their bodies. He teaches that the needs or desires of other humans for physical objects should be valued more highly than the needs or desires of his followers. He teaches that the needs and desires of other humans for labor or time should be valued more highly than the needs or desires of his followers. If Jesus devalues the Christian's body relative to that of their fellow humans in Matt 5:38-39, in 5:40-42 he devalues the Christian's need for material possessions, labor, and even time, relative to that of their fellow humans.
It is worth noting here that today's verses are multiply attested. We have Jesus offering almost the exact same teaching in The Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 6, as follows:
29 To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Like much of the Sermon on the Mount, the multiple attestation of these verses in other Gospels makes it far more likely that the historical Jesus actually said them. It is ours to consider, then, what Jesus meant when he actually spoke these words, deliberately and dramatically devaluing one's body, one's possessions, one's labor, and one's time relative to the body, possessions, labor, and time of one's fellow human.
In the course of that consideration, and as we move forward through the Gospels, you will notice that Jesus never asks his followers to devalue their mind or their soul relative to those of other humans. He never asks his followers to make compromises for those things that impinge upon their morality the way he asks his followers to make compromises for those things that impinge upon their physical well being. Knowing this, we can say resolutely that Jesus valued the mind/spirit more than he valued anything in the physical realm, and wanted his followers to adopt the same conception of existence.** This is borne out by the story of Jesus' Passion, wherein he deliberately performs actions in Jerusalem that he knows will cause the authorities to seek his capital punishment, and then submits passively to said punishment. What Jesus believed in his mind/spirit were obviously way way more important to him than was his flesh.
As is made clear by the sayings at hand, Jesus believed that there was more to existence than just the physical aspect, and that the non-physical aspect of existence trumped the physical in overall importance. This would have put his philosophy automatically at odds with the philosophies of many of the Jews of his time, including all of those belonging to the aristocratic priestly class, who didn't believe in anything but the physical existence.
The Greeks and Egyptians, among other ancient cultures, had long believed in a portion of the self that existed outside of the physical plane, but those ancient cultures, by and large, maintained a balance of importance between the physical and the spiritual. Jesus' conception of the human experience is unique in its time and place for placing all of life's value in the intellectual/spiritual plane.
The Greeks and Egyptians, among other ancient cultures, had long believed in a portion of the self that existed outside of the physical plane, but those ancient cultures, by and large, maintained a balance of importance between the physical and the spiritual. Jesus' conception of the human experience is unique in its time and place for placing all of life's value in the intellectual/spiritual plane.
"Abandon your flesh, abandon your worldly comforts, and follow me to higher ground," Jesus says in his "Teaching About Retaliation."
On the surface, these five verses are about how Christ's followers ought to interact with their fellow human. The subtext of these verses, however, is much more voluminous, and speaks to fundamental aspects of life and existence on earth.
The counterintuitive part to all of this, I believe, is that Jesus does not anticipate that his followers will find themselves suffering by following these tenets. This is not a flagellant's morality, nor necessarily even an ascetic's. Jesus doesn't ask his followers to embrace misery as an ideal, here. The secret trick of these moral tenets, which Jesus understands full well, is that the mental subjugation of the self to the rest of humanity is actually the key to true happiness in this waking life.
Later in Luke 17, Jesus will tell his followers that the Kingdom of God is within them. What he guides his followers toward here in Matt 5, and what he means there in Luke 17, is that God is literally something that can be experienced here and now. I've come to understand that an ecstatic connection with the Infinite, albeit Yet Unknown, will be afforded anyone who properly values themselves in relation to the rest of humanity per Jesus' prescription as it is revealed by the historical texts. If we get our petty physical needs and desires out of the way, and retrain our focus onto the needs of others, we will be freed from the spiritual torture device known as ego, and we will experience the Almighty such that we will often spontaneously weep from overwhelming happiness.
I understand this teaching thus because I experienced it thus for a period of months, around the first time I read the Gospel, many years ago. I mean to tell you, truly, that I spontaneously wept like a widow frequently in those months (less the anguish.) I wept out of the deepest and fullest well of happiness and joy I could have ever imagined. Jesus' philosophy and morality are what brought me to that state. That state was the closest thing to real magic that I've ever experienced. I felt like I touched the Kingdom.
The Kingdom of God is within us, but it is also ours to reach for. And so I pray for better reach.
I suppose that this will suffice for today. Thank you for reading. Please share this writing.
Love.
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* To be sure, there are groups of Christians and individual Christians living in America who have rejected the American system of ideals and thus do not necessarily have Jesus "exactly wrong." Those groups and individuals just happen to be very few and far between in the grand scheme of things. With this caveat, you'll forgive my hyperbole.
** I say mind/spirit because, in the ancient world, mind and spirit were not generally divided from one another. In fact, in many ancient languages, the same word is used to denote either "mind" or "spirit."
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To read what came prior to this, click here.
