Monday of the 11th
Week in Ordinary Time
June 15, 2015 8:30am
Jesus’ sayings today lead me to several
reflections.
First, Jesus says, “When someone strikes you on your right
cheek, turn and offer the other one to him as well.”
Here I do not think Jesus means
that we should allow ourselves to be abused or disrespected, physically or
verbally.
Instead, we have the right and the
responsibility to protect ourselves and remove ourselves from situations like
that.
I have especially advised women
who are in abusive situations to get out and take their children with them.
Jesus does not will or intend
this kind of thing.
Second, Jesus refers to the law
of the early Hebrew Scriptures, “An eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
He is not teaching this or even
reaffirming it.
Instead, Jesus quotes that law
because it was an advance.
It limited the amount of
retribution you could take for an offense.
So if someone hits you in the
eye, according to that law, you could hit them in the eye, but you could not do
more than that – like shooting them or something like that.
Third, what Jesus is really doing
here is raising the bar higher.
He doesn’t want us even to take
an eye for an eye.
Instead, he wants us to refrain
from anything that is vengeful or destructive.
He wants us to deal with our
anger and hurt in some other way, to process our feelings, and then not act out
of them in vengeance.
He wants us to act
constructively.
And fourth, underneath Jesus’
teaching is the great truth than real strength lies in restraint and not in
hitting back.
Self-esteem comes not from diminishing
others as they have diminished me, but rather from living out of a center
within where God is present.
We realize our innate value and acquire
a sense of this not by beating up another in return, but by responding to
another as Jesus himself would do.
So, a challenging passage with
much to reflect on today!
