Nonviolence or "law of the gift"? (Matthew 5:38-42)

"Turn the other cheek" is one of those phrases that come to mean something quite different from what they were intended to say in their original context. Once this happens, a clear reading of the original context can become difficult to achieve as well. In this gospel (Mt 5:38-42), we conventionally understand and react to Jesus' words in one of two ways, at least in part because of our familiar reactions to the expression "turn the other cheek." First, we might pay lip service to a kind of passive non-violence, a meek self-resignation that supposedly mimics what Jesus would do. This is a reading that has given a bad name to the Christian faith, incidentally, as testified by the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche's vehement critique of a pusillanimous Christianity, a religion for weaklings and failures. Alternatively, we are tempted to explain away this passage as a case of Jesus' well-known use of hyperbole: "of course he does not really mean that we should give our cloak to someone who sues us ... he is only trying to teach us the right attitude. After all, there are times when we really have to defend ourselves ..."

Although the non-violent reading can be redeemed from its weakness in the light of Gandhi's active non-violence guided by satyagraha, and although there are certainly occasions when natural law not only permits but requires that we defend ourselves, both directions of interpretation might be missing the central point of the passage. Let us read it carefully. Jesus first introduces the "one who is evil" (Mt 5:39), who first strikes us, then we offer the other cheek; who first sues us for our coat, then we are to give him our cloak; who first compels us to walk a mile, then we willingly go a second. Curiously, we are to give our enemy what he actually might not want even if he could have it! We grant him not only what is compelled, what he sees as justice for his cause (n.b. that Jesus began this passage with a reference to the lex talionis, the equal balancing of "eye for eye" and "tooth for tooth" [Mt 5:38]), but also something that we give freely, that he did not request (and might even reject as unwanted or uncomfortable!): the other cheek, the unsought cloak, the extra mile.

Seen in the light of Pope John Paul II's idea of "law of the gift" (i.e., that our ultimate fulfillment as persons comes from the gift of ourselves to others, just as the person of the Trinity give themselves to each other), we can begin to understand "turning the other cheek" in a new way. The "other" compels me to something. Neither passive nor active non-violence is a complete response, however. Jesus challenges me to make a free gift of myself, after having given under compulsion, for only in freedom can love be expressed, and only love can establish the personal, personalist relationship with the "one who is evil." God has chosen to use this relationship, in turn, to communicate his love even for the malicious sinner, the unjust persecutor.

It is telling that this passage ends with Jesus' command to "give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you" (Mt 5:42). We would not instinctively classify the beggar as "evil," yet the context of the passage suggests that Jesus identifies the one who begs or borrows as an extension of the selfish enemy. So, then, the "one who is evil" is a person in need, who by his striking us, taking us to court, compelling us to walk the mile, is actually begging, begging so often without knowing, longing for the love than only God can give--a love that God has chosen to impart through us when we make that gift of self to others, no matter how undeserving they may seem. We are frail instruments, but are nevertheless God's hands and arms in the world of men.