An Eye For An Aye 9Part 3)

Responding to Insults (Matthew 5: 41-42)

So, we have found out, for the Christian Jesus abolishes the old law of limited vengeance and introduces a new spirit of non-resentment and of non-retaliation. Alright there’s more two more verses to go. First let’s look at verse 41.

If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.  (Matthew 5: 41)

The ancient Persians divided the roads into segments that you could travel in one day and the mail and commercial route went so that the carriers could go one day and rest and then go the next day and that’s how the road was divided and they passed a law that said if the mail carrier needed help he could conscript somebody on the spot to feed him and his horse or give him some food or whatever he needed to get the mail delivered. The Romans came along, and they adopted that same idea, then the Romans conquered the Jews in Palestine, and they applied that rule there. The Jews hated the idea that they were having to serve the Romans, so they measured off a what in our modern translations is often called a mile, it was actually 1000 steps, and their mile was shorter than ours. Some experts in anatomy based on the average size male at that time have estimated it at around 1160 meters so probably nearer to a kilometre anyway they measured off 1000 paces. They had to obey the Roman law the law said if a Roman soldier needed some help, he could conscript you on the spot and you had to carry his backpack for a minimum of 1 km. The Jews hated the fact they’ve been conquered by the Romans so when they walked the counted and when they got to exactly 1000 paces they took the pack off and said I’m done now.  The Roman soldier could then call somebody else on the spot so it’s no big deal the Roman soldier had the power to do that. But Jesus here references this attitude and Jesus said if your attitude was right and they ask you to go one mile you’d go the extra mile. That’s where we get this expression from.

Here’s the real rub the Pharisees went the exact put down the pack and were full of hate and resentment towards the Romans as they did it.  Yet at the same time were proud of the fact that they had righteously fulfilled the letter of the law because they went the single mile.  This gets at the heart of what Jesus is teaching here, “except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven”. Jesus is saying doing thing in this way doesn’t men you have any real righteousness all you’ve got is self-righteousness because real righteousness is an internal attitude, not an outward external pretence of false obedience. In going beyond the minimum requirement, we are doing much more than just not retaliating but by being gracious even when facing ill will or evil towards and not retaliating you actively resist that evil person attempts to undermine you. So go the extra mile and turn the other cheek by going above and beyond what is expected of you and do it graciously.

Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5: 42)

This again has to do with another Old Testament law and what the Pharisees did with it. The Old Testament said that if you loaned somebody money and they hadn’t finished paying you back at the end of seven years you had to cancel the debt. Even if you had failed to make some of the payments the debt was forgiven. Maybe a few of you listening to this would say it’s a pity the credit card companies today don’t do that. The Pharisees came along and here’s what they said about that law. In that case don’t loan money on the 6th year. The point being in the seventh year there was a cancellation of debts; and the grudging and the calculating lender would refuse to lend anything when the seventh year was near, in case the debt be cancelled, and he lose out. What Jesus is saying is if somebody wants to borrow money give it to them be gracious or better still go beyond that and don’t even be concerned about what year it is, be gracious and cancel the debt. 

Loving kindness is one of the few things on which there was no limit, now the only thing I would add to this I think Jesus is talking here about the genuinely poor, people who have a dbt of need, people who really need help and then you should give it to them without any strings attached. Few passages of the New Testament have more of the essence of the Christian ethic than this one. Here is the characteristic ethic of the Christian life, and our conduct in this and other areas of our lives should distinguish the believer other men and women. The right way to respond to things like insults or being imposed upon and even injustice is not by demanding your rights or retaliating but by giving up your rights and being generous and blessing the other person  I think this is the ultimate highest points we can reach in the Christian life. I think this is the hight of New Testament spiritual teaching on what living the Christian life should look like.

At this point and would like to summarize and close by making  a couple of clarifications and an illustration. I don’t think Jesus is saying you can’t expect to act this way overnight because you need to be changed on the inside first. You need to have internal righteousness before you can expect it to see it expressed by external act of righteousness out in the everyday. In other words, for any Christian believer this is a discipleship process. I think Jesus was fully aware of this because he’ll say later in this book that out of the heart proceeds all these things and the New Testament teaches very clearly, we’ve all got a wicked heart to begin with. I don’t think this is a feeling that Jesus is initially dealing with is the choices we make, he is trying to deal with our internal attitudes and motivations. 

There’s a pilot light of false righteousness burning in all of us, so don’t turn on the thermostat so it becomes a burning furnace. Don’t let this thing get out of control so deal with internal motivations and that is the way you can overcome evil with good  It is all about making a decision to be more than just a believer, its about making a decision to become a disciple of Christ. I want you go to chapter 5 and look again at verse one, the opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. (Matthew 5: 1-2)

The word disciple simple means learner. To be very honest with you I think what I’m teaching today could turn some people off because its so hard to change this much and live this way . I understand if there will be some people listening to this who have resentment buried deep in their hearts and maybe you’re better towards somebody. What I’m teaching could really make you angry, because this teaching is only for those that really want to be disciples, those who want to go beyond just being believers and become learn from the Lord and be followers of Christ. I grant you may have resentment and bitterness in your heart towards someone but if you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ you got to because deal with that stuff. You can’t be a disciple unless you do. Now you can be a believer and you can have eternal life you can go to heaven when you die but that won’t necessarily mean that you have lived your life on this earth in the way that Jesus wanted you to, but, you can’t be a learner, you can’t be a disciple, you can’t be a follower of Christ and harbour those types of resentments. I guess the question is do you want to be a learner do you want to be a disciple, and do you want to become like Christ, or to put it the way Christ put it in the beatitudes, Do you want to hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do you want to be meek and merciful and pure in heart, do you want to be someone that seeks peace between other people and peace with God.

Real righteousness is not about keeping rules it’s about relationships and that means you put grace above justice and you want to bless and be gracious and show kindness to other, even the people who treat you with ill will. That’s real Christianity folks and it turns everything on its head.

I want to finish by telling you a story about something a minister in a town called Tarzana in California says  he witnessed many years ago. He was eating a meal with his wife and a young mother with what he estimated was her 6 year old boy where sitting at the next table also eating. The first course arrived, and the mother asked the little boy of he wanted to say grace. The little boy said yes and so here was his prayer was and I quote. “Dear God  thank you for this great food and I would also like to thank you if mom would get me an ice cream for dessert, amen”. He and his wife chuckled but another woman on another table loudly  remarked, “that’s what’s wrong with the world today kids today don’t know how to pray and when they do they are greedy. Asking God for ice cream, whatever next”. Hearing that the little boy burst into tears and asked his mother what I did wrong is God angry at me. She assured him that he had done a terrific, good job praying and God was not mad at him. Our minister then went over and quietly said to the lady and her son, I am a minister and I happen to know God thought that was a great prayer. Then indicating to the woman who had made the remark he whispered to the boy too bad she never asks God for ice cream sometimes. A little ice cream now and again is something that is sometimes good for the soul. At end of their meal the mother bought her son ice cream for desert, but when the ice cream arrived he was shocked to see the little six year old pick it up and without a word walked over and placed it in front of the old woman and with a big smile he said, “Here this is for you, a little ice cream now and again is something that is sometimes good for the soul.

In Christ our father can give us this attitude of real righteousness and give us the grace to be gracious. He can give us a blessing too, and he gives us those blessing so that we can use them to be a blessing to other.