Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
MATTHEW 5:38-48 (Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23)
Today’s gospel reading is the fifth in a series of Cycle A readings from the Gospel of Matthew. It also completes the six Antitheses that began in last Sunday’s gospel reading. These begin with a thesis, a quote or concept from the Old Testament, “You have heard it said….” Matthew accepts the thesis, but then intensifies the command given by the Old Law, “But I say to you….” There are two of these Antitheses in today’s gospel. The first is on revenge or retaliation, sometimes called “the Lex Talionis,” or “Law of Revenge.” The second and final thesis and antithesis is concerned with love of neighbor.
On to the first: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” That’s fine, as far as it goes. The full quote from Exodus 21:24 continues, “…hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”
This law meant that revenge could only be taken in exact proportion to the injury.
Example: a man pokes in or plucks out an eye of his opponent in a fight. By this law the now one-eyed man can pluck out or render sightless the same eye, right or left, of the still two-eyed man. The proportion must be exact, whether eye or any other part of the body.
This seems cruel, but it was quite an advance from the much more ancient custom of unlimited revenge which could wipe out a whole family or clan. A limitation of the ancient unlimited revenge is already stated in Genesis 4:15. Cain has murdered his brother Abel. After God curses him, Cain expresses fear that someone will kill him. God replies, “If anyone kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” It is not clear how seven killings would benefit a dead Cain. It does however express a limit to how much revenge can be exacted, only sevenfold.
As humanity declined and distancing from God increased through sin, matters got worse. And so we read the Song of the Sword, a return to unlimited revenge in Genesis 4:23-24. The patriarch Lamech says to his wives Adah and Zillah, “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech (will be avenged) seventy-times seven times,” revenge without limit. Now we can see that the Law of Moses, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” was “humane” progress. The New Testament, Matthew 18:21-22, is the final word on the matter of retaliation or revenge. Simon Peter asks Jesus, “How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus replies, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven times.” Lamech’s Song of the Sword is reversed. A Christian may not avenge, not retaliate, but only forgive. Tough love!
The final thesis: “You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” The Matthean Jesus responds with the final antithesis, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” The command to love one’s neighbor as oneself is borrowed from Leviticus 19:18. In that context a neighbor is a fellow-Israelite.
Leviticus 19:34 extends love of neighbor to non-Israelites living among Israelites. Deuteronomy 10:19 extends this love to travelers through Israelite territory. Jesus and the gospels extend “love of neighbor” to all humankind, even to enemies.
It is often difficult enough to love one’s neighbor as oneself, but to love one’s enemies as oneself? Is it even possible? That depends on how one does love of neighbor. Matthew gives one answer in today’s gospel reading, “…so that you may be children of your Father who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” Christians are commanded to show the same “indifference” in doing good even to enemies as the Father does in his distribution of sun and rain. Another solution to the difficulty is the Golden Rule in its various forms. Matthew gives us this form in 7:12,
“Whatever you wish that others do to you, so do to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” The whole Law of the Old Testament, the Torah, is summed up in the Golden Rule. St. Paul wrote, “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the completion of the Law.”
Part of this final thesis noted above: “…you shall…hate your enemy.” Where did Matthew find such a terrible commandment? Not in the Old Testament! The Israelites were not commanded to hate their enemy. They were however to do to them as people do to enemies, for example Deuteronomy 7:2, “…you must utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them.” Statements of this kind attributed to God are examples of theologians trying to create God in their “own image and likeness,” a failed attempt to return the compliment of Genesis 1:27, where God is said to create humankind in his own image and likeness. The gospels reverse the strange theology of Deuteronomy 7:2, and Paul writes in Romans 12:20, “Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
