“If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also”.

Or, as the version of this saying in Matthew’s Gospel puts it, “Turn the other [cheek]”.

It’s possibly one of the best-known sayings of Jesus.

Indeed, it’s become proverbial.

But, if we’re perfectly honest…

it’s also one of the hardest and most uncomfortable sayings of Jesus.

After all, none of us likes to be picked on.

And none of us likes bullies.

When we’re snubbed or slighted…

when someone, intentionally, causes us injury or insults us––

or someone whom we care about––

we want to protect and defend ourselves;

we want to make them stop;

we want to retaliate.

It’s instinctive.

It’s human nature.

On a societal level…

it’s why we pay so much to maintain the military or the police force;

it’s why, in many respects, the whole legal system exists.

‘Turning the other cheek’ seems to imply a passivity that goes against our conventional wisdom…

and our most primal instincts.

And yet… 

we also know that retaliation and revenge only perpetuate humanity’s problems.

As Martin Luther King Jr once said, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind”.

And, in this regard, he was quite unequivocal:

“Hate scars the soul and distorts the personality…Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiples hate, violence multiplies violence…in a descending spiral of destruction”.

So…

“Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival”.

King––

who drew on the ethos and practices of Gandhi…

who, in turn, was inspired by this saying of Jesus––

interpreted the injunction to love one’s enemy… 

not as a form of passivity or passive-aggression…

but as an act of non-violent resistance.

Thus, King declares...

“To our most bitter opponents we say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering...Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you…But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process”.

We love our enemies not––

as Oscar Wilde suggests––

in order to annoy them…

but with the expectation that, in the end, their animosity might be dissipated;

that their hatred, too, would become love.

As hard as Jesus’ saying is––

as much as it goes against our inherited wisdom and our primal instincts––

on another level, we also know that he’s right.

Love is the only force that can overcome hate and evil.

Love is the only force that can beget lasting, meaningful change.

And, in the end, love must––

love will––

prevail.

 

That said, however…

the problems with this saying go deeper and further than its overturning of human instinct… 

or conventional wisdom.

It’s one thing for someone who has experienced bullying…

persecution…

or abuse…

to exhort their fellow-sufferers to ‘turn the other cheek’––

to respond to hatred and hurt with love––

but it’s another thing altogether for someone who hasn’t experienced that to do it.

It’s one thing for a Martin Luther King to tell his fellow African-Americans to love––

and not to hate––

those who persecute and oppress them;

but it’s completely different if I, as a white person, were to say that.

It would be one thing for a fellow-victim of clerical sexual abuse to say that to their support group…

it would be something altogether different…

and, indeed, wrong for me to say that to them.

The injunction to turn the other cheek––

not to retaliate––

and, even, the expectation that they ought to forgive…

can, itself, be another form of hurt or oppression…

when it’s demanded from outside;

when it’s demanded from the powerless by the powerful;

and, especially, when it’s demanded by those who––

in the eyes of victims––

are tacitly acquiescing with their abusers.

An expectation that victims should ‘turn the other cheek’––

like the expectation that victims should forgive––

can, itself, be a form of abuse.

Indeed, so often…

within our culture… 

the expectation of or demand for forgiveness is effectively weaponised.

 

And…

interestingly…

it’s at this point that we have actually missed the context of Jesus’ saying––

certainly as Luke’s Gospel frames it.

Look at the other injunctions with which the author surrounds it;

look at the way that he fleshes it out.

The call to love enemies––

to ‘turn the other cheek’––

is addressed to those whose cloak has been taken;

those to whom people have come begging;

those whose goods have been stolen;

those to whom people have come asking for loans.

Luke’s Jesus is not addressing powerless victims in the context of powerful oppressors.

Quite the opposite!

Within the first century world, these injunctions are clearly aimed at the wealthy and well-to-do.

The intended audience––

the one being told to ‘turn the other cheek’–– 

is the privileged and the powerful.

On the other hand, the striking…

the stealing…

the taking…

and the begging…

are––

by clear implication––

being perpetrated by the poor, the powerless, and the persecuted…

who have been forced–– 

by circumstance and the system–– 

into a situation where criminality is their only option if they want to survive.

As such, these injunctions––

which follow immediately after Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, addressed to the poor…

and the Woes, addressed to the rich and powerful––

are consistent with what we find throughout this Gospel:

namely, the expectation of changed attitudes and ethos…

leading to a changed situation and system.

And that…

by necessity…

must be addressed to those with power and privilege…

because…

in the end…

change can only come from them.

As Martin Luther King once noted: 

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”.

Change has to come from those with power.

But it so often confronts them as an assault on their way of life…

and, indeed, on their very persons.

 

So...

far from an injunction to passivity by the poor, powerless, and persecuted…

this is an injunction to the powerful and privileged––

whoever they are––

to embrace the discomfort that comes from changes to that sense of privilege and power.

 

What, then, does all of that mean for us?

 

Who are we in all of this?

 

Let’s be quite honest…

within the context of our world…

within the context of our society…

these injunctions are clearly aimed at us––

particularly those of us who are white…

educated…

middle-class…

straight…

and male.

If the system is going to change––

if the unequal treatment of women in the workplace and society is going to end…

if rape-culture is going to stop…

if the lives of non-white people are going to be considered of equal worth…

in real terms…

if the problem of income and resource inequality…

and the lack of genuine opportunity is going to change—

then it’s up to us to change it.

We need to start turning the other cheek…

rather than turning a blind eye.