23rd Week in Ord. Time, Thursday – 10th September 2020 — Gospel: Lk 6,27-38
Jesus’ third way
“Offer the other cheek” has come to imply a passive, doormat-like quality that has made the Christian way cowardly in the face of injustice. “Do not withhold” seems to break up all opposition to evil and counsels submission. “Give to everyone” has become a cliché meaning “extend yourself” and appears to encourage collaboration with the oppressor. Jesus’ teaching viewed this way is impractical, masochistic and even suicidal. It serves as an invitation to bullies and spouse-batterers to make Christian victims prostrate to the floor. Jesus never displayed that kind of passivity. He counsels resistance, but without violence. He is urging us to transcend both passivity and violence by finding a third way, one that is at once assertive and yet non-violent. The earliest interpretations of his teachings are found in the New Testament epistles: “Do not repay evil for evil” (Rom 12,17; 1 Thess 5,15; 1 Pet 3,9). Further, Jesus advises such victims as, “Stand up for yourselves, challenge your masters, assert your humanity; but don’t answer the oppressor in kind. Find a new, third way that is neither cowardly submission nor violent reprisal.” He is helping an oppressed people find a way to protest and neutralize an arduous practice despised throughout the society. He is formulating a worldly spirituality in which the people at the bottom of society or under the thumb of oppressive power learn to recover their humanity. To those whose lifelong pattern has been to cringe before their masters, Jesus offers a way to liberate themselves from servile actions and a servile mentality. One must therefore be creative, improvising new tactics to keep the opponent off balance.
