Commentary on Luke 6:27-38
The Taizé community has put to music words from St. Teresa of Ávila, offered here in English translation:
Nothing can trouble, nothing can frighten.
Those that seek God shall never go wanting.
Nothing can trouble, nothing can frighten.
God alone fills us.1
The hymn verse describes the reality out of which Jesus speaks in Luke 6:27–38. Earlier in this chapter of Luke, Jesus has spoken to those excluded, reviled, and defamed on his account. He offered them blessings and encouraged them toward joy. Now he encourages all who hear him to live out of that same joy, regardless of what others are directing toward them. When they do, they will be resisting hate, curses, abuse, theft, and judgment by responding to those things with love, mercy, nonviolence, generosity, and forgiveness.
Jesus knows how different the ethic is that he commends from that which is widely acceptable: “If you love those who love you, what credit (or “what grace”; the word in Greek is charis) is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:32). That is the acceptable ethic.
The implication is that anyone can love those who love them. Anyone can lend to someone from whom they expect repayment. That kind of love and lending is a transaction. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.
A closer look at such transaction-based behavior reveals the problem: In such a world, what you do dictates what I do. When we return hate with hate, the original hate has won! It inspires and directs our actions. This is not to be. In the reign of God, what we do is not directed by what others do to us. In the reign of God, what we do is a response to the God who alone fills us, the God who “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35).
Three additional observations may be helpful to the preacher.
Life together
First, Jesus is speaking to all those who are listening to him (see also 6:27). He speaks throughout the Sermon on the Plain to the people gathered as a group. The King James translation will show the places where Jesus says “you” in the singular by translating the Greek as “thee” or “thou.” The plural form is translated as “you” or “ye.” In the Sermon on the Plain, only Luke 6:29–30 and 41–42 are addressed to individuals. This may be because these verses circulated apart from the rest and were incorporated into the Sermon on the Plain by Luke. Perhaps these verses are directed to individuals because cheeks, coats, goods, and motes in eyes are possessed by individuals.
The great majority of the Sermon on the Plain, however, including its exhortations to love enemies and show mercy like that of the Most High, is spoken to the community of those listening to Jesus. This ethic is not meant to be tried alone. The text is not a directive, for instance, to an individual suffering spousal abuse to bear up under it while the rest of her Christian congregation looks the other way. In the reign of God, we live and act in community, which means, bluntly, that we concern ourselves with each other’s business more than the transaction ethic might suggest we should.
Historical and contemporary expressions of Christianity offer examples. One thinks of the accountability groups, or “bands,” that were part of John Wesley’s work to reform the Anglican church, or small-group ministry in the current day. The goal of such groups is to support one another in Christian life and witness. The lifestyle commended by Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain is life lived in such a group.
An ethic of resistance
The second point to be made is that Jesus offers his ethic as a way for the community of his followers to resist the tit-for-tat of the present age, not to be passive in the face of it. When we live the ethic of this Sermon in the face of this world’s violence, we are collectively saying to those who hate, abuse, strike, judge, and condemn, “You are not the boss of me.” We are demonstrating that bad behavior cannot goad us into reacting in kind. We are resisting the evils we deplore.
In his passion, Jesus will perform the ethic he commends here. He resists by praying for the one (might we say, the enemy?) who will deny him three times (see also Luke 22:31–34). When he speaks on the cross, it is to forgive (see also Luke 22:34, 43) and to commend his spirit to the merciful Father he refers to in Luke 6:36. He resists violence with self-giving love.
“Not as the world gives”
He dies, of course, prematurely and violently. This fact brings us to the last observation for the preacher to consider. The “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over” is not a reference to success in the transactional economy that Jesus calls his followers to resist settling for and settling into. Our giving is indeed met with God’s giving, but that is because it is in the nature of God to give, not because we found the magic coins for the cosmic vending machine.
“Not as the world gives do I give to you,” Jesus says elsewhere (John 14:27). We might imagine the pressed-down, shaken-together, running-over measure as the measure of God’s promise to fill us precisely at those times when, by all worldly measures, the life is being drained out of us. Jesus dies on the cross. In resistance and response, the Father raises the Son from the dead. Following this pattern, the Most High continues to fill those who are empty and call to life those as good as dead.
Notes
- Teresa of Ávila. The text is available at URL: https://hymnary.org/text/nada_te_turbe_nada_te_espante, accessed January 7, 2025.
Luke 6:27-31 “Cheek Turning” by Rev. Dr. Karen A. McClintock
Preached August 4th, 2013
At a church where I was pastor, I counted on Veda to give me direct feedback after my sermon. One Sunday as she came through the line she shook my hand and said, “Pastor, this week you stopped preaching, and started meddling.” I thank you this morning for this opportunity to meddle, which Webster defines as unjustified interference. I’m going to justify my interference by pulling apart one of the most misconstrued texts of scripture – it’s Luke’s text in Chapter Six on turning the other cheek.
Rhonda’s son was killed when a drunk driver plowed into the side of his Toyota. He was twenty-two. She and I kept in touch for years while she worked through her grief. She called me up after reading that I was planning to preach some sermons on Jesus’ paradoxical lessons – including “turn the other cheek.” The pain came flooding back for her. “For years I tried to forgive the man who killed my son,” she said, “and for years I didn’t because I felt it would be disloyal to my son to have any compassion toward the man at all.”
And Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” And that’s a really hard thing to do. Ask Trevon Martin’s family.
Amy came to therapy after living in two marriages where she was belittled, hit, and trapped by men who felt they could command power by keeping her afraid of them. The first one, she said, “was just like my dad,” the second one, “he surprised me, he was a Christian.” She continued:
“He told me that the Bible said he was to be the man of the house and I was to obey him. One day he’d yell at me for leaving the salad dressing on the counter while we ate, the next day he’s ask me why I put it away when he was eating and wanted more of it. I did what I was supposed to do. I turned the other cheek. I went the extra mile, as my mother would say, and all it got me was slapped and slapped again. And now, even though I’m free of him, my body goes into shaking spells and I feel so badly about myself that I can’t even imagine finding work or living alone.”
Jesus said, “To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” And I wish he hadn’t said that.
When Matt’s wife left him with his two small children to raise, he didn’t feel like blessing her. On the day she left she told him “I never loved you...”followed by a string of swear words. She cursed him. She cursed the day he was born, and the day that she married him. She threw her wedding ring at him, got in a getaway car with another man, and took off for LA. It was all he could do to keep from falling down on the front porch, but the children were watching and he knew he had to help them before he could do anything for himself.
And Jesus said, “Bless those who curse you.” And I sometimes wish he hadn’t said that.
Five little verses packed together in a paragraph in Luke’s Gospel lesson for today are huge challenges. What are we to do in the face of violence and betrayal? Is he preaching passivity or moral force? How do we read Jesus’ words and pull them out from the social norms of the early church and from years of various interpretations?
What are we to do with this cheek turning advice? These sentences are tucked in between the blessings and curses known as the beatitudes and the lessons on judgement. They are found in both Luke and Matthew and believed to have been part of the Q texts – a non-canonical source of scripture known by both Luke and Matthew and used in the formation of their gospels.
The standard interpretation of these texts is rolled into an overall theme of an ethic of love. They are most often preached as an illustration of rightful ethical living. But we must go deeper into them to understand the radical nature of these sayings. A few new interpretive voices will guide us. Robert Funk, in his book, Honest to Jesus (pg.155) gives us a fresh alternative. Funk says that this text is one of Jesus paradoxical sayings. By definition enemies are to be hated. But what do you do when someone hits you? What do you do when fear overcomes you?
What Bob Funk discovered through historical criticism was that something else was going on in this story. The left hand would have made a blow to the right cheek. In Jesus society, the left hand wasn’t used in public. It was considered unclean since it was used for unclean tasks. In the court of law a gesture with the left hand was punishable by ten days of penance. So a backhanded slap to the right cheek was an insult – delivered by a superior to an inferior. Master to slave, husband to wife, parent to child, Roman to Jew. Funk notes “to turn the other cheek under the circumstance was an act of defiance. The left cheek invited a right-hand blow that might injure. The master, or husband, or parent or Roman would hesitate. The humiliation of the initial blow was answered with a nonviolent, very subtle, but quite effective challenge. The act of defiance entailed risk; it was symbolic, to be sure, but for that reason appealed to those who were regarded as subservient inferiors in Jesus world.”
Jesus is urging us to follow him. He engaged in acts of non-violence throughout his ministry. Jesus was a challenge to authority and power. From Marcus Borg, “Jesus spoke of a way of life in which righteousness, purity, honor, woe to the rich, which loosened the ties of loyalty to cultural ways, in which outcasts were accepted---all of this challenging the conventional wisdom of the time. That conventional wisdom, from their point of view was grounded in Holy Scripture and hallowed by tradition. Thus from their vantage point, Jesus was not only a threat to public order, but profoundly wrong.” (181)
We have, for centuries, interpreted this cheek-slapping story without considering the context of power imbalance. When oppressed people are told to risk themselves in defiance it is a far greater risk than to tell a Roman Soldier that you should not hit back one that hits you. Who was Jesus addressing? Was he saying, “You who are in power need to learn to resist violence?” Or was he saying, “You who are powerless can only resist with non-violence, and even then you may be utterly destroyed.” It is truly a much harder command for the vulnerable than for the powerful.
What do we tell our children when a fight breaks out on the playground at school? Let the bully hit you on the right and then again on the left? Run like crazy? Insult your enemy with defiance? Go get the teacher? Columnist Charles M. Blow, writing for the New York Times in the days following the Martin-Zimmerman verdict wrote, “As a parent, particularly a parent of black teenage boys, I am left with the question, “Now, what do I tell my boys?” He continues: “We used to say not to run in public because that might be seen as suspicious, like they’d stolen something. But according to Zimmerman, Martin drew his suspicion at least in part because he was walking too slowly. So what do I tell my boys now? At what precise pace should a black man walk to avoid suspicion? And can they ever stop walking away, or running away, and simply stand their ground? Can they become righteously indignant without being fatally wounded? Is there any place safe enough, or any cargo innocent enough, for a black man in this country? Martin was where he was supposed to be — in a gated community — carrying candy and a canned drink. The whole system failed Martin. What prevents it from failing my children, or yours? I feel that I must tell my boys that, but I can’t. It’s stuck in my throat. It’s an impossibly heartbreaking conversation to have.”
How do we talk of Jesus’ resistance to violence? The cheek turning ethic appears to be slanted in such a way that the powerful and the powerfully afraid come out ahead. And we are slightly uncomfortable with the passivity of Jesus’ moral love which took him to the cross rather than an armed revolution.
This cheek turning text is about moral force, not about physical force. Again from Borg, “the way of the spirit is threatening to a society based upon conventional wisdom, the way of inclusion (is) threatening to a society concerned about righteousness, performance, and distinctions, and the way of peace (is) threatening to a society facing war.”
How have women been taught to accept violence, and how have we taught it to our sons and daughters? When people of color are profiled and disproportionately convicted of crimes they did not commit, what shall we say? The ethic of cheek turning gets harder and harder in a time of gun violence. Jesus clearly states that the moral high ground, unlike stand your ground, the moral high ground is to take the slap on the left cheek and offer the right in defiance, which leaves the shame and unclean right hand upon the one who strikes.
Military powers sometimes say that they are engaging in military strikes in “defense.” This language confuses us. Batterers frequently blame women and children for their violence. Unfortunately, this is how some batterers think. And what models do they follow for turning the other cheek?
Christian preachers and interpreters of scripture have told women to be sacrificial like Jesus, but have not asked men to resist violence as Jesus resisted it. Have we, by the interpretations of the dominant, shaped Jesus in such a way that he is an unappealing role model for men? Or have we used the gospels to further perpetuate the gender-power and racial-power imbalance?
The only defense Jesus talks about is risking defiance, risking peace. Borg notes “Jesus was killed because he sought, in the name and power of the Spirit, the transformation of his own culture.” If we are to follow him we will become gravely unpopular. Many women find the incredible courage to leave their abusers and to help their children to freedom. They transform the culture when they name and resist the blows of the men who seek to control them.
They don’t stand and take the next hit. They call 911. They go to the shelter. They stop trying to save their men by their loyalty and their obedience. Sometimes their very ability to thrive and become happy again is an act of the turned cheek. They claim their self-worth. They find in Jesus a role model of moral power, self-love, and truth speaking.
I can understand Jesus telling us to bless, and turn our cheeks, and pray for our enemies, because I see the way that he lived his own life. Throughout his unconventional ministry he liberated the oppressed, he restored sight, he opened the hearts of those who had been filled with rage, he blessed those who had been only cursed, he prayed for those who could not hear his message. But he didn’t live with those who cursed him or were violent toward him; in fact, he shook off the dust from his feet and kept on going. He taught those who could hear and healed those who were willing to be healed. The others he prayed for and placed in the hands of God.
Prophet and contemporary black theologian Cornel West suggests that the scriptures ask key questions of us: (Adapted from his book)
- Do we have a Christianity, which requires us to stand up against personal and institutional sin?
- What do we stand for? Do we take seriously the biblical injunction to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God?
- With whom do we stand? Is our Christian witness in solidarity with those who suffer existential anguish, cultural degradation, political repression, and class (or gender) exploitation?
These are the questions that lay beneath Jesus’ sayings on the power of love. It is resistant, not complacent. It is peaceful, not violent. It is morally courageous, in no way a life of weakness. It is empowering of all people without regard to status, economics, race, or gender.
In time and healing, the woman whose son a drunk driver killed finds a way to pray for the man who killed him. She also works with mothers against drunk drivers. In time and healing, the woman who is free of her abusive marriages begins to see that she has the moral courage to believe in herself again. Eventually, the man whose wife left him finds the bitterness in his heart melting away and he blesses her so that she can visit the children and so that they won’t always bear his hatred for her. In a time of healing a woman of the jury, the only woman of color on the jury, said that she held out as long as she could and only acquiesced to the verdict because of the technical inadequacy of the law, not because she believed that Trevon’s murder was justified. In these ways many people around us resist brutality and violence. They move from being insulted to standing against the insults. When they focus on the love of Christ within them, they find safe and powerful ways to turn the other cheek.
May you be thusly blessed and healed of all acts of violence against you. May you experience the meddlesome message of Jesus whenever you have, by fear or prejudice, challenged others with your power. Take a stand against violence toward yourself and others. That you know the power of resistance to evil and that you learn without returning evil for evil, to love as Jesus loved. Amen.
