Yep – it’s up for preachin’ this Sunday (Matthew 5:28-38)
Turn the the other cheek to the one who strikes you, give your cloak also to the one who sues you for your coat, go the extra mile. What’s the rationale?
According to Walter Wink:
Turn your cheek, thus indicating to the one who backhands you that his attempts to shame you into servility have failed. Strip naked and parade out of court, thus taking the momentum of the law and the whole debt economy and flipping them, jiu-jitsu like, in a burlesque of legality. Walk a second mile, surprising the occupation troops with a sudden challenge to their control. (Walter Wink, “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination [Menneapolis, Fortress Press, 1992])
Sounds like roses on tanks in Manila, grandmas kissing soldiers in Tahrir square and asylum seeking detainees in Darwin passing the hat around for Queensland’s flood victims.
Sounds like creative and compassionate responses by the powerless to those who would wield power.
Is this what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like?
Wondering Pilgrim 