Love Your Enemies: SALT's Lectionary Commentary for Epiphany 7
Epiphany 7 (Year A): Matthew 5:38-48 and Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18
Big Picture:
1) This is the last week of the miniseries on the “Sermon on the Mount,” since next week is the first week of Lent.
2) As we’ve seen, first, Jesus begins the sermon by reframing divine “blessing” not as a reward possessed by the rich, happy, satisfied, and powerful, but rather as a gracious gift given to the poor, mourning, hungry, and meek. Second, Jesus urges his listeners to go boldly and be who we truly are: spicing things up like a pinch of salt, and dispelling shadows like a little light in the darkness. How do we best spice and shine in this way? By truly following God’s law - and so, third, Jesus proclaims that the true meaning, spirit, and substance of the law relates not only to our actions but also to our dispositions, our hearts as well as our hands. He illustrates this idea with four provocative case studies: murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths. And fourth, in this week’s reading, he culminates his case with two more illustrations, justice and love, contending that the mission to “love your neighbor as yourself” boils down to the most counterintuitive commandment of them all: love your enemies.
3) The Book of Leviticus is essentially a “priest’s manual,” a handbook meant to help teach the people of Israel the distinctions “between the holy and the common” (Lev 10:10). In Hebrew, the word translated as “holy” literally means “set apart” - and this week’s passage zeroes in on how holiness means “loving your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:2,18). It’s an idea Jesus references in this week’s reading, and also highlights later as the second part of the “greatest” commandment in the law (Mt 5:43; 22:34-40).
4) In Leviticus 19:18, “neighbor” likely means “your fellow Israelite.” But only a few verses later, the same principle is applied to foreigners: “you shall love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Lev 19:34). In his teaching, Jesus picks up on this expansive, inclusive direction, and carries it forward to its natural - and surprising - conclusion. You shall love your enemy as yourself...
Scripture:
1) Having just illustrated what it looks like to “fulfill” or fully embody the law with four case studies (murder, adultery, divorce, and oaths), Jesus now culminates his case with two more: justice and love. Needless to say, these topics go right to the heart of our daily lives, from the playground to the workplace, the household to the global community.
2) Jesus begins with justice and the law of retaliation, sometimes referred to today by the Latin phrase, lex talionis (from lex, “law,” and talis, “suchlike” - meaning a bad action should receive a “suchlike” consequence). “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’” (Mt 5:38; Ex 21.24; Lev 24.20; Deut 19.21).
3) Generally speaking, in the history of legal development in human societies, lex talionis was a progressive innovation intended to limit retaliation and thereby deter the cyclical, potentially endless escalation of conflict. In this sense, lex talionis stands in opposition to what we might call lex vindictae, “the law of vengeance,” the familiar idea - operative today in all sorts of places! - that retaliatory damage should exceed the damage done by the prior injury. Why exceed it? Ask any aggrieved twelve-year-old who’s been hit by her brother. Her retaliatory strike must be even harder, she’ll explain, because it contains two parts: one part to match the pain caused by her brother’s blow, and the second part to punish him for “starting it” in the first place (and to deter him from even thinking about doing it again). It’s actually a pretty compelling argument, as far as it goes. The trouble with it, as any parent of such siblings will tell you, is that it’s all too compelling; there’s no end to its logic. Each escalation is in turn perceived as a new injustice, and a spiral of vengeance results.
4) And so lex talionis says, in effect, that while lex vindictae is correct that the evildoer should be countered and the evil deed reversed, the wisest form of consequence, for the sake of both parties and the wider society, is a proportional one. Suchlike for suchlike. Reverse the deed, but don’t exceed it. No escalation. As in a mirror image, the punishment should precisely reverse the original offense: you took an eye, so now you shall lose an eye.
5) Jesus takes up this general line of thought, drilling down to an even deeper level. He says, in effect, that lex talionis is correct that the evildoer should be countered in a way that both avoids escalation and proportionally reverses the evil deed. But the wiser way to avoid escalation, he insists, and the more perfect way to reverse the offense, is to do the opposite of what the evildoer has done, effectively refusing to participate in the act of hostile opposition itself. In other words, the true opposite of an act of violence is not another act of violence, however proportional it might be. On the contrary, hostility’s genuine reversal is a strong, rigorous act of friendship, generosity, love. If someone attempts to make you into an enemy, the most subversive, constructive thing you can do is refuse to take the bait.
6) In other words, the centerpiece of Jesus’ teaching is noncooperation with harm in all its forms. And while this does entail loving and praying for perpetrators, by the same token, it also entails whenever possible discontinuing arrangements that allow or enable perpetrators to wreak havoc.
7) Such a strategy would have at least two advantages: first, as a matter of practical wisdom, loving action is most likely to de-escalate the situation. Indeed, lex talionis has its own bloody record of prolonging conflict: “An eye for an eye,” as Mohandas Gandhi put it, “makes the whole world blind.” And second, as a matter of justice and wellbeing, loving action is the most profound reversal of an unjust act. If we respond to violence with violence, we increase the original ruin. If we respond with constructive generosity, we not only avoid increasing the ruin, we simultaneously begin the process of repair.
8) In this way, Jesus affirms the underlying goals of lex talionis (avoiding escalation and reversing the offense), even as he contends that the best way to achieve those goals is through provocative, counterintuitive acts of loving generosity: “if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile” (Mt 5:39-41). The fact that he then adds “giving” and “lending” to this list is telling, since it helps reveal that the entire riff amounts to this: Be generous in all situations, not just with those who treat you well or are able to repay you. Love your neighbor as yourself - even and especially those neighbors who seem to be hostile, unjust, or unworthy (Mt 5:42).
9) In other words: “Love your enemies” (Mt 5:44). Genuine love isn’t kindness exchanged for kindness, “suchlike for suchlike.” Indeed, true love isn’t caught up in an exchange at all; it expects nothing in return, and it isn’t compensation for services rendered. It is generous - for the sake of generosity. It invests - for the sake of investing. It seeks no additional gain, and it needs no prior payment. It lends and does good to those who may never repay, and is kind to those who may never be kind in return (i.e., enemies!). True love doesn’t rest on reciprocity or quid quo pro. To the extent that “fairness” depends on such things, true love isn’t fair. It lives and moves beyond the arena of fairness; it keeps no accounts. Precisely as a gift and not a payment, true love requires neither spur nor return, neither prior merit nor subsequent reimbursement. It’s completely free.
10) And what do we call this kind of love, this completely free, above-and-beyond, gratuitous giving? We call it “grace.” We may think of grace primarily as the unmerited, saving love of God - and well we should. But at the same time, this is exactly the love Jesus calls us to live out, not as gods or angels but as “children of your God in heaven” (Mt 5:45). When we love this way, we embody the gracious imago Dei. This is the love we were made for.
11) Is Jesus critiquing or departing from the law in this teaching? No, he’s illuminating the heart of the law, affirming the underlying goals of the lex talionis even as he recommends provocative, counterintuitive ways to achieve them. And moreover, please note: as Jesus interprets the law here, he uses lenses provided by the law itself. For example, the “love your neighbor” verse in Leviticus that Jesus highlights, both here and later in Matthew’s Gospel, reads in full: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev 19:18; Mt 5:43; 22:34-40). Even in its original context, then, the idea of “loving your neighbor as yourself” is explicitly contrasted with “taking vengeance.” When Jesus highlights this commandment, then, the love he has in mind isn’t a sentimental, box-of-chocolates kind of love. It’s a strong, challenging, subversive form of love, a love that acts generously precisely when we are tempted toward vengeance, a love that builds up from ruins, a love set apart and “holy” insofar as it does not return “suchlike for suchlike,” but rather reverses ruin into repair (Lev 19:2,18).
Takeaways:
1) Like any great teaching, this one is vulnerable to disastrous distortion. The call to “turn the other cheek,” for example, or indeed to go another mile or lend without return, can be misconstrued to prohibit withdrawing from abusive situations. But this confuses love with acquiescence. True love acts to end abuse - primarily for the sake of the abused but also for the sake of the abuser, who harms himself as well as his victim. Thus withdrawing to a safe harbor and holding abusers accountable are not only consistent with “loving our enemies” - they’re expressions of it.
2) We tend to think of “the law” in terms of fairness, and our personal relations in terms of reciprocity. But as we’ve seen, the love Jesus has in mind - the true love that epitomizes following the law - is anything but “fair.” In fact, Jesus’ critique of reciprocity (Even tax collectors do that!) makes clear that “fair” is precisely what true love is not. Rather, true love goes above-and-beyond reciprocity. In this sense, Jesus is urging us toward an “unfair” kind of love, an extravagance that benefits not the one who benefits you, but the one who opposes you; or indeed, that gives more to a thief than the thief takes in the first place! (Take my cloak, too!) There’s a playful spirit of hyperbole darting in and out of these ideas, as if they’re designed to evoke a kind of absurd, ecstatic state of generosity, a state of pure mercy, a state of grace. Thus Jesus calls us to a playful, beautiful, graceful way of life.
3) How then shall we live? Less by a “suchlike for suchlike” principle of fairness, and more by a subversive, playful principle of love: a love beyond reciprocity and exchange; a love that transforms occasions for vengeance into acts of constructive generosity; an extravagant love of grace and mercy, the love we were born for, “children of God in heaven” (Mt 5:45). Love your enemies! Be free of the spirals of “vengeance” and “grudges” - leave those shackles behind! (Lev 19:18).