Do not fight against an evil person!

Matthew 5:38-48

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; if a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.

‘You have learnt how it was said: You must love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; in this way you will be sons of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? Even the tax collectors do as much, do they not? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do as much, do they not? You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.’

Food for thought!
Since last week, Jesus has been setting up new standards for us; a Christian lives by different standards. Chapters five to seven of the gospel of Matthew are about this new standard. «When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying—quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.» (Mt 7:29)
Today, Jesus is redefining resistance. He says, «Do not fight against an evil person.» Why? When we resist we make a mental image of the thing we are fighting, and that tends to have it created for us. When we fight our enemies we make them into heroes. When we learn to look only at what we want and never at what we do not want, we will no longer resist anything.
What Jesus is teaching us today is that whatever man thinks, he gets and becomes. If we wish to transcend old thoughts and bad feelings we must just think of something good. Remember Philippians 4:8-9 «Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.»
Jesus abolished tit for tats because retaliation has no place in the Christian life. He gives examples. He says that if anyone smites us on the right cheek we must turn to him the other cheek also. There is far more here than meets the eye, far more than a mere matter of blows on the face. Suppose a right-handed man is standing in front of another man, and suppose he wants to slap the other man on the right cheek (note that Jesus said «right» cheek), how must he do it? Unless he goes through the most complicated contortions, and unless he empties the blow of all force, he can hit the other man's cheek only in one way--with the back of his hand. Now according to Jews (Jesus' people)) to hit a man with the back of the hand was twice as insulting as to hit him with the flat of the hand. So, then, what Jesus is saying is this: "Even if a man should direct at you the most deadly and calculated insult, you must on no account retaliate, and you must on no account resent it."
It will not happen very often, if at all, that anyone will slap us on the face, but time and time again life brings to us insults either great or small; and Jesus is here saying that the true Christian has learned to resent no insult and to seek retaliation for no slight. Jesus himself was called a gluttonous man and a winer. He was called the friend of tax gatherers and harlots, with the implication that he was like the company he kept.

The true Christian has forgotten what it is to be insulted; he has learned from his Master to accept any insult and never to resent it, and never to seek to retaliate. Now you may ask: are our enemies going to get away with it? No. Remember what the Lord says in Deuteronomy 32:35, «Vengeance is mine. I will repay.» So let us not take vengeance into our hands; it is the God's right and duty. God knows when and how to repay those who hurt us.