“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” Jesus (Matthew 5:38-39)
I wish my mother were still alive, for a lot of reasons. Right now as I survey the current mess in the Middle East I wish she were here so she could sit down with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Supreme Ruler of Iran and talk some sense into them.
My mom only had a high school education, but she had more practical wisdom than most of the “leaders” of the world when it came to resolving conflict. I think a lot of her wisdom came from growing up with 5 younger brothers.
I didn’t appreciate her wisdom as a kid; so I hope wherever she is she can hear my belated praise for the way she dealt with conflicts between me and my two younger sisters. Invariably when two or all three of us got into a squabble she would intervene and one or more of us would say, “She started it!” Or “he started it,” and Mom would just shake her head and say, “I don’t care who started it; I just want to know who’s going to end it.”
When it comes to the centuries-old animosity between Israel and her neighbors there is no way to determine who really started it because it’s been going on forever with first one side and then the other retaliating for some offense by the other.
And that’s where those troublesome verses from the Sermon on the Mount about turning the other cheek come into play. No one can take that advice literally and give it any practical consideration, but that isn’t the point of what Jesus was saying. He was saying “I don’t care who started this, but what matters is who has the courage to stop it?”
Violence begets more and often worse violence. It is a vicious cycle that only stops when someone says “enough” and refuses to retaliate.
In the current crisis the stakes could hardly be higher. I am not justifying the strike Israel made on the Iranian embassy in Syria nor the massive attack Iran launched in response on Saturday night. If allowed to continue to escalate this affair could engulf all of us in World War III, and no one wants that. Or do they?
The scariest part of this scenario is that there are millions of misguided and biblically illiterate “Christians” who are indeed rooting for this mess to turn into Armageddon. They falsely believe such a cosmic battle between good and evil will usher in the second coming of Christ and solve all the problems we humans are unwilling to solve for ourselves.
President Biden has come under criticism for urging Israel to exercise restraint, i.e. to stop or slow down the cycle of violence and destruction by refusing to retaliate. I believe Biden’s calming influence, while it likely will go unheeded, is exactly what this delicate situation calls for.
I shudder to think where the world would be this very day if someone with a purely transactional mentality like Donald Trump were sitting in the Oval Office just now. Trump is on record as saying during the 2016 campaign that his favorite Bible verse is “And eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” Unfortunately his biblical education must have stopped in Leviticus which Jesus clearly turns upside down in the Sermon on the Mount.
Is turning the other cheek or stopping the cycle of retaliation hopelessly naive? Maybe, but it sure beats the heck out of the endless, vicious cycle of violence.
Peacefully Harsh 