I remember asking my Dad about these verses as a child, "so if someone hits me, I am supposed to stand there and offer to let him hit me again? Do I have to give them the shirt off my back if asked?"
An "eye for an eye" is a saying I have thought about many times over the years. I was born and raised in Britain, an island country where invaders have come and gone, leaving traces of their culture and traditions; a pacifist ideal is not something that is in my psyche, to say the least. I believed in capital punishment when I was young and didn't know any better. Alas, now it seems human error plays a huge part in deciding the fate of another fellow human being. Every week, it seems, we hear of people being released from prison after they have been cleared of guilt using DNA evidence. How can ever we be sure we are not wrong?
I grew up in a happy family environment, church every Sunday and food on the table. As the youngest of four children I grew to expect hand-me-downs. We were not affluent, but my Mother kept me on my toes by "auditing" my toys every year, to give away those ones I didn't seem to play with very much, to children who were less fortunate than we were. I still feel pained about one particular Spitfire fighter plane that seemed to have disappeared from my collection-not the shirt off my back, but still...
I joined the Army to be an Infantry Soldier, like my lay preacher Father before me. Being in the middle of two factions whilst serving in Northern Ireland, and in many other "trouble spots" around the world, made me question my faith as a Christian-it is not easy to reconcile the role you must play to keep enemies separated from each other. Through travel with the army I witnessed terrible things-extreme poverty and violence.
What was Jesus meaning when he held up to the disciples the practice of an "eye for an eye?" What was Jesus condemning retribution? Forbidding self-defense? Was he recommending non-resistance? How is a soldier to have faith and live with this passage? When I was asked to write a reflection of these particular verses, I admit, a wry smile came along my face and a very good friend of mine actually laughed out loud. I know now that the meaning of these words is not as simple as I had thought as a child; now everything is more complex.
If I have learned anything in my travels, it is that we deeply need to move out of our comfort zone, traveling as much as possible, (preferably not into any war zones), but into the experience of others in the world and into their cultures-we are such a mix-and-match. I truly believe that living the Word to all others is what Jesus was telling us all that day on the Mount. Still, justice in the "eye" of Jesus is a hard thing.
