St. Antony of Padua, Priest & Doctor
Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time (Year II)
1 Kings 21:1-16 | Psalm 5:2-3,5-7 | Matthew 5:38-42
Today’s Gospel once elicited a dubious reaction from a non-Christian friend (not the old friend I keep writing about): “Wah, Jesus is telling you to take it up the arse man! So how come I always see Christians fighting back hah?”
For starters, I’m confident that Jesus has never condoned sodomy, and the answer to “why don’t Christians do XYZ like how the Bible says they should?” is often either:
- “those Christians don’t know, understand or care about scripture, and that’s just not right,” or
- “you misunderstood scripture, but that’s easily fixed” ?
That said, my reading of Jesus’ words can be summed up in two words: Spiritual Aikido. In a nutshell, we are called to deal with the assaults and insults of the wicked in a peaceful way, to take that negative energy and deflect or change it somehow.
Let’s delve a little deeper…
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Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well.
Note the specific reference to the right cheek. For the majority of people, that involves a back-handed slap, which is traditionally considered a grave insult. Anyone who does so is obviously up to no good, and is probably expecting you to take umbrage and start a full-blown fight to your own shame and potential legal liability: “Look, I just tapped him on the cheek, and he tried to KILL me!”
This is often the case with anyone who offers insult to you, and so it should be clear that the proper way to defuse the situation is simply: “I seem to have offended you somehow, and I’m truly sorry about that. If you could explain what offence I’ve caused, I’ll make amends accordingly.”
Now you’ve put your opponent on the spot. If he comes up with a silly rationalization, he looks like a fool. If he leaps directly into attack mode, you’re morally and legally entitled to defend yourself.
If he does give a proper reason for his anger, though, you get to make amends as a true Christian, so that’s not exactly a bad thing either.
If a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
When someone decides to use legal avenues to cripple you in an immoral way, it may actually be best to let him have everything and more, thereby unburdening yourself of things that may cause you trouble later…like that cloak you never really liked because it kept tripping you up.
This actually happened to a friend’s brother-in-law, when his own brother used underhanded means to try to gain majority control of their shared business. To the no-gooder’s surprise, the former decided to give up the business entirely, as he was going through a bout of severe illness.
The upshot: he was legally forced to find the capital to buy his brother out. Last I heard, he also found out too late just how much work his brother had been doing behind the scenes (hence the severe illness) to keep the business going, and the sudden additional demands caused no small number of marital and familial problems at home too.
And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him.
“C’mon man, it was your idea, so keep up already! Anyway, exercise is good for your health. Hup hup hup!” ?
Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.
I’ll get pedantic here and note that Jesus didn’t say to give what was asked for. Instead, I believe He wants us to use our best judgement on what to give, the judgement that’s based on love for our fellow man. In that light, it’s clear that Jesus is not calling us to, say, finance a compulsive gambler just because he asked. Instead, He expects us to help said gambler recognize the hurt that he’s inflicted on himself and his loved ones, and help him recover self-control, dignity and inner peace.
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The concept of Spiritual Aikido is very simple: Instead of trying to oppose wicked force with more of the same, redirect the inbound energy in an unexpected direction, causing your opponent to lose his footing and fall. If he should fall into a renewed sense of love and holiness in the process, so much the better.
It’s also easier said than done, of course. We’re genetically predisposed to fight for control, but with practice and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I believe we can learn to turn darkness into light without sullying ourselves in the process.
Amen.
P.S. It seems that I’m not the only person who’s drawn parallels between Christian life and aikido. Here’s Eri Izawa’s detailed connection between aikido principles and Christian spirituality – it’s fascinating at first glance, and probably bears deeper reflection.