A Epiphany 7 BFC
2017
Matthew 5:28-38
February 19,
2017
Brazilian educator, Paolo
Freire, writes about an exchange he had with poor, male farmers in Chilé. It began with Freire, frustrated, because these farmers,
the students before him, say to him, as teacher, “You know. We don’t.”
Freire recognizes this as a
mantra in their lives (“You know. We don’t.”)
something that operated as proof and reason for why they were living in their
poverty. So Freire takes them through an
exercise where he asks them 10 questions he bets they don’t know the answers to
and asks these poor farmers to come up with 10 questions they bet he doesn’t
know the answer to. He began.
What is the Socratic
maiutec? They did not know.
The farmers’ turn, “What’s a
contour curve?” Freire did not know.
Freire asks, “What
importance does Hegel have in Marx’s thought?”
They did not know. The farmers ask, “What’s soil liming?” Freire did not have an answer. On and on this went for 10 questions. Freire did not have answers to their
questions. They did not know the answers
to his. The next day he pressed the
point. Why did he know? Because his father could send him to school. The conversation went on like this:
And why couldn’t your parents send you to school?
Because they were peasants like us.
And what is ‘being a peasant?’
It’s not having an education . . .
not owning anything . . . working from sun to sun . . . having no rights . . .
having no hope.
And
why doesn’t a peasant have any of this?
The
will of God.
And
who is God?
The
Father of us all.
And
who is a father here this evening?
Almost
all raised their hands, and said they were.
[He
picked out one.] How many children do
you have?
Three.
Would you be willing to sacrifice
two of them, and make them suffer so that the other one could go to school and
have a good life? . . . . Could you love your children that way?
No!
Well, if you, [Freire asked], a
person of flesh and bones, could not commit an injustice like that—how could
God commit it? Could God really be the cause of these things?[1]
Freire shared that this, his last question,
was met with silence. The men began to
share and then said, “No. God isn’t the
cause of all this. It’s the boss!”[2]
Freire’s
transformative teaching reminds Chilean farmers that they have been existing by
another, almost unspoken teaching: that
they are less than human, that God ordained the status quo because they are
people who do not know. Poor farmers
were born to be less than, perhaps even less than human, worthy of shame and
dishonor. Until, Freire helps them to realize,
they do
know.
Freire’s story reminds me of
the poem Rev. Jesse Jackson used in his early ministry, particularly with African-American
young people in a call and response
I
Am
Somebody
. . .
But
I am
Somebody
My
Clothes are Different
My
Face is Different
My
Hair is Different
But
I Am
Somebody
. . .
But
I must be Respected
Protected
Never
Rejected
I
Am
God’s
Child.
I
Am
Jackson would use that call
and response, having African-American young people affirm that, “I am somebody.”
Jackson did this because he knew there was this pre-existent cultural narrative
out there that tells African-American young people they are less than human, their
lives do not matter, they are not worthy of love and respect and protection.
The gospel passage for today
continues along with Jesus teaching the Sermon on the Mount in the matrix or
context of the strong honor and shame code of First Century Rome. When we read these passages, we can come to
believe that Jesus would have us be a peace-loving doormat. Let someone slap your other cheek, give to
them your underwear as well as your coat, and walk the second mile when they
ask you to walk one for them. But when
we know the context or historical matrix for these Scripture verses, they read
much differently.
Each
one of the responses Jesus teaches is to someone who holds honor or power over
another and seeks to invoke the honor and shame code. Those who invoke the code seek to demonstrate
what they believe is their God-given right and freedom “honorable people” have
to shame the people beneath them. By
their actions, one could tell who was a person worthy of respect, full of
dignity, and who was worthless, shameful, and without dignity.
Jesus
says, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek . . .” The only way I might be able to strike
someone on the right cheek is with the left hand or the back of the right hand. The left hand, however, is not used in the
context of this honor and shame code.
The left hand is used for unclean tasks.
So this blow, that has been delivered, has been delivered with the back
of someone’s right hand against the right cheek. This kind of blow is not intended to
injure. It is intended to humiliate and
remind someone of their place. The blow
would have been delivered by a husband against a wife, a parent to a child, a
master to a slave, a wealthy landowner to a farmer, or a Roman against a
Jew. In this honor and shame code, such
a strike is not to be delivered twice.
You were supposed to get the message the first time.
And
you did not hit someone with your fist.
If you hit the person with a fist, you now make them your equal. That is not the intended effect.
As
someone who is considered beneath the person delivering the blow, retaliation is
impossible for the person being struck.
Retaliation probably means the loss of your life. If the Romans, retaliation may even mean the
life of your family, and perhaps the life of your entire community--to
re-instill the honor and shame code through escalation of the violence. Retaliation is suicidal.[4]
But
by turning to the right, offering up your other cheek, you are offering an
impossible position to the one doing the striking. Cannot strike again. Cannot strike with my left hand. Cannot strike with a fist. Turning the other cheek short-circuits the
cycle of violence. It is an act of
non-violent resistance to say, “You will not rob me of my dignity. You will no longer humiliate me. You may flog me within an inch of my life,
but I will stand resolute and declare my honor as a Child of God.”[5]
The
setting for the second act is a court of law.
The person is being sued for their outer garment. Only the poorest of the poor would offer
their outer garment as collateral for their loan. Indebtedness, as modeled by the Lord’s Prayer
(“Forgive us our debts”), was one of the great social problems of First Century
Rome. In the covenantal Jewish system of
grace, if one received the outer garment of another, the person who borrowed
the outer garment was to return the outer garment before sunset. The person borrowing the outer garment
returned the outer garment because it was thought to be needed. But here you are, poor as you are, being sued
down to your last resource. What would
unmask the inequities of such a system and its lack of grace?
Jesus
says, “If someone sues you for your outer garment, give them your underwear
too.” Nakedness was taboo in
Judaism. Shame for that nakedness fell
not on the person naked, but upon the person who viewed that nakedness.[6] And, now, there the person suing for the
outer garment stands, beet-red with embarrassment, with your outer garment in
one hand and your underwear in the other hand.
In effect, Jesus is promoting clowning to unmask a graceless
system. The Jewish Talmud offers a
saying that is similar to this act, “If your neighbor calls you an ass, strap a
saddle on your back.”
Your
creditor is now no longer a respectable moneylender, but a party to making a
whole class of people landless and destitute.
Again, Jesus’ response is not violent, not punitive. Both of these examples offer grace and a
chance for possible transformation.
As
Jesus teaches, you can imagine the shamed, the poor, the destitute, the
mourning, brightening as they realize they have more choices to be the Children
of God than they ever imagined possible.
And this choice for non-violent confrontation offers the people they
engage an opportunity for grace-filled transformation. The end of the Scripture verse for today
says, “Be holy, be perfect, be compassionate, be mature, as your loving Creator
in heaven is holy, perfect, compassionate, and mature.” The translation I had Sophia read says, “There
must be no limits to your goodness, as your heavenly Creator’s goodness knows
no bounds.”[7]
The
final example is much like the others.
Roman centurions, by law, could impress occupied peoples to carry their
pack one mile only. That the Roman
military could do this reminded everyone who was in charge. I have to take time out of my day, working my
butt off to keep my family alive, to carry your stinkin’ pack one mile, one
mile in this country you occupy, in the Promised Land? Roman law limited carrying of the pack to one
mile so as not to antagonize an occupied populace. Military law required severe penalties if a
centurion required more than one mile from one of the occupied peoples. These packs were heavy, weighing about
seventy-five to eighty pounds.
So
imagine the surprise of the centurion when the Jew seizes the initiative to
begin walking with the pack another mile.
The Roman centurion is thrown off balance and now pleads to get his pack
back. As Jesus shares how to seize the
initiative in this case, Jewish people must have smiled and laughed
openly. Imagining a Roman centurion
running behind a Jew trying to get his pack back would have reversed the shame
intended by impressing the Jew to walk one mile. “Hey,” the centurion says, looking from side
to side, hoping that no superiors are in the vicinity, “give me the pack
back. I could get into real trouble for
this. Come on, give me the pack back.”[8]
These
are not invitations to be peaceful doormats.
These are creative, confrontational, non-violent, ways to resist a
narrative that told people they were less than human in every day ways, to
reflect the goodness of God by encouraging people to stand up and resist, to
reclaim their humanity, and to do so nonviolently. Empires and their sovereigns are defined by
their cowardice and violence and arrogance.
The faithful are to be defined by their courage, creative
confrontational nonviolence, and humility.
For those who believe the only
choice before their masters, occupiers, and wealthy landowners is to bow,
cringe, and scrape just to survive, Jesus reminds them that they are yet
Children of God. These creative actions
remind the Jewish people, Jesus’ disciples, that there are many more choices in
the world than originally presented to us.
Perhaps even more important,
God’s goodness is defined as nonviolent confrontational, gracious action that
refuses and resists being understood as “less than.”
I
am somebody. Say it with me. I am somebody. Your life matters. You are.
It does.
But
now we need to be honest with a history that has often communicated to people
of other races and creeds and faith affiliations that they are less than human or
that their lives don’t matter. We are
very often the insiders and the beneficiaries of empire. We need to be honest about our history. Because when others stand and turn the other
cheek in resistance, say that they are somebody and that their lives matter, we
should be willing to critically look at our own history. We should be willing to critically look at
our own history to know that a message to the poor and oppressed, sick and
dying, outcast and sinner told for centuries is not somehow countered by
one person saying, (whiny voice ) “I
am not classist or fearful of the sick, ethnocentric or racist, Islamophobic or
anti-Semitic, misogynistic or homophobic.
In fact, I’m the least racist person I know.” No. It
requires more than that. That long,
historical message requires long and hard roads of resistance, policy, and,
finally, the transformation of hearts who have long repeated that message and
even profit from it. Yes, I am somebody. We are somebody. But them?
They are somebody too. Be in it
for the long haul. And be abundantly
good. As God is. Be abundantly good. Amen.
[1]
Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New
York: Continuum, 1995), pp. 45-49.
[2] Ibid.
[3]
Rev. Jesse Jackson
and Rev. William H. Borders, Sr., “I Am Somebody”, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/309763280591969385/.
[4] Barbara E. Reid, O.P.,
“Matthew’s Non-Violent Jesus and Violent Parables,” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2006, pp. 29-30.
[5] Found in Walter Wink, “The
Third Way,” Message, November 14,
1993, http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/wink_3707.htm but with much more detail
in Wink’s incredible book, Jesus and
Nonviolence: A Third Way (Minneapolis
[6] Genesis 9:20-27; Isaiah
20:1-6
[7] Revised English Bible.
[8] Wink, “The Third Way.” Matthew Fox, in his book, Matthew and Empire: Initial Explorations, (Harrisburg,
PA: Trinity Press, 2001), p. 41,
relates, knowing that Matthew’s community was probably Antioch, “Twenty
thousand soldiers in a population of one hundred fifty thousand means a vast
impact on the city of Antioch. In
addition to the sheer visibility of Roman military control, one obvious
consequence was a high tax bill for provisions and equipment. . . . The
practice of angareia, the requisition
of animals for transportation, of labor, and of lodging for soldiers (food and
accommodation, including eviction from one’s home) are further forms of
taxation. The forced labor might involve
carrying a soldier’s pack, or doing construction work on a road or bridge,
often also financed by a local community.”
No comments:
Post a Comment