(Please read the Scripture passage before reading the homily.)
“Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” It sounds quite gory for me. Pain for pain, bruise for bruise; killing for killing; blood feud for blood feud. I admit this is better than two eyes for one eye or two teeth for one tooth. I understand that even the rabbis of Jesus’ time were replacing the one-for-one with money fines.
Can we do better? Jesus proposes refusing to retaliate. Perhaps this will change the perpetrators; perhaps not. The example Jesus gave with his life went beyond retaliation, beyond the eye for eye and tooth for tooth. It even went beyond shaming someone into conversion. It went beyond our powers to imagine. Jesus went so far beyond what we would have expected and gave his life for the lives everyone.
The eye-for-eye and the tooth-for-tooth means that people keep trading back and forth evil, pain, hurt and death without resolving issues. The giving of Jesus resolves all issues by putting each human on the path of reconciliation with God, with others and with self.
The giving of Jesus undid the selfishness of the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden. They had given in to their own wants and desires, but Jesus gave his life for all the others. The man and the woman had put enmities between themselves, God and others, but Jesus broke down the barriers by going beyond and giving his life as a ransom for the rest.
When some struck Jesus on one cheek, he let them strike his whole life. When some wanted his cloak, he gave his life as well. When someone pressed him to go one mile, he went past death into eternal life. When someone asked of him, he did not turn away. This is the newness of Jesus for us and the whole world.
There is, now, however, one instance where the eye-for-eye still holds. It is this. What Jesus has done for us, by giving each of us his all, we must give back to him by our service to others, our all to Jesus. This will not be bloody and gory, but rather glory.