A Slap in The Face

My mother tried to teach me not to fight.  I say try because I had older brothers and fighting seemed inevitable.  Fun for us included activities like King of The Hill, wrestling (which sometime got a little out of hand), throwing makeshift spears at each other, etc.  Fighting was a test of manhood.  Fighting was also how young boys like us found our place in groups.

My mother and my Grandmother were dead set against it.  They were very plain in saying they did not want to catch us fighting.  So, we took it outside, where they wouldn't catch us.  I remember one time in particular when my brother Gary and I were scrapping in Grandma's house and she said to us rather sternly, "I don't want to see you two fighting anymore!"  So, honoring her wishes, we took our battle into a closet.  They tried but we boys, except our oldestt brother Frank (no one wanted to fight Frank and he had nothing to prove to us), fought like cats and dogs.

One of the reasons our Mother and Grandmother weren't successful convincing us was flawed logic based on a misunderstanding of Scripture.  They would quote Matthew 5:38, "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to them to them the other also."  We weren't theologians but it just didn't make any sense to offer up the other cheek to let someone punch you in the jaw again.  We were not predisposed to let them get in the first hit, let alone the second one.

Their argument didn't stand up to what common sense and self-preservation seemed to dictate.  And, although we didn't understand the theology at the time, it didn't  resonate because it was based on flawed  theology.  Jesus was a man of peace but he was not precisely a pasifist.  Perhaps you will remember when Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them, "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" (Lk 22: 36).  He was not agressive but he left room for self defense.

So what was the right cheek, left cheek thing about then?  First, it was in the context of retribution not defense: "You have heard it said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.  If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other" (Matt 5:38-39).  Considering that most people are right handed, to strike somone one the right cheek would mean a back-handed slap with the left hand - an act of disrespect, not and attempt to physically harm.  We still have the saying, "Well, that's a slap in the face."

Turning the other cheek would not put you in danger but rather diffuse the offense, taking the higher moral ground.  Man says, "I don't get mad, I get even."  Jesus says, "Don't get mad or even, get over it by rising above it, letting grace abound."  Jus' Say'n.