Unholy Sh+t: Jesus isn't exactly clear as to which set of cheeks we are supposed to turn

Another local pastor and I had found ourselves in a public dispute over his beliefs about self-defense. At the time, I was an outspoken pacifist. We were duking it out on Facebook, and he did not enjoy that I was also publicly winning the debate. I will admit to y’all now that my pacifism at the time was a bit extreme and bordered more on a martyr complex than a well-seasoned biblical approach to the topic. Now, older and wiser, I think there is a balance to this subject that I didn’t see at the time. I was reading a little bit too much Shane Claiborne and not enough Malcolm X; you know what I mean? Anyway, this pastor invited me to get lunch to hash it out in person, I assume because he was exhausted by the public flogging I was giving him while I espoused peacefulness.

We met at McDonald's.

“So you really take everything the Bible says so literally that you think to turn the other cheek just means roll over and die?” The Baptist minister asked.

I said yes.

As a priest, I also firmly believed that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Jesus. Taking things literally was kind of the whole gig. I might add that debating Biblical literalism with a Baptist minister is actually highly amusing as a liturgical Christian because it basically means each side being literal but just about the opposite things. I think the Bible is literal about confessing your sins, and he thinks it's literal about Hell being a physical place where God watches souls burn for all eternity.

Our debate raged on over our very spiritual meals of French fries and Big Macs.

I didn’t know it then, but I was being set up. I am not the kind of guy that easily gets tricked, so I can respect it when someone traps me. The Baptist minister wound up his shot and hit me with, “The same verse says give to the one who asks of you. So give me your debit card.” I handed it to him because I hoped that if the scriptures were true and if we love those who are our enemies, maybe by my loving him at this moment, he would see the love of Jesus and change. He took my debit card, laughed at me, and walked out.

He bought an iTunes gift card.

I canceled my debit card.

Stalemate, I guess.

Unholy Sh+t: An Irreverent Bible Study

7th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today’s reading: Matthew 5:38-48

My favorite thing about Christianity is also my least favorite thing about Christianity: forgiveness.

When Jesus wasn’t too busy casting out demons or healing folks of every ailment… except missing limbs (ever notice that?), he was always pontificating on something. Jesus basically says, “Be kind to those you meet, give food to those in need, love your enemies, and if you do all that I ask, then you will be brutalized and persecuted in the same manner as I soon will be for following my teachings. And just to be clear, I mean I will be beaten to a bloody pulp and then die an agonizing death naked and alone.”

Whenever I read the Bible, I think of Norville Barns saying, “You know, for kids!”

Forgiveness is important. If we are all honest with ourselves, we don’t want to live in a punitive society. Are we really the sum total of our worst day? I certainly hope not. However, the concept of forgiveness has been abused far too often within the Church. It seems like forgiveness is ever flowing for the youth pastor who gets caught sleeping with his students, but suddenly, when someone in the congregation comes out as gay, forgiveness is nowhere to be found. How, then, do we properly apply forgiveness without allowing ourselves to be continually taken advantage of or hurt repeatedly? I have spent the majority of my life in the church, and I have had forgiveness weaponized against me repeatedly. My awful cousin who abused many of us, I was the horrible one for not wanting him back in my life. After all, he had asked Jesus to give him a clean slate. Again, and again, and again. When was it his turn for a bit of repentance, restitution, and reconciliation?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives some pretty difficult medicine: " Love those who hate you, pray for your enemies, and bless those who curse you.” But then he doubles down with, “Turn the other cheek.” I used to say that Jesus never specified which set of cheeks you were supposed to turn.

*Insert scene from Braveheart where the Celts are mooning the English*

But what is the point of this forgiveness that Jesus is demanding? Are we supposed to just constantly allow those who hurt us to continue to cause us harm until the end of time? That is what I was taught growing up, yet I saw forgiveness withheld in equal measure from folks whose “sins” seemed so much more benign. I began to wonder if this whole system was only designed to protect bad people. Jesus was perfect and found himself in prison on death row; this doesn’t seem fair. Why am I required to forgive my cousin, but he is never supposed to do the work? I hated everything about this, and slowly, the anger and bitterness turned to rage. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was becoming an increasingly unkind person. I would march in the streets for prison reform, but I would have happily locked my cousin away before tossing the keys into the Gulf of Mexico.

A different picture comes to the surface when we look at the whole verse in context. We are being told not to be vengeful if someone takes from us and to give to the person who asks of us. Jesus seems to be raising the bar, but how high and to what purpose? I think it’s to remind us remind us that we all fail.

Forgiveness at the time of Jesus wasn’t as simple as someone saying “I’m sorry” and another accepting the apology. As a society, we have diluted the process of forgiveness down to an overly simplified contract: the perp says they are sorry, and you either will reject or accept.

The concept of penitence and reconciliation often gets left out of the equation.

The process of forgiveness isn’t a noun but a verb. It requires action on behalf of both parties. First, the offense must be acknowledged; then, the offending party enters a state of penitence. The penitent must begin the process towards reconciliation, not just with the individual but with the community as a whole. Being a penitent meant that you were placed in the care of a deacon who would look after you. They were tasked with making sure that you were following through, understanding the gravity of what you had done, and taking active steps to make restitution for the harm you caused. For a while, the penitent would be required to stand outside the place of worship with those waiting to be baptized. Once the penitent proved that they had actually done the work, the deacon would vouch for them, and they would be restored back into the community. “I’m sorry” was just the beginning of the journey, or as Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. put it, “Only the penitent man shall pass. The penitent man kneels before God. KNEEL!”

One of the dangers with the Bible is how it’s read. It’s important to remember that these words were not spoken in English, and whenever we translate them from Greek and Hebrew, we lose something every single time. The translators were trying to find comparable words, but how do you always get that right when we didn’t have a word that meant what forgiveness meant back then? What ends up happening is we hear a word like forgiveness, and we modernize it instead of unearthing what it meant to the people Jesus was speaking to. So when forgiveness is demanded of us, and we aren’t demanding back the process the original text implies, we are only gaining a surface-level exchange of words and not fighting for real change. No, forgiveness is not just a simple exchange of words but walking together as a community towards restoration. Just the words aren’t enough; it’s about an action with follow-through that leads us to reconciliation within the community.

We also have to contextualize who Jesus is and what his purpose in being here was. Jesus was building a society; that was the purpose. He is staking a claim of kingship and telling us how justice will work within this new kingdom he is attempting to build. Not one set up on punitive justice, off with their heads type sh+t, but one where everyone has a place at the table. He describes the type of world he wanted to build, which was fundamentally different from the culture of his time, where a single offense could find someone being stoned (not the fun kind) or nailed (also not the fun kind).

So when Jesus says, “Don’t judge, and you won't be judged,” it’s a warning about the type of world we build. He’s telling us that the society we shape is the one we are also bound by. If we build a world based on swift justice and not restoration, we will all be judged because we’ve all missed the mark. Every single one of us has fallen short in some way. No one is safe from the long arm of the law, and so the laws we create, the justice we strive for or fail to fight for, are the exact rules we will be judged under, so make sure your slate is clean before you try to demand more from someone than you would want to give yourself.

I think it’s also important to acknowledge what forgiveness isn’t. The action of forgiveness ends with community restoration but not always individual reconciliation. Just because someone has been brought back into the community, it does not mean they have to be restored into our lives as personally. We are allowed to say, “I see that this person who hurt me is trying to change, but I’m not willing to allow them back into my life because I can’t handle living in that pain and trauma forever.”

Sometimes, the action we take is simply believing they can do better, but way the f+ck over there.