The Hungering Dark

"The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt." The Hungering Dark Frederich Buechner


Texts: 
Psalm 110

Proverbs 22:1-9

Luke 6:27-31

"27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. ³⁰Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you."

The passage above, tragically, has been one of many verses, stripped from (in my opinion) its intent and meaning, and utilized to justify abuse of another.  This passage, sprung into action, looks a lot like the man in the ditch in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  What if this passage is about more than accepting abuse as our call and about more than allowing people to rob us?  What if it is about suberting a system in which violence answers violence and injustice answers injustice?  What if it is about deep calling to deep, calling life into being?  

If someone strikes us, the response is commonly to strike them back.  If someone steals from us, the response is commonly to sue for damages.  If someone begs us for food or for money, we tend to refuse them not only money but our eye contact as well.  What if this passage is a call to be creative when we have been wronged?  What if this passage is a call to generate life as opposed to remove it?

One of the neighborhoods near Augsburg College, where I did my undergraduate work, has begun programs involving restorative justices, in which people who have vandalized property, rather than receiving a retributive punishment (e.g. fines or punishment of some sort), participate in some sort of neighborhood program, whether it is cleaning up vandalism, weeding a community garden, or some other task that beautifies the neighborhood.  What has been found, in general, is that this creates relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.

Now, I realize this may be impractical in some cases... but what would the world look like if we became creative about the ways we engage those who have wronged us or if we became creative about the ways in which we stand with those who have been wronged?  What would the world look like if we gathered around others who have been wronged, offering what we could (as the Good Samaritan) to facilitate restoration and relationship?  What if our main question was not, "What's in it for me?", but "What can I contribute?"  What if we stood up with the one who was being struck, seeing a New Way to live?

I think that participating in a system where a life is taken as a punishment for having taken a life, and violence is the response (punishment, even!) for violence, we perpetuate a system that Jesus sought to subvert.  By turning the other cheek, I don't think it is meant to accept abuse willingly, but to say, "This is not the way; this violence does not define how I live."  By creating a system of justice in which restoration is sought (as opposed to retribution), we communicate that it is not enough to bandage those who are crushed under the wheel of oppression: we are called to place a spoke in the wheel itself (as indicated by Bonhoeffer). 

Our lives, whether we are aware of it or not, touch the lives around us.  Christ came, "18 to bring good news to the poor... to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor," (Luke 4:18-19).  And so we continue to live in this reality, in which retribution reigns over restoration, even as we strive for the reality in which the captives are released, the blind see, and the oppressed are free.