This book is a bit simplistic for my taste. (But sometimes SIMPLICITY is just what I need!)
There are, however, a few jewels inside.
The most interesting is the exegesis of the passage in Mathew 5: 38-42, which unveils Jesus' plan for how we must always engage our abusers with nonviolence.
You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' Do not resist an evildoer. (39b)But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.
The Linn family look to Dr. Walter Wink for interpretation of this text that has disturbed most who have read it, me included!
Wink puts it this way:
"Let's set aside for a moment the first two sentences and begin with verse 39b, 'But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.' Why does Jesus specify the right cheek? Imagine you are a poor slave in ancient Palestine and your master is facing you and about to strike you. He cannot use his left hand, since it was used only for unclean tasks. Therefore, he must use his right hand. He cannot strike you on your right cheek with a fist or with the front of his right hand since this would require him to twist or contort his arm.
Thus, in order to strike you on your right cheek he will have to use the back of his right hand. In Jesus' culture hitting someone with the back of the hand was a gesture that had a very specific meaning. This gesture was used only by those in a position of more power to humiliate those with less power. Masters would backhand slaves, Romans would backhand Jews, husbands would backhand wives, and parents would backhand children. The message was, 'Remember your place . . . beneath me!'
If you do what the passage says and turn your other cheek (your left cheek) and your master must still use his right hand, then he can no longer backhand you. If he hits you again, he will have to use a fist. Hitting another with a fist was a gesture used between equals. Thus, by turning your other cheek, you have reclaimed your dignity and communicated that you refuse to be humiliated. You have also invited your master to reclaim his true dignity by examining the lie by which he lives, that one human being is better than another. And you have done all of this nonviolently, without striking back" (5, 6).
I did not know that.
I like it WAY better than the act of turning your head, so they can continue to beat the crappola out of you!
I've been reading a great deal about forgiveness these days. Trying to figure out exactly what it means to truly forgive someone, to loosen my oh-so-tight grip from around their neck(s)! Thus, releasing them and setting ME free!
In my family, what we called forgiveness was really acting like it didn't happen, going on as if the offense (whatever it was, and there were many) didn't take place at all. We lived in denial in order to survive. Only we weren't really surviving, we were DYING inside.
If we did acknowledge an offense (usually I was the one pointing it out, and it is not fun to be the one doing all of the "seeing" in a dysfunctional family), then we simply, yet resolutely, proclaimed, "Well, it wasn't that bad!"
If our acting like it didn't happen wasn't successful, then we went about our business as if it didn't hurt us! This pretending led to a shitload of acting out behavior. So, when we were furious at our dad for dying and our mom for neglecting us and for marrying the alcoholic, bastard, asshole of a stepfather, we pulled each others' hair.
Scratched each other with our fingernails.
Held each other down by sitting on the other's chest, pinning arms to the ground, waving our hair in the other's face while they choked and spit it back up at us.
Hit each other without mercy.
Threw the other's clothes on the floor.
And called each other shameful names.
They called me Fatso, and I used my sweaty hands as weapons to get them back, flinging water on their faces and rubbing them down with soaking wet hands. That is when I could catch them!
Our anger at each other, I now believe, was misplaced and a direct result of our need to "handle the pain" in whatever way we could.
Our survival skills as children resulted in adult addictions, unbelievable (but very well masked) rage, chronic depression (although I'm the only one to admit to suffer from it), and a focus on how things appear instead of how they actually are.
And just like most of us who have read the passage in Matthew and thought we understood what it meant, I believed I knew what it meant to forgive. I've said, "I forgive you" to many people (I've even said it to myself), and I've wholeheartedly meant it.
I think my understanding of what it truly means to forgive has been as faulty as my understanding of what it means to "turn the other cheek."
However, I know I need to forgive.
I know I want to forgive.
And, I'm on a mission to find out exactly what it really means and how to do it.
This is what I know so far:
It doesn't have anything to do with forgetting, or pretending it didn't happen, or acting like it didn't hurt.
And, it definitely doesn't have anything to do with "turning my head" so "they" can "beat me up" some more!
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