Breaking the cycle

BLOOD FEUDS have plagued society for millennia and are still common in some parts of the world. I have experienced them between villages next to each other in Upper Egypt. The discoverer of the Nag Hammadi Codices, Muhammad Ali, told me that someone from the opposing village had murdered his father, whereupon his mother told him and his brothers to keep their mattocks sharp. Their chance came six months later, when someone told them that the murderer was asleep by the side of the road nearby. They rushed out and hacked him to pieces, dividing his heart among them to eat, the ultimate act of blood vengeance.

All this was told me in response to my asking Muhammad Ali to show me where he discovered the jar with the codices inside. Understandably enough, he was not willing to show me the site of the discovery since it was near the opposing village. So I went to the opposing village, found the son of the murdered murderer, and asked him if he would take vengeance on Muhammad Ali if he had the chance. He replied by telling me the story of his avenging his father's death. He took a group of young men and sneaked up on a funeral procession of Muhammad Ali's clan--they shot them up, killing a dozen. So he considered the issue settled and would not need to kill Muhammad Ali to even the score.

I brought this good news back to Muhammad Ali, reassuring him that he could show me the site of the discovery without endangering his own life. He opened his shirt, showed me a scar just above his heart, and replied that they had wounded him in the shoot-out of the funeral procession, but had not killed him. But if he could get his hands on the man who tried to kill him, he would kill him on the spot. So this sort of feud can go on, back and forth, forever.

Jesus' call on us to love our enemies not only calls a halt to blood feuds of such a literal kind, but goes beyond what has always been considered justice ever since Hammurabi's code: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This was not meant cruelly, but as fairness, preventing the powerful from taking undue retaliation. Rather than overkill, let the punishment fit the crime! (Still today in Saudi Arabia the punishment for a robber is not death, but cutting off the offending hand!) In our own society punishment is also supposed to be "fair," though of course in less bloody terms (except for capital punishment).

The point is, you cannot build a society larger than your own group if love does not go beyond your neighbor. It is that narrow, noninclusive view of society that is transcended by the command to love your enemy. The kingdom of God is an inclusive society, for God loves everybody--and so should you.

If the Golden Rule and love of neighbor call on us to return good for good, Jesus' "love your enemies" calls on us to return good for bad, to turn the other cheek, to go the second mile, to give the shirt off our back.

   The one who slaps you on the
   cheek, offer him the other as well,
   and to the person wanting to take
   you to court and get your shirt,
   turn over to him the coat as well.
   And the one who conscripts you
   for one mile, go with him a second.
   To the one who asks of you,
   give, and from the one who borrows,
   do not ask back what is
   yours.

The only way to make sense of this is to realize that you yourself are on the receiving end of such love of enemies. Jesus' perception of nature comes into play, in which he finds God to be revealed in the sun rising on evil persons and the rain showering the fields of the unjust.

In situations in which you yourself have been evil or unjust and yet received through God's intervention so much more than you deserve, you can only be grateful for this second chance. But the second chance is a chance to reciprocate, to do good to your enemies and pray for your persecutors.

Those who hear this and act accordingly are what Jesus called "sons of God," persons in whose conduct "God reigns." Such men and women are what we today might be the "true church," for it is this that might change an evil society into the kingdom of God. That is why it became Jesus' gospel.

James M. Robinson, former director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, is professor emeritus at the Claremont Graduate School in California. This article is excerpted from his book In Search of the Original Good News (HarperSanFrancisco), used by permission of the publisher.

COPYRIGHT 2005 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning