What happens when God asks you to face yourself, to look at yourself and make an honest evaluation? In Matthew 5:38-42, He does just that. Our response? Often it is to explain it away; to come up with another understanding that makes God's Word palatable.
The above passage is very familiar with both Christians and non-Christians. Everyone can recite, "turn the other cheek." Often they understand these words to teach pacifism. However, they miss the point of Jesus' words. God gives permission to fight crime and wage war. (See Genesis 9:6 & Romans 13 as examples.) Also, self-defense is not rebuked.
What then does the passage teach? It teaches us to examine our personal rights, our responses to those that ask of us. In the United States, rights are everything, and with good reason. However, when a culture is created around personal rights, in time these rights trump all others, and any sense of humility and submission is lost. Humility and submission must be taught alongside of personal rights to keep a culture in balance.
Jesus taught these concepts and did so in a way that made the listener consider self and selfishness. He asks us to walk the second mile. A Roman soldier could rightly demand of anyone to carry his baggage for one mile. Jesus tells us to go two. Why? When we go the "extra mile" we are doing that which is not rightly demanded of us. We gain freedom from the moment by going beyond the required. The soldier then must ask us to not do so or accept our gift. The second mile becomes an act of grace. And it gives us, the one carrying the burden, freedom that we did not have during the first mile.
I'll expand this in the weeks to come.
-Mark
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