BOLDLY SUBMITTING TO PERSONAL INJUSTICE

Matthew 5:39-42 (NIV 1984)
39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Here Jesus challenges our pride and desire for honor. He commands a different path than the one where we desire to stand up for ourselves and fight back when we get insulted, taken advantage of, or even conscripted into forced labor; note, the idea of being asked to go one mile was in the context of a Roman soldier conscripting someone into temporary forced servitude. We are told to lay our own personal dishonor down for a greater cause. Now, bear with me as I seem to go back and forth on this. The teaching here in no way implies that we are to live in cowardly fear of others (2 Tim. 1:7; Heb. 13:6; Matt. 10:28); in fact, the opposite is true, we are to be bold and courageous, not loving our lives even unto death (Rev. 12:11). We are to stand up and be willing to fight, even die, but for what? Our ego? Our pride? Our good name? Our rights? Jesus seems to be saying, and the Apostle Paul echos, that when it comes to these things we allow ourselves to be wronged (1 Cor. 6:1-8), but not out of fear or out of a cowardly desire for peace, rather we allow the wrong for something higher, much higher, namely, that Christ would be made manifest (2 Cor. 4:10-11; 2 Cor. 2:14). This capitulation of our rights does not mean we refuse to speak truth or stand up for righteousness, rather we refuse to stand up for our personal rights. For the person who insults us, we fight their rudeness by refusing to get even. For the person who takes advantage of us, we fight their greed with generosity. When we experience government overreach that presses us into unwanted service, we are to fight the oppression with submission that goes beyond the call of duty. We answer their unjust activity with the burning coals of kindness (Prov 25:21-22).

A few years back I was tasked with hiring someone to paint part of our church building. Because it would save us a lot of money, I decided to hire a young amateur painter. The job took much longer than I was hoping for and the quality of work, along with the whole experience, was very disappointing, especially since the painter subcontracted the job out to even younger, less professional men than he. What made matters worse was that the painter contacted me wanting extra money since the job was more involved and taking longer than he had first thought. I was able to point him to the contract that we had drawn up at the beginning. I had been fair, patient and considerate of the delays he had continued to bring to the project, and was quite frustrated with his response. I stood my ground and did not capitulate.

After the job was done the Lord pointed me to our passage here and began to speak to me about giving up my personal rights for the sake of the kingdom. I asked the Lord why He waited until after everything was settled to emphasize this to me, to which He highlighted my own heart's disposition. My tendency in the past might have been to avoid the conflict with the painter at all costs and cave into the fear and pressure of a man who for all I knew might be capable of violence. My goal would have been to be “nice” and avoid making him mad at me, or worse dislike me. I would have been attempting to avoid personal rejection. To give in with this motive would have been cowardly and not have brought glory to God. Once our cowardice spirit is called into check and we are able to do the hard thing and take the hard stance no matter what it costs us in public opinion or personal safety, we are then at a place where we can give in to unjust demands, but with a higher purpose in mind. We humble ourselves wholly for the sake of Christ and not out of personal fear. “Why not rather be wronged?” is the Apostle Paul's advice (1 Cor. 6:7). This does not mean we never stand against oppression, or resist the intrusion of governmental overreach, for there certainly are times we will be called to do so, but we must remember that it is all for a much higher cause than our own personal justice or constitutional rights. Our lives are truly are not our own (1 Cor. 6:19-20).