This coming Sunday is the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time and our gospel is the second part of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. “A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon.” (v.17) The description certainly points to a Jewish and Gentile audience and thus raises the question of how “wide is the circle of relationships.” Consider this bit of wisdom from Sirach 12:1–7 (ca. 180 BCE) 

¹ If you do good, know for whom you are doing it, and your kindness will have its effect.² Do good to the just man and reward will be yours, if not from him, from the LORD.³ No good comes to him who gives comfort to the wicked, nor is it an act of mercy that he does.⁴ Give to the good man, refuse the sinner; refresh the downtrodden, give nothing to the proud man.⁵ No arms for combat should you give him, lest he use them against yourself;⁶ With twofold evil you will meet for every good deed you do for him.⁷ The Most High himself hates sinners, and upon the wicked he takes vengeance. 

Is this the wisdom that was active among the Jewish listeners? It certainly seems to point to limits on acts of mercy and forgiveness.

If the Hellenistic “golden rule” and the Jewish wisdom of Sirach do not seem to describe Jesus’ message, it only points out how radical the message was in its day. Be one Jew or Gentile, both peoples lived in a world of patronage. In the ethics of the larger Lucan world, a patron solidifies his or her position in the community by “giving,” that is, placing others in his or her debt, and receiving from them obligatory acts of service and reverence. Is this patronage system being overturned? Verses 36-38 will make clear that patronage is not part of the moral compass being asked of believers. The focus is not on those with the circle of associates and knowns, but rather on the ones called enemies (echthrous). And there is not a lot of room for interpretation here since the word used stems from the root word for hostility.

In v.29 ff we arrive at a section which stands apart from lex talionis or “law of retaliation” that God had commanded in the OT: eye for an eye, etc. (see Exodus 21:23-25; Lev 24:19-20). If Jesus were reiterating or reconstructing the commands according to the law of retaliation, then the verse might be stated:

• To the one who strikes you on the cheek, strike him/her on the cheek.
• From the one who takes your coat, demand a coat back from him/her.
• To the one who asks or takes something from you, demand a similar item in return.

Treating others as they have treated us seems to be a natural and fair way of administering justice. And yet Jesus’ teaching calls for a different response: loving actions such as offering the other cheek, not withholding a shirt, giving what is asked for, not demanding back what has been taken.

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Image credit: Sermon on the Mount | Carl Block, 1887 | Museum of Natural History at Frederlksborg Castle – Hillerod, Denmark | PD-US