Last week our daily gospels were taken from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). A major theme was a series of three gospels was a description of progression in Christian discipleship in asking three foundational questions. Who is God shaping me to become? What effect is that transformed life meant to have on others? If that is who we are and how we are to be present to others, what is the “end game” of this mission into the world. 

In today’s gospel, we begin to encounter passages in which Jesus begins with a familiar teaching and expressions from the Old Testament and then says: “But I say to you…”  Jesus is not rejecting the Old Testament. Rather, he is revealing to an original intent that seems to have been lost or misappropriated, restoring the verse’s deepest intention and calling his disciples to a higher righteousness appropriate to the Kingdom of God. Today we hear the familiar “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 

This verse appears in several places, including Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, and Deuteronomy 19:21. The verses are expressing the principle known as the lex talionis (“law of retaliation”). Modern readers often assume it was harsh or vindictive, but in its original context it was actually a limitation on vengeance. In the ancient world, retaliation could easily spiral out of control. Someone injures your animal, so you destroy his herd. Someone breaks your tooth, so your family attacks his family. The law sought to establish proportional justice.

The point was to limit revenge, keep violence from escalating, and create a situation where measured justice could be applied. It was fundamentally a legal principle intended for judges and courts saying that the punishment should fit the offense. In its historical context, it was a significant advance toward systems of justice. Most Jews understood it as part of God’s law governing justice within the community, not as a guide for personal vengeance. Nevertheless, by Jesus’ day, some people could interpret it as justifying a spirit of retaliation: “If someone injures me, I am entitled to repay the injury.”

Jesus is not declaring the Old Testament wrong nor is He abolishing civil justice. Instead, He is addressing personal relationships. He tells his disciples: “Offer no resistance to one who is evil.” and “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go for two miles.” Jesus moves beyond the question: “what am I entitled to?” to the question “How does love respond?” The law had restrained vengeance, but Jesus called disciples beyond vengeance altogether as part of a movement from revenge, to proportional justice, towards generous mercy. This is not a correction of the Old Testament but a radical deepening of its ultimate purpose.

What about in real life? Scholars have found is that in both popular culture and everyday speech, “an eye for an eye” is commonly understood as a principle of personal revenge or retaliation, whereas historians, legal scholars, and biblical scholars overwhelmingly understand the original lex talionis as a principle of proportional justice within a legal framework.  Why? In part because the phrase is detached from its legal setting. In Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, the formula appears within collections of laws governing judicial decisions. Modern readers usually encounter the phrase as though it were a proverb, not as part of a court system.

In modern English if someone says today, “It’s an eye for an eye,” they usually mean “he got what was coming to him.”  It is a staple of cinematic plot. Consider the “John Wick” movies, “The Equalizer” and sequels, “Taken” and its follow-on movies. It is perhaps a legacy writ large in the American imagination with tales of the American cowboy. Studies in moral psychology have also found that people possess strong intuitive approval of retaliation under certain conditions, suggesting that many people instinctively associate justice with personal payback. Research on revenge versus forgiveness treats the phrase as the common cultural expression of retaliatory behavior and contrasts it with “turning the other cheek.”

When faced with individual or systemic injustice, there is a basic human response for a change. We want a hero who can right the wrong in a timely manner. Perhaps a deeper question beyond our instinctual response is “what kind of person am I becoming?” What difference could this “becoming person” make in the world? Will we be the “light” that pushes back the darkness of blood feud and revenge or will we join the fray that points to a world of blind and toothless people.

I guess it depends on who our hero is: Jesus or John Wick?

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Image credit: Sermon on the Mount (1877) by Carl Heinrich Bloch, Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, Public Domain