An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
On the surface that seems so barbaric.
And yet that law, known as the Law of Retaliation,
was one of the most civilizing acts in human history.
In the ancient world,
before there were any laws,
if a person was hurt or offended,
then they would round up their clan
and go after the person who caused the injury
and their revenge would often be worse than the original crime,
perhaps even leading to death.
The Law of Retaliation was intended to put on a limit on the retribution:
You could only take an eye for an eye.
In other words, your retribution couldn’t be worse than the crime.
If someone stole your livestock,
you got an equivalent amount of livestock back,
you didn’t get to burn their farm to the ground.
This “eye for an eye” Law of Retribution
is found throughout the Old Testament,
and Jesus’ disciples would have been very familiar with it.
We even see the remnants of the Law of Retribution today
in our own justice system.
Judges and juries attempt to give sentences that are just,
without being cruel or unusual punishment.
It doesn’t always happen the way it’s supposed to,
but at least that’s the intent of the law.
But today Jesus is moving his disciples—and us—beyond the law.
“An eye for an eye” might have been sufficient at one time,
but to be a follower of Jesus we must go beyond that.
“Offer no resistance to one who is evil.”
“Turn the other cheek.”
Jesus is always seeking to lead his disciples
further along the road to salvation.
And he does this by moving them beyond the law, beyond logic.
We see this again
when he talks about loving our neighbors and hating our enemies.
It’s understandable to hate an enemy, it’s logical.
But again, Jesus is trying to move his disciples beyond logic.
Or rather, he is giving his disciples a different kind of logic,
the logic of love.
“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”
These are very hard teachings to obey.
But Jesus has high expectations for us:
“Be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.”
Jesus always seeks to lead us further and further toward perfection.
Beyond the law, beyond logic, to love.
It is in fact the law of love, the logic of love.
This is what it means to be Christian.
This is the perfection that Jesus asks of us.
But he doesn’t just ask it of us.
As our Messiah, our savior, he goes before us in living it out.
He shows us the way.
He gives us the cross as is his concrete demonstration
of what it looks to refuse to take an eye for an eye,
of what it looks like to love our enemies.
We see it every time we gaze upon the crucifix.
The crucifix is both our example and our destiny.
This past week we had an open house at school,
and there was a young family that came
with their son to look at our kindergarten.
They mentioned early on that they weren’t Catholic,
but they were very interested in our school.
As we took them on a tour of all the classrooms they had lots of questions.
Questions about Mass, questions about religion class,
even questions about what science class is like in a Catholic school.
It’s very interesting, the perceptions people have about Catholic schools,
and we tried to answer all their questions as we walked.
And when we got to the last classroom on the tour,
the mother took me aside and pointed at the crucifix on the wall
and asked in a low voice,
“Is there one of those—”
she didn’t know what to call it—
“A crucifix?” I asked.
“—yes, is there one of those in every room?”
And I thought to myself,