Sweet Revenge

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/sweet_revenge.mp3[/podcast] ³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:38-42) I’m titling today’s message: “Sweet Revenge.” I got into trouble for something I didn’t do. Then I went out and got into a fist fight with the guy. [Story about school yard brawl] I don’t know what possessed me to say it, because the dude was bigger than me and he was probably a better fighter than me. But it could have been all the Dragon Ball-Z I’ve been watching to learn Korean instead of going to Korean school, which made me say such a stupid thing, but I told this guy, “I’ll see you in the school yard after school. I owe you a fist sandwich.” Goodness gracious, it felt so good to physically hurt somebody for doing me wrong. But then I got into a lot more trouble—because I not only got into a nice big fight with this guy, who probably beat me up, but I also beat him up pretty good too. But I got into trouble because my parents found out about it and then I got beat up.  Haha. The early 90s in NY. So funny. Revenge is one of those things, it’s so sweet, but then it recoils and hits you back and it’s bitter. Really bitter. I don’t know if you know this because you probably don’t watch as much TV as I do, but revenge is the subject and topic of most TV shows. It gets the highest ratings. People love revenge or stories of revenge. We’re obsessed with levying justice on our own terms. Spiderman only becomes Spiderman because he wanted revenge on the guy who killed his uncle. Loki only wanted to subjugate the human race because he wanted revenge on his brother. The Red Queen only wanted to be off with their heads because of a girl named Alice. Pharaoh only chases Moses because he wanted revenge for his humiliation. We have school shootings because people wanted revenge against other people in the school. Revenge drives people to be and do horrible things, justified or not. Can I be honest with you? I’ve only told you examples of horrible revenge. But there’s much more common revenge. If a friend does something stupid to us, we do something stupid right back and we consider it even. Whether that stupid thing is betraying him or her confidence, slandering them, doing the exact same thing they did to you, whatever it is, we exact our revenge. I’ve seen TV show commercials the other day, and man, they are running out of good ideas, about a man being unfaithful to his wife and his wife exacting her revenge by being unfaithful to her husband and then I don’t know where that story line would go. I’ve also see TV commercials where the popularity of one high school girl was usurped by another series of unfortunate events and then the girl gets her justice on by getting taking the other girl’s boyfriend. I can go on, but I won’t because human beings all react this way and if you say you don’t, that’s a lie and I can prove it, and I’ll do so later. But all of us, until we are satisfied with our revenge do we stop being a victim controlled by the injustice that spurns us. Let’s look at verses 38 and 39 again because clearly this is about the idea of revenge, but it’s clearly not about revenge. ³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. Did you catch that? Underline this in your notes: “do not resist an evil person.” This is the key to understanding how Jesus wants us to act when it comes down to becoming victims of some type of wrong doing. When Jesus is saying “do not resist” he is not saying get beat up. He is saying do not replace what the evil person is doing to you by doing evil right back which is eye for an eye. And according to Mosaic Law and our law, that’s okay to get some measured and justified revenge. For example, if somebody stole your car, you can have the police go put that guy in jail. I don’t know if you noticed because I’ve flat out and said it. But in general, WE HATE THE PEOPLE WANT TO EXACT REVENGE ON. That’s truth. Jesus telling us WAIT ONE MINUTE. I want people to act counter-intuitively. Instead of meeting evil with an equal or greater force of our own, pay it back with good. But it is crazy to pay evil with good. WHAT??? It’s obvious that we hate the very people we want to have revenge on. We harbor that hate. I remember somebody very close to me betrayed me and I hate that person. I wanted to devise ways to plot my revenge against that person and then I remembered, I’m no better. Jesus could have hated me for all the things I did to stab him in the back. But he didn’t. Instead he loves me. He doesn’t act all crazy or exact revenge. He didn’t take all the stuff you did to sin against him and the people around you, all the hurtful stuff, all the stupid stuff, all the insensitive stuff and say, “here comes hell people, come and get burned because you deserve it!” No, rather, what Jesus did was not resist the evil. He was as Isaiah said, an innocent lamb set out to be slaughtered. He endured the sin and he forgave the sin. That is the act that nullified sin. Jesus didn’t ask for our eyes, hands, feet, and whatever it is that we used to sin. He gave himself up for us. I want to be very clear, this isn’t about pacifisms. This isn’t about being a chicken. This is about enduring and forgiving in the same love Jesus has for us toward people who would hurt us intentionally or unintentionally. Look how far Jesus wants us to take this, let’s go to verses 40-42. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. When you read this you should read it this way: Verse 40, when somebody hates you so much so that they take you to court to sue you, not only give them what they want, take all your clothes off and give it to them because you love them. This idea Jesus is painting is crazy. You don’t know this, but back in first century AD, a person only wore a coat, and if the person had some money, they would also wear a shirt underneath that coat. There was no such thing as underwear. So if a guy is asking for your shirt, that’s what you’re wearing on the inside, Jesus is saying love the person who is doing wrong to you so much that you should be willing to be humiliated and go and give him what you’re wearing. Verses 41 and 42 reiterate the same idea. Love people who you would want revenge on so much that you do more to go out of your way to love them. It doesn’t make sense except to Jesus and the people who follow him. When we do this, we change what’s normal. When we act in this way, we are no longer slaves to the people making us victims. We are the empowered. We are the loved, and we are the loving. I want to go to the memory verse for today. It comes from 1 Peter 2:22-24. ²² He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. ²³ When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:22-24) Jesus could have had revenge on all of us, instead he chose to be wounded. He did so for our salvation. If you want some sweet revenge, go out of your way to love the people who did you wrong and take it further than that. That’s what Christmas season is all about. Let’s pray.