Offer the wicked man no resistance
The natural and sometimes spontaneous reaction when someone has done us wrong is to want to hurt them. It is part of our instinct for self-protection, which we also see active in animals. The tendency, though, is to do the offender more harm than they have done to us. This can be reciprocated so that what started as little damage ends up into a full-fledged war, involving many others who are innocent, and causing much harm to both perpetrator and victim. The law of “eye for eye” was therefore, an attempt to regulate the amount of harm done to the offender, in order to mitigate escalation of violence. But often ill feelings remain even after such justice has been served.
We know from observation and sometimes from experience, that revenge does not solve anything. We see it all over the world in countries where there is war. We might have experienced it, and we know that at the very least it damages relationships and leaves back hard feelings which are unpleasant to live with. Even our relationship with God is impaired.
In today’s gospel Jesus teaches us the one approach which effectively conquers evil done to us by returning good for evil. It is true, this requires us to transcend our anger and natural desire for pay back, but when we do, we discover that it is the only effective response to evil. To start with, it frees the heart of the victim from the burden of holding on to a grudge. It makes the injured party merge out as the better person, even when some people might consider you the weaker person. Secondly, there is no unnecessary damage to the innocents, as is the case on occasions when people go out for revenge. On the contrary, people may be edified by action of the person who returns good for evil. People like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Ghandi, came to be honored, both by their friends and their enemies. Quite often, even the perpetrators are won over to the side of the victims. Returning good for evil is something that requires a special grace for which we need to pray.
In the first reading, we see how St. Paul lived the teaching of his Master. He says: “…in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness…”
