I’ve grown up hearing that turning the other cheek was what Christians were always supposed to do. Yet it always seemed like a situation that, while specific, was also not likely to happen. It was easy to assume that until I had been slapped once, I didn’t have to worry about turning my cheek for a second slap. As an adult it seemed like the only way this verse was used was to encourage pacifism and so it seemed like pacifism was the only response a Christian could have to personal harm.

But then I read Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. In this book Willard suggests that there is another way to read Jesus’ saying. It is to read the saying on turning the other cheek in the context of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, that is, through the lens that the whole point behind the Jesus’ teaching is that life in the Kingdom of Heaven is available to all who hear it right now and it will produce people who are capable of breaking free of normal patterns of behavior. Willard also suggests that Christians tend to read the Sermon on the Mount as a new law and as long as we can keep the new law with Christ’s help, then we are living as Jesus would want us to live, but Willard says that kind of thought contradicts the style of Jesus’ teaching and the result is not greater life in Christ, but feelings of disappointment and failure.

I’ve been thinking about the way Willard describes Jesus’ teachings, the Kingdom of Heaven, life in Christ, and what being struck on one cheek and turning the other would mean for a while and this is where my thoughts have currently taken me.

Consider first what normally happens. Two children are playing in a room. One child gets too close to the other and the other child hits the first. Now if this is the first time the first child has been hit by a playmate, the first child will go through a form of shock processing what just transpired. What happened was that the first child’s personal property in the form of their body was damaged, albeit probably only slightly, but the first child felt pain and shock. What probably hurt more than the physical was the look the other child gave that accompanied the hit.

Not only is the first child physically and emotionally hurt, but he is now processing what it means to be devalued by another person and discovering how wrong it is. If a child is playing near a chair and the chair tips over on him it does not hurt as much because the chair cannot know better. But another child knows that children have value. At the very least, children know they have value themselves even if they haven’t realized that value also applies to others.

So, the first child is now considering the kind of response to give in return. Fight or flight kicks in. Either the child will flee to protect himself from further injury and seek justice from an adult, (or will flee in the sense that loud cries will ensue to bring justice from an adult) or the first child will decide to protect his person from further injury by causing injury and bringing justice to the other child himself.

Now, what happens when adults have been struck on the cheek? Much the same thing, although adults have learned some restraint and the ability to determine whether it is safe to fight back or not. Some people respond with defiance intending to not have another devalue them, some shrink into shame because they are going to allow their value to be, seemingly, diminished, some plot revenge, and some just want to get to a place where they won’t be hit anymore.

Does this pattern change when Christians believe that turning the other cheek is a law? We are hit once and we have to be willing to be hit again, but what about a third time? Would a third hit try our patience too far? What happens inside Christians when we are hit? There is the approach where one feels unworthy and accepts being hit as something deserved for past sins, i.e. accepting our diminished value. There is the secret hope that physical pain means persecution, i.e. hoping that our value has increased through suffering patiently. There is the desire to never be around that person again, i.e. flight and avoidance. There is the desire to hold back intense feelings of retribution, especially on the outside, i.e. the desire to fight and bring our own justice. Then there is the cry to God for strength or justice to do what we cannot, or feel we should not, do, i.e. knowing our value to be attacked and wanting God to comfort us and make things right. Some Christians might be able to be slapped and their first automatic response is to love the person who hit them, but such a person is probably not the norm.

However, under Willard’s view being struck on one cheek and being willing to turn the other is not a law, but an example. The kind of person who follows Christ and has Christ’s life is the kind of person who can be hit and not have the need to fight or flee, but can stay right there with the same heart toward the aggressor as before. This response can be done once we are secure in our value in God’s eyes, we see others as Christ sees them, and we are secure in our trust in God to care for us in all situations.

If we know that our value is safe in God, we can see the attempts of others to devalue us as the pitiful efforts they are. When God holds our value, nothing they do to us can destroy what God possesses.

If we know how much Christ loves others, we can see how miserable they are without Him. They think hurting us can make them feel better about themselves. But they are trapped by their own habits and their own feelings of shame. They are fighting against reality so hard to make a futile life without Christ work. And yet Christ could break through all of that in a moment of forgiveness and completely free them to the best life they would ever know. And if Christ did that, the person hurting us would be utterly transformed.

If we know that we are always safe in our Father’s world, then we will be able to face pain and suffering because God will always be with us and will provide what we need in each challenge we face. What we fear about pain and death makes pain and death seem much worse, but many Christians who had fears about certain illnesses and deaths did not face the full magnitude of those fears realized. In fact, many of the martyrs tell a completely different story, that instead of pain and death being unbearable, Christ was there giving them strength and comfort. It does not mean that pain or suffering do not happen, but that when pain and suffering do happen, God is still present and active in our lives in tangible ways giving us all we need to get through them. Thus, even if we are slapped on one cheek, we are still safe in God in a way that even many slaps can never touch. God is all we need to live in His world.

Willard would also say that turning the other cheek does not mean that we need to stand and stay in situations where we are continually hurt. We can still love someone and remove ourselves to a place where we cannot be hurt. We also should not stand and allow someone else to be hurt. Loving our neighbor means we have to be involved and willing to take action.

While turning the other cheek may not happen very often, being hurt by others does. Yet Christ has given us everything we need to be secure in Him, to grow into His likeness so that we can bless those who would curse us, and He has loved us so completely that we can be free to love others.