Recently, I attended a webinar about an online service for businesses and churches. I expected a very sophisticated and informative presentation, and I was not disappointed.  It was obvious that the vendor spent a lot of time preparing the informational webinar.  Unfortunately, the quality of the webinar broadcast did not match the quality of the information.  The broadcast was plagued with pixilation. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “pixilation,” it’s the result of an incomplete or corrupted video transmission.  Pixilation is that funny looking blotch of random colors that appears occasionally when you stream television broadcasts. 

There was so much pixilation in the webinar that I decided to listen to the audio portion of the broadcast and ignore the video.  Not all the viewers, however, were willing to ignore the distracting, start-and-stop, blotchy video.  A group of viewers started a chat thread about the video problems.  At first, the comments were amusing, but very quickly became disturbing.  Eventually, the chat participants turned their insults on one another.  As I didn’t want to be the next target of insults, I quit the webinar before it concluded. 

Everyone has had the experience of being disappointed or caught off-guard by events that are annoying, distasteful, or threatening.  The usual response to other people’s weaknesses, failings, or offences is to return in kind the sarcasm, insults, or harm.  Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel reading stands in stark contrast to the usual “an eye for an eye” response to disappointment and offence. 

Jesus instructed his disciples and the crowd to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well.” (Lk 6:27-29)  He continued with many similar instructions. 

Jesus’ perspective on insults, injuries, and conflict is widely known, often quoted, but rarely practiced because it is extremely counter-cultural; practicing these teachings of Jesus is a near guarantee of being mistreated, or marginalized, or both.  The false piety of merely quoting Jesus’ aphorism to “turn the other cheek” is clearly preferable to the challenging piety of enduring being struck, even once.   

I’d like to suggest that the apparently nonsensical nature of Jesus’ teachings is the most valid and compelling reason to take his words at least as seriously as one takes the words of those who seem compelled to be insulting, threatening, or violent. 

The usual response to “an eye for an eye” revenge never reaches an endpoint; it will only escalate.  When one party feels satisfied with the extent of revenge, the other party feels the need to escalate their now bested response.  All the various participants in the webinar I attended had intended to learn about an online service.  Their original objective was abandoned quickly in favor of joining anonymous ridicule of the event’s organizers.   

The same spiral of escalation plays out repeatedly in our local environment, as well as nationally and globally.  No one intends it, but everyone gets caught up in social trends.  Sadly, a predominant trend in our society is the sort of childish behavior that begins with ridicule and leads inevitably to violence.  It is for this reason that Jesus taught forgiveness as a daily habit. 

Jesus’ teaching on mercy and forgiveness seems nonsensical when one is accustomed to the insults and threats that are the daily diet of social interaction.  Most people are willing to admit to the tragedy of social dysfunction, but few are willing to avoid escalating it.  As I said above, the challenging nature of Jesus’ teaching is sufficient reason to practice it because, lacking forgiveness in one’s heart, one quickly ceases to be offended and instead, becomes the offender. 

Jesus’ teaching requires neither superhuman virtue nor acquiescence to injustice; it’s simple common sense.  Every act of judging others has profound consequences for one’s own life because God is not alone in applying the metric one uses to judge others; everyone makes judgments in this way. (Lk 6:38)  If the measure with which you measure is mercy and forgiveness, you can be guaranteed to receive the same from God.  If, on the other hand, the metric with which you judge is pettiness and abuse, you are guaranteed to be judged by others to be petty and abusive. 

It is impossible to avoid being offended by the injustice of others, but it is fully possible to avoid being judged as an offender. When confronted by injustice, each person has the unenviable but necessary choice either to forgive the offence or imitate the offensive behavior.  This is neither fair nor desirable, but Jesus’ common-sense wisdom recommends that one choose the lesser of two evils because the greater evil causes one to become what one judges to be offensive. 

The rude, insulting behavior of the webinar participants wasn’t caused by the pixilation of the video stream; it was caused by the participants’ free choice to be rude and insulting. The same is true of each person’s choices and behaviors.  The judgment passed on each of us is entirely our own choice.