“AN EYE FOR AN EYE LEAVES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND” – MISSES THE POINT.
Tomorrow, Jesus quotes the so-called “Lex Talionis”, the law of “t** for tat” whose earliest articulation is found in the Code of Hammurabi (around 2285-2242 BC). The idea that it is a law that opens the door to perpetual vengeance is flat-out wrong and a misunderstanding of the law.
It was, in fact, meant to stem the cycle of violence. It meant that if someone took an eye from you, you cannot take both his eyes, but only one. It was, in fact, far from being a law of savagery, the beginning of mercy.
But the wonder of Jesus’ teaching in tomorrow’s gospel is precisely that we, his followers, must transcend even that point. We must go beyond the barest minimum, the just minimum. “Justice”, philosophical ethics tells us, “is the minimum of love”. To which Jesus responds – thereby exhorting us: “Love is the fulfillment of justice.”
“Verso l’alto” – “To the heights”, exclaimed Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. It was the guiding principle of his saintly life. “Offer to God only what is worth offering”, said Saint John Vianney. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” says the Letter to the Philippians 4:13. And “the good enough”, the medieval scholastics tell us, “is the enemy of the good”.
We are challenged to go beyond the bare minimum – even if that bare minimum is the beginning of something good, like the Law of Retaliation.
“Go beyond!”, Jesus says. “Transcend. Exceed. I am with you. Forgive. Love. Care. Hope. Dream. Be excellent. You can!”