IF SOMEBODY BEATS YOU IN THE RIGHT FACE PRESENT HIM THE OTHER 1

SOURCE: Gospel According to the Spiritism, cap. XII, items: 7 and 8 (Matt, 5: 38-42)

SYNTHESIS: Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. (Matthew, V: 38 42) - The prejudices of the world take the man to reward offense for offense, blow for blow; this is taken as justice, by those whose moral sense is still embedded in worldly passions. This is why the Law of Moses prescribed an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - However Christ came and he said: do not resist the evil that they wish to do to you, if someone shall smite thee on thy cheek, present him the other also. - To the proud this teaching seems cowardly... - The proud, doesn't understand that it takes more courage to support an insult than it does to take vengeance. - This is always due to the fact that their vision does not go beyond the present - Should we then take this precept at its face value? No, no more than the other, which tells us to pluck out our eye when it is the cause of offence - If we were to take these teachings to their final consequences, it would mean the condemnation of all restraint, even legal restraint, so leaving an open field for those who are evil by absolving them from any kind of fearvery quickly the good would also become their victims - The very instinct of self preservation, being one of the laws of Nature, prevents anyone from offering themselves for assassination - Jesus, did not mean that self defense is forbidden, but rather that He condemned vengeance. Telling us to offer the other cheek when one has been injured, is merely another way of saying we must not repay evil with evil - Only faith in the future life and the justice of God, Who never allows evil to go unpunished, can give a person the necessary strength to patiently support the blows dealt to either their interests or their selfrespect

CONSIDERATIONS AND REFLECTIONS:

Strange are Jesus' teachings; since, men understood that a good restraint to the evil would be to pay evil with the evil, tooth for tooth suddenly Jesus comes with teachings, that are not go with men's logic of those days, and the ones nowadays who believe death for death, that is death penalty in some country. Spiritists better than anybody should accept and recognize Christ's teachings and their reasons of being, since the spiritist from his instructions of the life in the beyond, knows that life continues and that the law of causes and effects request satisfaction and us although we have free will, what we sow we will reap, be it for good or for evil and already had St. Paul advised: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Galatians, VI: 7) Hence, Jesus Christ who knew the laws of God well, we recognize in his teachings his carefulness in adverting, advising, instructing, explaining and informing about the consequences that a bad judgment may bring, or what spontaneous reaction can bring or provoke. So much, Jesus, brought us the knowledge that we are immortal, in other words, that our spirit is immortal and that God is our Father, and he teaches us to live in harmony with the future life, with God, and with our neighbour and he teaches us how to live in this world, so difficult where evil is still predominant, and so that bad causes don't continue, Jesus, in love recommends, to stop the causes, the humiliation of us giving the other face, are pleasant sacrifices to God and still more, it makes the action and reaction to stop, endless tendency which sometimes pursues us to the very beyond.

Study presented at the Center, Joana drc, on 07/01/1997.

This teaching is a generalization, because there are currents of action and reaction in everything and Paul of Tarsus taught at a certain time: If it be possible, as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men
(Romans, XII: 18)

Well, for us to be in peace with all of the men is difficult, but a spiritist is restrained by his instruction in knowledge and moralization or evangelization, and makes an effort to repress and to suffocate the revenge instincts, hate, reprisal, bitterness, etc., because he knows there are but phases in the spiritual evolution, that he has to make an effort to tame and to moralize himself even yet in this life, because he knows that the coming life is the continuation of the present harmony, there are people that are explosive by nature and they are proud of that, and for lack of spiritual knowledge they don't make the utmost possible of taming themselves. Unhappily! Jesus, would not have teached us to control ourselves if he saw that it was pertinent to our being, He taught because he saw that it was possible through our effort to discipline ourselves and to control ourselves in any explosive reaction, to us addressed and in certain way it is as saying that we are evolutionary, that we can progress spiritually in the control of the material life and the instincts, although in the semi-animalized phase or brutalized and he encourages us to leave that phase, and to enter in the spiritual phase or of the knowledge of ourselves, that we are immortal spirits and that the material life is but temporary, although useful yes, to our true education which is the spiritual and that the material links join onto the spiritual ones, because the effects are registered in the spirit, Jesus said: Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained, (John, XX: 23), as well as in the affinities Jesus also said: For where your treasure is , there will your heart be also. (Matthew, VI: 21. Jesus sowed the teachings for the development, evolution and the man's salvation, as the seed grows and the man changes, it becomes easier for the man to give the other face and it is not for less than it that God, to give us an evaluation gives us certain proofs, and happy they are those that do well in these tests, tests that are of the soul and its evolutionary condition pass and no feigning, everything that happens to us is: "for good to them that love God", (Romans, VIII: 28) and "For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," (Hebrews, XII) because the proofs are necessary for the ripening of our souls, and everything in the humanity displays that we are regenerating ourselves and on the way to a better world, in other words, a regenerating world. Unhappily the regeneration is coming through pains and very little from the love which Jesus has sown, and thence with faith in God and in the future life and in Jesus' teachings with elucidation of the Spirits, lets endeavor to loving more our neighbour and not to pay the same manner the evil one might cause to us and we ought to have faith in God and in Jesus' words that said: Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John, XVI: 23). Thanks to God, that there are already many spirits so much incarnated as disincarnated who make an effort to follow and give pursuit to the teachings of our Lord our divine Master. We see a lot of people who control themselves when offended, there are as examples, the teachers that receive students' offenses, of owners of bars that receive drunks' offenses, of drivers that are self controlled when sometimes groups out screaming offend them; how many mothers receive offenses from husbands or children and remain silent, and so it goes on..., The world is evangelizing and moralizing itself, slowly, but it already gives to notice, there is a lot of work to be done as Jesus has said: Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest (John, IV: 35) one should consider that if the world gives good or transformed spirits to the spiritual world, the spiritual world in a circulatory cycle will give us in return better spirits in the future, and consequently we are working for a better world, it will be the crop of our work today, our affinity will bring us or will take us to our deserving place, and we will inherit in the future, a better world, however that vision demands effort from us all, here and now, then let us sow well to reap well. May God be with us as formerly, today and forever?

This study is an extract from my book Invitation to the Spiritism Doctrine