2 Cor 6:1-10 Ps 98:1, 2b, 3ab, 3cd-4 Mt 5:38-42

Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer The Daily Reflections

I resist a lot of things in my life. I resist smaller things like waking up in the morning, writing twenty-page papers, and bleu cheese; I also resist some larger things like the unjust structures that cause poverty, homelessness, and stratification between peoples. In fact, sometimes I resist those who don’t resist anything. “Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything,” goes the old adage, right? I’ve come to think resistance can be quite alright and even sometimes necessary to make needed reforms.
               
That said, it’s pretty clear why today’s Gospel threw me for a huge loop. When Jesus said, “But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil,” my immediate response was, “Say WHAT?!”
               
“But Jesus,” I argued, “there’s so much evil out in the world that needs changing. I can’t just sit by and not resist it!”

And then, it hit me. I don’t have to resist anything. Jesus has already resisted evil and defeated the root of it, Satan, two millennia ago. Today, Jesus continues to lead the army of his followers peacefully, but strongly, against evil in a new kind of “resistance”: Service. My job is only to serve him as my faithful commander and do what he asks of me. It is for this reason Jesus continues on with his teaching, saying, “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.” My job is to serve actively in the midst of evil, letting my God do the resisting for me so I can give even when there seems nothing more to give. In this giving service we are what Paul called the Colossians: “ministers of God,” enduring all “in the Holy Spirit” for the sake of the kingdom.