Questions from my students: does “turn the other cheek” mean we will get walked all over?
There are a lot of ways to accumulate religious baggage. You can pick it up through bad leadership, heretical teaching, and just sloppy miscommunication or personality clashes. Nevertheless, it’s some of the most difficult baggage to release, and many people hold on to things they should never hold on to because they feel a spiritual obligation to it.
I have, at times, heard well-meaning Christians counsel those going through very difficult circumstances that, “this is your cross to bear” or “Jesus told us we would suffer” or “you’ve got to deny yourself.” Many cite Jesus’ famous teaching of “turning the other cheek” when it comes to the people in our life who have hurt us, and sometimes these very same well-meaning people will tell us to stick around in unhealthy relationships because, “it’s all part of the game.” After all, Jesus was crucified, and we live into that very story, and so does this mean anytime we encounter hardship we should take it all head-on and deal with it?
Does turning the other cheek and denying ourselves mean we need to endure unhealthy relationships and circumstances? Should we feel guilty whenever we do anything remotely self-serving? Should we stick around in relationships we sense are damaging us just because we need to “deny ourselves?”
Here are some thoughts that hopefully lead you towards an answer:
First, there is a difference between laying your life down and someone taking it. We are told, by Jesus himself, to “lay our lives down” for his sake and to “pick up our cross.” But notice who the active agent in this sentence is: it’s you. There is a difference between voluntarily laying down your life and someone taking your life from you. Jesus that he laid down his life “that I may take it up again.” He went on: “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). There were many times where Jesus could have had his life taken and he escaped because “his time had not come yet” (John 7:30, 44; 10:39). We do not need to pity Jesus for his death — he was accomplishing his mission on his terms. And we do not need to join this pity with our own lives, allowing dangerous or unhealthy people around us to dictate our life for us based off of a faulty martyrdom complex, where we paint ourselves as a hero to a journey God would never desire us to be on in the first place. We must be certain we, like Jesus, are laying our lives down on our own accord and not having it taken from us by life-sucking individuals.
Secondly, we are to pick up our cross, not every cross. When Jesus teaches us to pick up our cross daily, he uses the possessive: it’s our cross to bear (Luke 9:23). What is this cross? It will most likely be different for everyone, but you’ll know it’s yours. We cannot carry every cross and burden we see in our sights. As Paul tells the Galatians, “For each will have to bear his own load” (Galatians 6:5). This can be difficult to discern — and there’s more on this later — but the process is worth it. What has Jesus burdened you with and for? Carry it with joy. Endure with faith. But be careful: when you pick up your cross every day, make sure it’s yours to bear.
Third, while Jesus ministered to a lot of people, he also did not minister to a lot of people. In other words, Jesus set limits and boundaries on his ministry. There were many, many people Jesus disappointed. Remember: he died alone. He did not have a large following for his whole life and many people we angry with him when he did not meet their expectations. One interaction stands out: a young man asks Jesus to settle a dispute between he and his brother. Jesus responds: “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you” (Luke 12:14)? It’s a good question. Jesus understood when he was being asked to do things that were outside of his larger ministry. He knew his vocation, he knew his ministry, and he protected these things while remaining incredibly kind.
Fourth, do not forget you are part of a larger body. In certain kinds of churches, two or three people shoulder all the burdens. It’s quite common for one pastor to do most of the weddings, funerals, and hospital visits. But I do not see any evidence in the New Testament to support this kind of organizational structure in local churches. The image given by Paul, most helpful here, is the “body of Christ,” of which all of us are differing “members.” When a body takes on weight by lifting something up or carrying a backpack, the weight is distributed to many different places on the body. While one area will take the most (you can hear your dad saying, “Lift with your legs, son!”), your whole body feels the pressure. Likewise, be sure to entrust the bearing of burdens to the rest of your church. You’re not the only one who can visit a hospital, give relationship counsel, or pray for those hurting.
Finally, bear others’ burdens with discernment. The clearest passage on this is in the letter to the Galatians. Here, Paul gives the believers a helpful and nuanced vision of bearing burdens in Christian community:
1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.
-Galatians 6:1–5 (ESV)
When you read verses 2 and 5 together and then ask the question, “Should we bear our own burdens or bear others’ burdens?” The answer is…yes. Both. To Paul, the answer is emphatically not to pick up every problem that encircles you as your own (“Keep watch on yourself…”), but it is also emphatically not the answer to reject empathy entirely (“Bear on another’s burdens”). We are, once again, called by the Scriptures into discernment and the process of wisdom. We must assess if such burdens are ours to carry. Can we handle it? Is this our battle to fight? Am I getting involved to show love or prove a point? Am I getting involved to serve someone else or myself?
Jesus set limits on his ministry. We forget all of the people he passed by, all of the sick who left unhealed simply because he could not get to them. We forget how he evaded crowds and escaped the masses. We forget that while many stones were thrown at him, he dodged them all so he might pick up his cross. Jesus was not walked all over and no one took his life. If you are to imitate him and become like him, no one should take yours.
