Matthew 5:38-48. Jesus reminds his hearers of what they have been taught, and then takes them beyond that. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth is actually a part of God's law, and a civilized teaching that is meant to limit retaliation. If someone pokes out your eye, you are entitled only to poke out his (or her) eye--not to kill him, stomp on his dead body, enslave his family and burn his farm, as was the previous primitive custom: total anhilalation of the person who takes your parking space, or the last chocolate out of the candy bowl, or who votes for the wrong candidate; it's a good thing we've grown beyond that!
Jesus is not, it seems to me, reversing God's old barbaric law here, but is saying rather that his hearers need not be enslaved by eye for eye when it comes to matters of personal honor. They need not spend their lives giving tit for tat, trying to get even with persons who seek to drop them down a notch and put them in their place. They are, rather, the light of the world and the salt of the earth, second to no one; Jesus gives them ways to live that make this apparent. RS
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