Turn The Other Cheek

What I find very interesting about the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once is that there are so many biblical messages in it. Of course, some of the languages and images are not quite suitable for a general audience, but culturally speaking, if we can only see beyond the surface, the underlying messages can be so relevant to our world!

One of the messages I appreciate much from the movie is on how one ought to respond in face of evil. The Scripture is very clear on this ... turn the other cheek, love your enemies (Matt. 5:38-44), do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27-36). But how does it really get lived out? What do you do when you are in a high conflict divorce situation? What does one do when you witness your family being tortured? Do these verses only apply when evil is done to oneself but not on others? The movie gives me an insight on how to interpret these biblical passages especially in the fight scene towards the end of the movie

when Evelyn was fighting Dierdre at the stairway. Evelyn was probably wrestling with Waymond's earlier advice to stop fighting and be kind to one another, but what does it mean when Dierdre was about to hit her with a deadly blow from? With one foot, Evelyn blocks the blow and, in the next moment, she follows up with the amazing quote to remind Dierdre that she is not unlovable. 

I don't think we are called to be a doormat that in the presence of imminent danger to our lives, we are to simply standby and just passively take the blow. At the least we need to defend ourselves to preserve the dignity that God has given us our physical body. The word "resist" in Matt. 5:38 is problematic. The word is in aorist infinitive tense. This means the word is often translated in the past tense so definitely should not be translated as "do not keep on resisting". However, it can denote something that will be accomplished in the future. (See ref.) How does one not resist the evil one even in the form of basic self defence? I think the practical answer is that the immediate reaction to defend is always going to be there but what follows is even more important. There is no innate fibre that is not going to react against violence done to us or to others especially close to us. We will always fight, resist, and even retaliate. But once that initial reaction of resistance is over, we need to think about how to turn evil into good and help others to do the same. That's what Evelyn eventually did in that fight scene ... helping Dierdre to "get good with our feet" no longer for violence, even defence, but for playing piano, turn fights into hugs, bullets into googly eyes, bomb into perfume, etc. The process is not simple but it does take creativity and imagination. There is always something to love even in the face of evil. We will no longer need to resist, and can even help our enemies to turn to good.