11. Confession: Coming Out of the Closet

Jesus begins this passage by quoting a familiar line: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” In Israel's law, that phrase worked as a limit on payback. The penalty should fit the wrong and go no further. Jesus then goes after the instinct underneath the rule, the urge to even the score. “Do not resist the one who is evil.”

Look at what the following verses cover. A slap on the cheek. A lawsuit over your tunic. Someone who forces you to go one mile. A person who begs. A person who wants to borrow. Every example is a personal wrong or a personal claim on you. Jesus is talking about how you answer when you are insulted, pressured, sued, or asked for something. He is not writing a complete policy for courts, for governments, or for protecting someone else from harm. And nothing here says you must stay close to someone who is hurting you. If that is your situation, please talk with a pastor, a counselor, or a trusted friend.

So how does this connect to Chapter 11? Only by careful analogy, and that is worth saying plainly. In this chapter, Miller recalls a Sunday school chart of circles that tracked how close people were to Christ. He also describes a talk-show moment when he declined to defend “Christianity,” because the word means different things to different people. That leads him to separate Christianity as a label from Christian spirituality. Then comes the confession booth. At Reed College's Ren Fayre, Christians set one up and confessed their own failures, and the students responded graciously. Miller concludes that defending the faith had meant refusing to admit wrongdoing. Remember that this is one person's story and opinion. We read it alongside Scripture, not above it.

Here is where Matthew 5 helps. When someone criticizes the church, the first reflex often looks a lot like “an eye for an eye.” We reach for a counterpunch, a clever answer, a list of all the good the church has done. That reflex is the same one Jesus names, even though his examples are about personal insults rather than public arguments about Christianity. Letting go of the need to win is what makes honest words possible, like “You're right about that, and we're sorry.”

That does not mean agreeing with every charge. Some criticism is unfair, and you can answer it with calm truth. But some of it is deserved. Scripture treats admitting wrong as a normal part of life with God. Confessing sin is how a person comes into the light, and it is not a weakness to hide. A church or a believer who can say “we got that wrong” is no weaker for it. They are standing on grace instead of on their record.

Today, practice the small version of that. Don't aim to fix the whole church. Just name one thing it has done wrong, and see whether you can say it without a speech, a defense, or a “but.”