The Wikipedia article on him says, 'During his playing days, his teammates would frequently send women to tempt him to compromise his morals.  Green would respond by calmly quoting scripture.' 

          I wonder if Green had to endure not just sexual temptation, but the temptation to verbally retaliate for all the pointed jokes, snide remarks, and perhaps insults?  Even there, his commitment to Jesus, which he had made in high school, won out.

The first example Jesus gives of how to engage with an ‘evil person’ is about our reputation while we follow Jesus.  The slap on the cheek highlights this.  It was a social insult for following Jesus.  Many Jews of the first century and onward had to absorb that contempt.  Their peers expected a military and nationalist messiah, and Jesus didn’t fit the bill.  So insults and slaps would be directed your way if you proclaimed your allegiance to Jesus.

Defamation was a bit of a misdemeanor offense back then.  The Jewish rabbis had a law based on oral tradition found in the Mishnah that said you could seek restitution in court for being slapped.  The offending party would be required to pay 200 zuz (a monetary unit) for a fronthanded slap and 400 for a backhanded one.  So in that culture, you could take someone to court and sue him for insulting you.  Or, of course, you could slap the person in retaliation if you were their social equal.

However, Jesus commands us to expose our other cheek, rather than slap the other person on the cheek in exchange.  A person slapping you on your left cheek would have to do something very awkward:  use the back of her or his left hand to do so (the assumption is that the person is right handed).  Who does that?  If you’re right handed, try going through that motion with your left hand. 

Hence, Jesus does not call us to be mere doormats.  He certainly does take from you a right to our own ‘nice reputation’ in a worldly sense, because he did.  But through integrity and smart offerings of yourself, you can make it very awkward for the person to continue to insult you.  By not retaliating ‘eye for eye and tooth for tooth,’ or in this case, insult for insult, jab for jab, or slap for slap, you can create a situation where another person is invited to take the next step of malice, if they dare.  But by doing that, they might recognize that something cruel exists in them.  By insulting you already, they have taken some steps down that path.  We hope that this would call that person’s attention to Jesus, who is transforming you, and who calls them to be transformed as well. 

‘Green said he's reaping the rewards today. “True enough, most of the guys have come back after the years of time now. Sixteen years later [and] now they are saying, ‘You know what, I sort of wish I would have rethought some of my decisions, or else I wouldn't be in the situation now.’”’

How do you need Jesus to reshape your heart so that you can give him your social reputation?  If you feel defensive about it, ask Jesus why.  Pray for Jesus’ love and wisdom in order to respond creatively but firmly to insults.  Cast your lot in deeper with Jesus.  Help them to know what - and who - is at stake.
 

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