Not a Christian, but I generally see a link between those verses and the
Beatitudes: someone who has faith in God's promise of justice ultimately being done has no reason to try to mete out justice themselves, and someone who has faith in God's promise of reward in Heaven for suffering through injustice and persecution has no reason to protect their physical body or earthly posessions.
The original Jesus movement would have thought much less in terms of an otherwordly platonic heaven of souls - or even the
Olam Haba (World to Come).
If we consider the Gospel of Mark, we can see quite clearly that Jesus anticipated those rewards both in the here-and-now (Messianic Age)
and in the Olam Haba:
"Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Jesus quite sharply distinguishes "this age" from the "age to come, eternal life" and he promises his disciples "
a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields", albeit with some persecutions.
They believed that Jesus was about to institute the Messianic Age
on earth from Jerusalem with a new Temple. Then he died and an atonement model of his 'messiahip' appears to have become the centrepiece of the cult, with Paul's elucidation of a crucifixion philosophy of baptism as a process of "dying" to the old self and "rising" again with Christ to eternal life.
Therefore, I think that this Q saying in the early Jesus tradition would likely not have presupposed the paradigm in your above post. Later Christians may have imputed such an interpretation into it but the internal logic of the 'argument' in the original logion is not suggestive of a "
suffer now for reward in eternity" equation. You also get the 'good stuff' in the present Messianic Age.
If we turn to the actual teaching about non-violence in Luke, we find it premised on an altogether different justification, the
nature of God which Jesus interprets as offering a model of divine, nondifferentiated love for both good and bad:
"
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either...But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." (
Luke 6:27-35)
"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (
Matthew 5:44-45).
I once read a midrash concerning Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha, in which the sage was asked by a non-Jew: "
When do we [Jews and Gentiles] ever rejoice together?"
The Rabbi answered:
'
We rejoice together when the rain falls. Why is this? 'The meadows are clothed with flocks; the valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, yea, they sing' " (Psalms 65:14). What is written after this? 'Shout unto God, all the earth.' It is not written ['Shout unto God] Priests, Levites, and Israelites,' but 'Shout . . . all the earth!' (Genesis Rabbah 13:6)
God's 'blessing of rain' is for all: that is, his divine providence in nature as supreme benefactor of His creatures. This eternal loving-kindness expressed through His rich bounty in nature, was viewed as "indifferent" to the merits or choices of the recipients. All the earth, good and bad.
As I understand it, the internal 'logic' is closer to this Rabbinic teaching - and less to the idea of "
be a punching bag until the world ends and we get our eternal rewards", 'reward' being both this age and in the next according to Jesus. Just as God is merciful, kind, loving and eternally 'giving' through the bounties of creation to good and bad without distinction, so should disciples be likewise to those who curse and abuse them.
Likewise, in Hebrew the words for “neighbor” (
re‘a Leviticus 19.18) and “enemy/evil [one]” (
ra‘, as in 1 Sam 30.22) share the same consonants (
resh and
ayin), distinguishable only in vowels which aren't in the text. Thus, when Jesus in Luke expounds the Parable of the Good Samaritan in response to the question from the Torah-teacher, "Who is my neighbour?", his reply “What do you read there?” is akin to demanding of him: “
Can't you see in the Torah the injuctuon to love neighbor (in the narrow sense) and your enemies?”
In its original context, the saying has less to do with eschatological expectation in my reading and more about what it means to be
"like" God (as Jesus understood the Jewish conception of Deity and man having been created in His image) and indeed Jesus's radically inclusive interpretation of Torah, which extends the mitzvot on 'neighbour-love' and not taking revenge explicitly to all people, including one's enemies.
