The pitches I want to look at in this consideration of Russell Hoban's Bargain For Frances and Matthew's construction of the Sermon on the Mount. I am just teasing about the score. If I do this right, I will be explaining how I came to believe that Matthew and Hoban were really after the same point.
This pictures shows Frances, probably facing away in this picture although it's hard to tell for badgers, having a tea party with her "friend" Thelma. They are friends because they have played together for a long time, but it is an odd friendship. Frances serves as Thelma's javelin catcher. Mother reminds Frances as she heads out that she always gets the worst of it when she plays with Thelma and that she should be careful. Wise words.
Very simply, Thelma is the predator of the "relationship" and Frances the prey. I think now and then of Woody Allen's skepticism about the lion lying down with the lamb. (See Isaiah 11 for details). He says it's nice that the lion and the lamb lie down together, but only the lion gets back up. That's the way it is with Thelma and Frances. You can't deny it's a "relationship" but the name of the relationship is predation. This story is about how that changes.
The story, like all of Hoban's stories, is simple. Like most of them, it has some pop to it if you look at it with certain categories in mind. Thelma tells a series of lies to Frances, the result of which is that Frances buys Thelma's ugly plastic tea set for enough money to allow Thelma to go to the store and buy the set Frances had her heart set on. Thelma cheats Frances. When Frances realizes it, she cheats Thelma--a good deal more imaginatively and without actually lying--and gets her tea set back. Frances put a penny in the tea pot and called Thelma to ask if the "no backsies" agreement Thelma had insisted on should be honored in light of "the money" Thelma had left in the pot.
Thelma returns Frances's money and looks in the pot. She sees that a very unlikely thing has happened. Frances, the perpetual victim, has cheated her. "That is not a very nice trick to play on a friend," said Thelma.
"No," said Frances, it is not. And that was not a nice trick you played on me when you sold me your tea set." (Note the "and" there. That is where Frances prepares to pivot and move in a new direction.)
"Well," said Thelma, from now on I will have to be careful when I play with you."
"Being careful is not as much fun as being friends," said Frances. "Do you want to be careful or do you want to be friends?" This is a very substantial little badger.
Let's start now with Matthew. Jesus says, "Forget the old practice of an eye for an eye (or a fraud for a fraud). Instead, offer no resistance to the wicked. Turn the other cheek; give the other garment; walk the extra mile." I struggled with this two years ago in an essay called The Six Antitheses. If you don't want to wade through it all (and it does take wading), you can look at lines 220--247. I added line numbers to cut down your workload.
The case is easier to make with Frances's help.
Frances does not "offer no resistance to the wicked." That's what she had been doing all along. That's what fastened Thelma into her role as perpetrator and Thelma into her role as victim. It is very hard to stop being a predator if the other party in the relationship continually presents herself as prey. As Frances's friend, I urge her to stop doing this awful thing to Thelma. Of course, if I were Thelma's friend, I would urge her to stop doing this awful thing to Frances, but I think changing Frances's behavior is going to be easier.
I think Frances did what Jesus wanted her to do. She stopped the old practices of exploitation and offered, in their place, a friendship. It's the friendship she wanted. The tea party fraud was just a way to get there. Frances is looking down the road, past non-resistance to evil, and all the way down to reconciliation with an enemy.
There's no way Frances can make a friend without resisting the predator. Thelma couldn't be a friend even if she wanted to with Frances acting the way she always has and there is not indication Thelma wants to. Ending the predation is step one. But if it is the only step, it is only a defense of herself. Not that the defense of herself is bad. But going beyond the defense to a wholly gracious offer of friendship is much better.
Frankly, I think (and made my best case in the hyperlinked essay) that Jesus was more interested in reconciliation than in extending victimhood. It may be that the people in the three examples he gave could only be victims. Certainly the guy who lost his tunic in court is a victim as is the bystander who becomes a mule for the occupying army of Rome. We don't know enough about the cheek-slapper.
But Frances is in a position where she can do better. She can take the line of thought Jesus was pursuing and follow it further. And she does.
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