“Revenge”
Romans 12:9-21
A colleague of mine once told me about a time he was driving down the road and another driver, who was very angry with him for some infraction, drove up beside him cursing and making gestures at him.
My colleague rolled down his window and instead of returning insults he said to the guy: “Gee, I’m really sorry for whatever I did. I apologize.”
He told me that, at that, the other driver’s face relaxed and his frown turned into an embarrassed smile: “Oh, that’s okay,” he said, “I’m sorry I lost my cool.”
I looked at my colleague in awe after he told me this story.
I said, “That is wonderful the way you handled that situation.”
His response was: “Don’t get me wrong.
I was about to give-it to the guy until I remembered that I have a sticker advertising my church on the back bumper.”
It seems like so many people are angry these days.
And it’s so easy to get angry—all we have to do is turn on the t-v, listen to the news in the car, or scan the headlines on the internet or even just overhear someone else’s conversation at Starbucks.
We, as a people, are facing problems that pose serious threats to us all—even to the extent of losing our jobs and our homes.
It’s no wonder so many people are angry about so many things.
But, while anger may make us feel more powerful in the face of overwhelming obstacles, it doesn’t help us find solutions.
When we’re angry, we inevitably look at our opponents with contempt.
So, as Christians how do we respond to the issues in this world that get under our skin?
Oppression, injustice, deception, manipulation, violence…
…we really can’t just sit back and ignore what is going on if we really believe in justice and peace and freedom, can we?
If we turn to the Apostle Paul here, he says we are to “hate evil.”
Surely that means we should do everything within our power to fight against it!
But I think we have to be careful.
He also says we’re not supposed to repay anyone evil for evil and that we are to overcome evil with good.
While it sounds pretty straight forward in theory, in practice it’s anything but that.
I mean, who hasn’t been smacked on the cheek, assaulted with a nasty comment, or run over by a cheap shot…and NOT been tempted to try and get some kind of revenge?
Fighting back and responding in-kind seem to be the basic human impulses when we are mistreated.
But our Scripture Lesson for this morning declares that we, as Christ followers, are to find quite different ways of dealing with the problem of evil.
Paul writes: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil…
…do not take revenge…
…on the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry feed him [or her]; if he [or she] is thirsty, give him [or her] something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his [or her] head.’
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
You know, I used to think that the “heaping burning coals” on the head of your enemy was the ‘getting even’ or the ‘revenge part’ of this passage.
But that is not true at all!!!
Think about it; it happens to all of us.
Have you ever been in a really bad mood for some reason, and treated a spouse, a clerk in a store or a stranger on the phone with angry, sarcastic and bitter words?
I sure have.
What happens when that person responds with love and calm rather than returning your anger, your wrath with wrath?
It tends to calm you down doesn’t it?
It might even embarrass you a bit for having been so rude and angry.
It doesn’t happen all the time, but I think it does eventually…
…even if it takes a couple days or weeks or months or years of contemplation.
I sure do have a lot more respect for someone who does not react angrily to me when I am being angry with them…
…how about you?
I might even come to love that person, if he or she is a stranger or has been thought of as an enemy.
There is so much truth to what the Bible is trying to teach us this morning.
Revenge only keeps evil in circulation.
Whether in a family or a town or an entire community like the Middle East, the culture of revenge, unless it is broken, is never-ending.
Both sides will always be able to justify more violence and hatred.
When Paul talks about heaping burning coals on someone’s head he isn’t talking about another way to ‘get back at someone’ or ‘take revenge.’
Rather such treatment is intended to get the enemy to turn from hostility to friendship and love.
Gracious deeds burn away hate.
Genuine love exposes evil and “burning shame” is often our reaction when we are confronted by the truth of what we have been and what we have done.
And when we experience this “burning shame” we are confronted with a choice.
We can decide that we will not be proud, but will admit our short-comings, our sins and come to repentance and thus salvation and freedom.
Or we can make the decision to ignore our conscience and harden our hearts to God’s love and grace.
But when we do this, it makes it harder and harder for us to come to repentance in the future.
It causes us to move further and further away from God.
It also makes us less human, less kind, less happy.
There can be no doubt that it is a great privilege to be delivered from the miserable sequence of cause and effect of fighting evil with evil and fire with fire.
It is true freedom when we make the decision to allow God to take the reins of a situation and thus repay evil with good.
Also, when we refuse to take revenge, and deliberately rid ourselves of the desire for it, we are taking responsibility at least for our own mental and emotional health.
We are refusing to allow our own future to be dictated and determined by the evil that someone else has done.
It’s bad enough that they have done whatever it was, why should they then have the right to keep us in a bitter and twisted state of being?
That’s part of what it means when Paul says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
The other part is that evil is of the devil.
Good is from God.
And by allowing ourselves to become overcome by evil, we are giving the devil a foothold in our lives.
I don’t want that.
Do you?
Look what Jesus did.
He knew that only the willingness to respond to hostility with peace, to respond to hatred with forgiveness can extinguish evil.
I think that is one thing Jesus meant when He said that those who want to follow Him must take up their cross.
Jesus is calling all of us to follow His way of responding to evil by not retaliating, but by embracing those who do evil with mercy, kindness and forgiveness.
After-all, at the center of the Gospel stands this claim, that when human evil reached its height God came and took its full weight upon Himself, thereby opening the Way for a whole new world altogether.
And if we are Christ’s followers, we are members of that Way.
As a matter of fact, that was the first name that people had for Christians, “followers of the Way.”
It’s the Way countless martyrs, beginning with Stephen praying for forgiveness for those who were stoning him, have responded to those committing unspeakable atrocities against them.
It’s the Way God has dealt with us: “While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
It is God Who has loved us first—not the other way around.
It is God Who has come to rescue us while we were stuck in the sin of disobedience and rebellion against Him.
It is God Who has come to rescue us as a Good Shepherd goes and searches for a lost sheep.
And it is God and all the angels of heaven Who rejoice when we take God up on His offer and are FOUND!!!
Like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, God throws a party over one sinner who repents!!!
God throws a party over your salvation; over mine.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” Jesus tells us in John 15:13, and then He adds, “You are my friends…”
How can we take revenge into our own hands when the Lord of the universe laid down His life, not only for us, but also for the one we are about to take revenge on?
How can we do this if we are to follow Christ?
I know this is hard to hear.
It’s hard to say.
But it’s true.
Christianity requires our entire lives, our all.
Our “love must be sincere.”
We are to “hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
Be devoted to one another in love.”
And, we are to “bless those who persecute” us.
You know, here’s an interesting kicker.
If everything about you and me and our lives belongs to Jesus Christ, then not only is revenge not our right or our possession to keep…but even the wrongs we suffer do not belong to us.
We are not to hold onto these hurts and wrongs as a basis for bitterness.
They aren’t ours to keep.
They belong to Christ.
So, let us turn them over to Him.
A.L. Huxley, the English novelist and critic said: “It doesn’t take much of a person to be a Christian—it just takes all of him or her.”
The Christian life is just that—it’s a life, it’s a way of living that is to encompass every facet of our lives.
And it is a way of living that is radical, beautiful, filled with mercy, love, forgiveness and thankfulness to the God Who loves us, created us and came to this earth in order to save us.
Can you imagine how many people would want to become Christians if Christ’s Church would live by the Way laid out in Romans Chapter 12?
There is no room for wrath and anger within the Christian Church.
There is no room for infighting and tearing each other to pieces.
And there is certainly no room for seeking revenge against a world that wrongs us.
We aren’t to fight for our rights, take people to court, demand things from the world.
We are to give everything—our whole selves to God in Christ and thus respond to violence with forgiveness, hatred with compassion and hostility with peace.
When we live like this we have the chance of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
When we live like this, we have the chance of allowing Jesus Christ to completely change who and what we are.
As we embrace and love those who do evil—we have the chance to be used by God to change this world.
That is my goal.
That is how I want to live.
That’s what I want to be about.
How about you?
Let us pray:
Lord God, forgive us for taking revenge on others.
Forgive us for keeping something that rightly belongs to You for ourselves.
Lord, we want to follow You.
We want to take up our cross.
We want to bless and not curse.
We want to enter through the narrow way.
But we cannot do this in our own strength.
Lord, we turn everything over to You—the wrongs we suffer, our hurts, our desire for revenge, our bitterness.
These are not ours to keep.
Take them.
And fill us instead with Your Holy Spirit.
Transform us into the people we created to be.
In Jesus’ name and for His sake we pray.
Amen.
