Text: Romans 12:14-21
Date: February 20, 2022
Event: The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
Romans 12:14–21 (EHV)
Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who are rejoicing; weep with those who are weeping. 16Have the same respect for one another. Do not be arrogant, but associate with the humble. Do not think too highly of yourselves.
17Do not pay anyone back evil for evil. Focus on those things that everyone considers noble. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, maintain peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20But:
If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him a drink.
For by doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.
21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Love Like Jesus Loves
What do you feel when that person cuts you off on the way home after a long, draining day? Is your immediate reaction along the lines of, “Wow, I hope that person makes it home ok. It seems like maybe they’re not seeing well.” Or, “I hope that person is doing fine, they seem like they might be distracted by something heavy and difficult in their life.” Or even, “Oh, boy, is it getting to that time where I need my headlights on? I must be doing something to be a bit invisible.”
If any of those describe your normal mindset, I applaud you. Your resolve and sanctification puts my normal mindset to shame. Most of the time my thought is something along the lines of, “What kind of a fool drives like that?” It’s easy to be indigent when I know someone else did something wrong. You can feel good about leaning into being upset because you are convinced you’re in the right and justified in your anger.
In our Gospel this morning we continued our journey into Luke’s recounting of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (or at least a sermon with very similar content to the one recorded in Matthew). And Jesus’ command, “Love your enemies,” is the very thing that Paul is expounding on in our Second Reading for this morning. Jesus’ command means not just not being angry at the person who unintentionally did something to annoy or inconvenience you, but actually loving those who are your enemies, who hate you. That’s… not easy.
It’s not easy because this runs totally contrary to the way the sinful nature thinks. In a completely illogical way, the very part of me that is always pushing me to sin is also the part of me that wants to see myself as better than other people. Along with that comes the chance to relish the opportunity to be mad at someone. “You we’re wrong; I’m in the right! I’m allowed to be mad!”
Now surely, there’s a right way to address those concerns. Jesus spoke about that in Matthew 18, that when someone sins against you, you ought to go talk to them just one on one and try to work it out, always with the goal of repentance and forgiveness. That is clearly not what the sinful nature has in mind, though. The sinful nature wants to stick it to them and hurt them in the same way that you’ve been hurt—and to view such actions as your right.
That is not the Christian’s approach to life or relationships, though. Paul expounds on some of what Jesus said in our Gospel: Bless those who persecute you; bless, and do not curse. Our reaction to harmful words or actions should be love and pity, not wishing harm on them or getting even. But why? Why should a Christian fight his or her baser instincts when wronged?
Paul wants us to consider our relationships with other people in the light of our relationship with God. What was our natural condition with him? It was one of rebellion and animosity. It was one of, if we can understand this properly, persecution. We fought against everything God is and wanted with every fiber of our being. We did everything in our power to stop him from being who he is or to hate him because of who he is. That’s the natural condition of sinful mankind. That was how we related to God.
And what did God do? Did he seek to curse? Did he gleefully plunge us into hell? Did he seek satisfaction from us for the wrongs we had committed against him? No. From the very first sin in the Garden of Eden he promised not vengeance but salvation. He promised not a list of works we could complete to pay him back and make things right, but a completely one-sided solution that would be God fixing all of it. He would send a Savior to fix sin.
And so Jesus came to those who were his enemies. He came to those who hated him in the flesh and all of us who have hated him in spirit. He came to take all of our wrongs on himself and set things right with the Almighty. Jesus’ mission was one of mercy and compassion. We see glimmers and flickers of that as he feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and even raises the dead. But the far greater mercy and compassion he came to bring was eternal mercy and everlasting compassion. He came to forgive our sins and give us eternal life with him in the perfection of heaven.
And so Paul is really saying, “Let the love God has shown to you reflect in your lives—even to those who despise you.” This is easier said than done because when we do that we are fighting our base, sinful desires and our twisted sense of justice. So what does this look like when we are motivated by God’s love for us?
Paul says, “Rejoice with those who are rejoicing; weep with those who are weeping. Have the same respect for one another. Do not be arrogant, but associate with the humble. Do not think too highly of yourselves.” We have a word for this in English: empathy. Take the concerns of others and make those important to you. You may not feel personal joy in their rejoicing or personal sorrow in their weeping, but see them, acknowledge them, support them. When someone’s emotional response to a situation does not line up with your own, they are not wrong and you are not right. You are both just different. Don’t let that be a bad thing. Respect the differences and let it be an opportunity to support one another as we trudge through this path together with the final goal of eternal life.
Paul continues: “Do not pay anyone back evil for evil. Focus on those things that everyone considers noble.” Here’s the difference between our natural sinful selves and the new selves that rejoice in our rescue by Jesus. We are able to drown our base desires of revenge and justice and able to focus on things that even the world considers to be noble. That means not getting even, but working toward forgiveness when we are wronged. And make no mistake, for us very often forgiveness is a process, not a light switch we turn on. When someone wrongs us it can take a long time for us to truly forgive, and that forgiveness may never bring with it a full restoration of trust—things may never be like they were before. But the Christian’s goal is not that I have to forgive right now; the Christian’s goal is that I’m always working toward forgiveness, not settling into vengeance or grudges.
Paul summarizes these points: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, maintain peace with everyone.” This is a good acknowledgement that there are things that are just out of our control. Someone may hate you despite your best efforts to change the situation. There are people who will just snipe at you and hold grudges against you that you cannot control or change. That is possible, even likely, to happen. But don’t let those things happen because of you; let them be in spite of you.
But what about justice? Surely there is room to consider that someone deserves reprimanding for wrongs they’ve committed? Certainly. That’s often even a loving thought not wrapped up in vengeance, because consequences and correction have the goal of reform, of teaching someone that this is not the correct path. But when it comes to someone who has done something to hurt us, someone who is not under our authority and responsibility, these corrections and consequences are also not our responsibility: “Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Leave matters of righting wrongs in God’s hands. Maybe he will do that through the state, if there is prosecution for crimes necessary. Maybe he will do that in more behind-the-scenes ways that we will never know about. Regardless, that’s for God to figure out and do as he knows is right. We are not here to avenge or punish sin.
Jesus had said in our Gospel that we should pray for those who mistreat [us]. And that’s not praying that God will really get them; this is not praying for God’s vengeance to be poured out on them. It’s praying for God to heal these wounds. It’s praying for God to bring peace to the person’s heart, to end whatever hardship is plaguing them and causing them to treat you in this way. It’s praying that if these people do not know their Savior, that God might work faith in their hearts to trust him as the solution to sin and the certainty of heaven. It’s praying that if they do know Jesus, that the love he has made known to them may influence their words and actions in a better, clearer way.
And as you pray for them, you treat them well. Paul quotes from Proverbs when he says, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For by doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” This is sometimes called “killing them with kindness.” But the goal is not the burning coals. The goal is that your kindness would be like coals on their head and force them to acknowledge that their attitudes and actions are all wrong, that they are treating you horribly with no cause. The prayer is that flaming charcoal may lead them to repentance, not suffering.
Paul summarizes the Christian’s journey through this life in the last verse of our reading: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. When I’ve been wronged vengeance will seem like the right and noble path. But even the world with all its twisted understanding knows that vengeance solves nothing, but is instead just poisons the one seeking it. There are countless stories in fiction and non-fiction of people being destroyed by their quest for vengeance. Don’t be overcome by evil; vengeance is evil overcoming you.
Instead, overcome evil with good. This is Jesus, yet again, right? How did he solve the evil of our sin? With the good of his sacrifice on the cross. His death for you means forgiveness for every sin, including every grudge, every wish for vengeance, every egotistical delight in confronting someone else’s wrong. All of those sins are gone, no matter how prominent they may feel or be.
You overcome evil in your own life with good. You overcome it with the loving forgivingness that is only possible when you know God has forgiven all of your sins. You overcome it with the mercy that wants everyone, even your worst enemies, to be spared from the just punishment for their sin in hell and instead to be with you in that eternal paradise. Find joy and peace in your forgiveness which enables you to work toward truly forgiving others.
Love others, my brothers and sisters, even your enemies, like Jesus loves, because Jesus has loved you. Amen.
