“Repay no one evil for evil…..live peaceably with all.  Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”  If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.   Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  Romans 12: 17—21

We don’t have to go too many days without coming across a    story of revenge – some variation on the spurned lover who cuts off the sleeves of their ex’s clothes and gives their silver car a coat of red gloss paint.  Many books and films are driven by a revenge-type plot, building up the tension until the bad guys gets their comeuppance, with the sense of relief that brings.  There seems to be endemic in humans a  desire for personal justice that is powerful and potentially deadly.

But God wants us to find different ways of dealing with vengeance; different ways of handling people who wrong us.

It feels like passive acquiescence, but it’s not.  The negative commands in the Bible: ‘do not repay anyone evil for evil’, ‘do not take revenge’, ‘do not be overcome by evil’ – are balanced with positive ones: ‘be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone, live at peace with everyone’, ‘leave room for God’s wrath… feed [your enemy]… give him something to drink’, ‘overcome evil with good’. These actions require us to be proactive; they place the initiative with us.

That makes sense. Most of us have to work hard at not coming back with the snide comment, not wanting to get ahead of that car that undercut us, not firing off that passive-aggressive email.  Revenge keeps evil in circulation, whether in a family or on a motorway or between nations.

Loving our enemies in tangible ways (‘feed him…give him something to drink’) seems so counter-intuitive.  And it is.  But no less counter-intuitive than what we see in the cross, the supreme demonstration of God’s love for us, even ‘while we were God’s enemies’ (Romans 5:10).  It’s there we see a different way of             responding to hostility.  In seeking to overcome evil, how could we not expect to be called to do the same?

Antony Billington writing in www.parishpump.co.uk