This Sunday’s text, Romans 12:9-21, brings us to aspects of Christian behavior that are at the same time the most basic and the most difficult. At the heart of the Gospel message is the proclamation that God loves us in Christ and therefore we are to show a similar love to each other, a love that extends to showing forgiveness by refusing to retaliate and doing good for those who hurt us.
Verses 9 to 13 might be grouped with what precedes as applying to Christian behavior among and toward other Christians, in the Church. Verses 14 to 21 however turn our eyes outward to our relationships with those outside the Church, in particular, but not only, with those who “persecute” us or do us harm.
Behaving as these verses ask is hard enough that we are amazed when it is actually done in deep and profound ways. There is a terribly beautiful story coming out of the Armenian Christian experience of Turkish oppressions and genocide. A Turkish officer raided and looted an Armenian home, kiling the parents and giving the daughters to his soldiers while keeping the oldest for himself to rape. This woman escapes, becomes a nurse, and later finds this same Turkish officer as one of her patients. She gives him extraordinary care and he recovers, one day finally asking her why she did it. Her answer is, “I am a follower of him who said, ‘Love your enemies.'”
If we are ever to rise to to such heights of Christlike forgiveness and love, then my guess is that we will need to start with smaller acts of doing good to those around us who do us arm. Things like delivering a plate of cookies to the neighbors who kept us awake with a loud party or a kind word and nice tip for the restaurant server who was rude might be good practice for a habit that would help us be more like Jesus when the hurt is truly profound. And even those little acts of love toward the seemingly unloveable can be awfully difficult.
In verse 20, Paul quotes Proverbs 25:21-22 about such acts of love toward enemies being like heaping burning coals upon their heads. What both the proverb and Paul seem to have in mind is the burning of remorse as the good deed touches their conscience and helps them realize their sin. Doing in good in return for evil will be good for one’s own soul, but it also has the potential to redeem the souls of those who receive such love. It may help generate a turning point by which they discover their own need for God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
May such burning love ignite and spread in us all.