Romans 12:18-20
If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.”
The old joke goes: “How many mothers-in-law does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: “Oh, that’s alright. Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here in the dark. I just wish you would call me sometime. You never call me! My own children!” Everybody has encountered this sort of manipulation from somebody in our lives and, at first glance, Paul seems to be recommending just this sort of thing in today’s scripture. But such manipulation never produces real repentance, it just produces festering resentment. The victim of such emotional blackmail doesn’t wind up taking a hard look at himself and resolving to repent his sins by the grace of God. He winds up getting a hard heart and resolving to avoid being emotionally blackmailed by guiltmongers. Now Paul understands the distinction between real repentance and mere guilty resentment at blackmail. That is why he tells us elsewhere that there is a distinction between godly grief which brings repentance and life and worldly grief which brings death (2 Corinthians 7:10). Guilt manipulation is calculated to inflict and engender only worldly grief and Paul emphatically does not desire that. So what is Paul talking about in today’s passage? He is, in a word, talking about real love, not blackmailing manipulation. He is talking about really and truly seeing our enemy as one whom God treasures and for whom Christ died and rose, not as a lab animal on whom to try psychological experiments. He is talking about loving our enemies, not in order to wring something from them, but in order to genuinely love them. Such love does, to be sure, have an effect on even the most hardened soul. But the effect of real love is the cleansing fire of the Holy Spirit, not the burning resentment of hell. Manipulation hardens because it pretends to be real love. Real love heals even when it stings—-because it’s real.
