I get mad at people I’ve never seen. Really mad, sometimes, angry enough to wish for bad things to happen to them. There’s so much injustice in this world, and so many hateful people. My outrage seems right, it seems justified. I feel like I have the moral high ground.
What I don’t remember is that my Lord Jesus wants me to act differently than that. Love those who hate you, he told me, and be kind to the ones who persecute you.
I want to be like Jacob’s sons when the pagan Hamor raped their sister. That story is in Genesis 34. Hamor wants a treaty so he can marry Dinah. In verse 13, we read this: “Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob's sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor.”
Dinah’s brothers plotted. They got the whole city to cut off their own foreskins, and then slaughtered them all while they were at a disadvantage. They got even and then some: hundreds of murders, plus theft on a huge scale, in response to one rape.
That’s the problem with rage: no punishment is enough. No amount of suffering will satisfy.
Jesus said turn the other cheek because he knew that getting even hurts me as much or more as the other guy. He knows how toxic the poisons of hatred and revenge are, and also how addictive. The world isn’t going to be fair, and God knows I can destroy myself trying to get back.
I need to practice love. I need to practice because I’m not good at it. I’m really good at put-downs and name-calling. I’m excellent at arguments, especially the imaginary ones I have in my head. I speak snark like it’s my native language. But love? I’m too self-centered.
Jesus says I have to take a different path than everyone else. He says that my actions are to be obedient to him. Instead of getting down in the gutter with the rest, I need to hold to the highest standard.
There’s a farmer-ism you hear where I live: never wrestle with a pig. The pig has fun and you get dirty.
My soul is dirty enough.
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