When Road Rage Gets Convicting

I ride a Harley Davidson. Last Saturday I was riding with my ten year old daughter on the back and a guy cut me off. He pulled right out in front of me, and if not for some fancy-shmancy driving on my part, my daughter and I would have plowed into him.

I laid on my horn. My motorcycle horn is really loud.

He returned my gesture with one of his own, using only a lone, middle finger. Then he yelled at us and either said, "Vacuum!" or something else... my lip reading isn't what it used to be.

I was angry. I yelled something back like, "Pull over and say that to my face!" Lucky for me, he sped off. My daughter then said, "Daddy, why did you say that?"

Ouch.

A while back I shared with our church some insight I had learned about a super puzzling passage in the Bible. It's one that I had never really understood, until viewing it through a Jewish context and Hebraic perspective. I'm finding that this is the case for much of what I don't understand in the Bible.

Romans 12:20 states, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."

In this little letter, Paul talks about how to deal with our enemies and those who have wronged us. He says many wise things about dealing with others in this passage. I needed to read it again this week... in it's context:

Romans 12:17-21
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

As we read this, one sentence totally sticks out to me that doesn't make sense - that one about heaping burning coals on an enemy's head. I have always wondered what Paul meant by this. I mean, smack dab in the middle of him telling us how we're not supposed to take revenge and how we're supposed to be super nice to everybody... he drops this flaming bomb "you'll heap burning coals on his head". Wow... that seems aggressive. In the past I've read this and thought to myself: "Okay Michael, just be nice to the jerks that are mean to you, and man you'll really get them because it'll be like burning coals on top of their heads. God will get 'em for me! God is going to make them burn!" That doesn't sound too loving of God... or of me, does it?

It helps to know that Paul is actually quoting Proverbs 25:21-22: "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you." Understanding this proverb will unlock Paul's words as well.

That saying is in the middle of several proverbs that use physical images to describe emotional reactions. Right before it is the passage, "Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or one that pours vinegar on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart" (Proverbs 25:20). The physical picture of discomfort illustrates that trying to make a person in mourning happy just bums them out even more. Likewise, the passage about coals is about the emotional discomfort an enemy will feel when you waken his conscience about his conduct toward you.

Here's another fascinating reference to burning coals: Isaiah 6:5-7 "Then I said, 'Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.' Then one of the seraphim flew to me, with a burning coal in his hand which he had taken from the altar with tongs. And he touched my mouth with it and said, 'Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.'"

Last weekend we sang a song at Desperation Church that speaks of this event in Isaiah 6. The words are: "The angel came and touched the coal to my lips. Now my guilt is gone, and my sins have been forgiven!" Whenever we sing that song, I wonder if everyone in the room has any clue how powerful what they are singing really is?

On the annual Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) coals of fire were carried by the high priest into the Most Holy Place (according to Leviticus 16:12), where sacrifice was made to atone for his own sin and that of the people. So the coals speak of cleansing and of transforming someone full of sin into someone forgiven of their sin.

A burning coal to the lips would normally have tortured a person. Instead, Isaiah being cut to the core over his sinfulness, allowed that coal to sanctify and transform him. Likewise, the coals of your kindness heaped on the head of those who are mean to you have the ability to transform them and melt their sinful heart.

So Paul uses this picture of putting coals on a person's head, which initially sounds like a picture of causing burning pain, but it really is not. Instead, it seems to be a picture of stirring up the coals of a fire to rouse it back to life again. It is a picture of stirring within a person a response of remorse, when they see your kindness in the face of their meanness. This must also be the sense of Paul's message - we cause our enemies to be remorseful for their actions toward us, and in doing so we overcome evil by doing good.

I hate that I get so upset about stuff.
I hate that, all too often, my first response is not "overcoming evil by doing good".

May I, like Paul admonished, be a man that never returns evil for evil, but seeks the coal to heap on the heads of my enemies in order to melt away their meanness - by truly loving them with all that I have... and all that I am. And when that, inevitably, is super-hard to do - May I, like Isaiah, seek the coal to cleanse me personally of my own sin, in order to truly be transformed into what Father God is wanting me to be.