Let’s settle this!

Have you ever heard the saying, “revenge is a dish best served cold”? What is that? Have you ever really thought about what that means? Is there ever a best way to serve up revenge to someone? Come on, really, is there anything good about revenge at all for anyone?
The Psalmist writes, “I cry to you for help, O Lord, in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?” (Ps 88:13-14) Here is part of a reflection of utter despair, anguish and lament appealing to God for sympathy, intervention, something that will not only take away the pain but bring swift justice against whatever is causing the pain.
Unlike many other Psalms, we don’t get any impression from this one that God has turned the situation around to give the Palmist any cause for praise. In fact it’s quite the opposite. God is silent and seemingly absent. So what must one do when your appeal to the most powerful of forces of intervention seems to fall on deaf ears, when justice is not served and the wrongs against you are too much to bare? You take revenge of course!
Revenge is about taking matters into your own hands. Revenge is about gathering all your hurt, anger and frustration into a nice little cluster, then unleashing it with all its fury towards someone who ‘deserves’ it. Feels good doesn’t it…or does it? What does it achieve really? A short rush of adrenalin?. Maybe a stronger counter serve back at you. What has it achieved really?
Rob Bell, presenter on Nooma, talks about this in one of his presentations titled ‘Luggage’. Referring to Romans 12 he says, ‘don’t take revenge, but leave room for God, in other words let God take care of it.’ Then he goes on to say, ‘Revenge is really saying to God, “God I don’t trust you to deal with this situation, this person has wronged me and I don’t know what you’re going to do here.” Because if we can control revenge then we get to determine the outcome, it’s like you’re saying you don’t trust God to handle this. Well we know best of course. You could think of this handing over to God in the sense that God will take revenge for us because of course God is on our side. Surely, I mean that’s how it was for the Israelites wasn’t it?
This theological interpretation doesn’t sit well with me because it assumes that God’s action will be exactly what I expect, but if I take a broader theological reflection from what I understand of scripture, God will not act in ways we expect. That’s the whole point isn’t it, about handing it over to God? There are times when we do not have the capacity to handle a response to something like this. We could cause serious harm to another by taking revenge, is that what is really going to make you feel good? Is that going to bring you peace?
The Gospel writers have Jesus speaking some crazy language like love your enemies, and turning the other cheek. Surely this alternative could bring about more hope than retaliation could. In the moments when we’re screaming into the darkness for justice and all we get is silence, remember that God is with you and it’s not that God isn’t speaking it’s that you may not be ready or willing to hear what God has to say.

Shalom
Mark Riessen