Oxen, asses and forgiveness

If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it. Exodus 23:4-5

I read once about a woman who was up in court charged with “causing a breach of the peace”: apparently she was found dancing up and down on her husband’s grave, singing “Who’s sorry now?”

We may smile at that. But of course it’s not really funny. And in fairness it may be that her husband was a total brute and her joy was – well, if not justifiable at least understandable.

How do you feel when something bad happens to someone you don’t like, when they “come a cropper” or “get their come-uppance”, as they used to say? Be honest, now!

It may be that that person has really hurt or damaged you in some way and you are entitled to feel angry. But… you are a Christian, so, ok, you refrain from dancing a jig, but you do mutter under your breath “Serves them right!”

But one more moment’s thought makes you aware that if you really are a Christian, that’s just not good enough. Didn’t Jesus tell us (Matthew 5:44) to love our enemies? In a world full of anger and the desire for revenge, isn’t that a wonderful verse? He goes on to say that we must pray for our enemies; and you know it’s got to be genuine, whole-hearted prayer, not just empty words. (Whoever said Christianity was easy?)

In Romans 12:19-21 Paul echoes Jesus’ teaching – “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” – and we marvel at the simplicity and the no-ifs-no-buts demands of following Jesus.

But wait a minute!

Have we ever noticed that in Romans 12 Paul is in fact quoting directly from the Old Testament (Proverbs 25:21-22)? And have we ever noticed the two verses I put at the top, about what to do if you see your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering loose or collapsed under its load? Be sure to return it, in the first instance, or to help your enemy get it back on its feet, in the second. The teaching of Jesus? No. The teaching of the law-laden Old Testament book of Exodus.

The teaching of Jesus of course is wonderful; thank God for it! But it isn’t always original. Remember, he was a Jew who was soaked in the Jewish scriptures he had learned from boyhood. (You might even say that the greatest thing about his words is not so much the new ones he spoke, but the old ones he fulfilled.)Isn’t Exodus 23:4-5 a perfect example of what it means to “love your enemy”? – and it was spoken fifteen hundred years before Jesus walked this earth.

I would even go so far as to say that the passages from Proverbs and Exodus give us something that Jesus’ words don’t. Yes, he tells us to love our enemies, and commands us to pray for them. But those Old Testament passages clothe that truth in practical everyday action. How exactly do I love my enemy? – by giving him food and drink when he’s hungry and thirsty, that’s how – by running over to help him pick up his fallen donkey, that’s how.

What is particularly helpful about those examples (or, of course, about the modern equivalents that might come to our minds today) is this: I don’t have to feel loving or forgiving in order to carry them out – I just get on and do them.

That is helpful because, very likely, when we talk about forgiving people who have hurt us, we stumble at the little voice inside that says “But isn’t this just hypocrisy? The fact is that my heart is empty of any feeling of forgiveness”? And that may be true. But such down-to-earth examples provide a bracing, answering voice: “Never mind! Just do the loving thing and let the feeling follow in God’s good time. It will, don’t worry, it will!”

It goes without saying that when we do the loving thing we must carefully avoid coming across as superior, of seeming to say, “Yes, you have hurt me badly, but I am really such a wonderful Christian that I am willing to forgive you and even to try to love you”.

Who wants to be forgiven by a self-righteous prig? Your enemy is likely to respond “You can stick your forgiveness, thank you very much!” No: the act simply speaks for itself – in the rather odd expression used by the writer of Proverbs, it will have the effect of “heaping burning coals” on his or her head (presumably by stirring up a sense of shame and remorse).

Whatever, the message is clear… never mind how badly I still feel about my enemy, next time I see his ox lumbering down the high street looking lost, I know what to do, don’t I…?

Loving Father, thank you that in the cross of Jesus you have extended your forgiveness to me in spite of my lack of deserving. Teach me to do the same for others, and by your Holy Spirit please cleanse my heart of any vengeful, vindictive thoughts. Amen.