A baseball bat would do very nicely, I think.....

Recently, while I was working in Roseburg, my wife was volunteering at a charity auction. The event was very classy, with a lot of pretty wealthy people there to donate money to the cause. Everything went well until the end of the auction, when my wife, who is about 5 feet 1 inch tall, was propositioned by a drunken man and his wife. He proceeded to explain to her and the entire table they were sitting at what he wanted to do with my wife, while the entire table was so drunk they laughed right along. My wife, who had only stopped by to say hello, was humiliated and very upset. She had a great deal of trouble sleeping that night, and hesitantly told me about it the next day. To make matters worse, we knew this man and his wife fairly well, in fact his parents were neighbors of ours.

Genesis 34:1-29
"Now Dinah, the daughter Leah had borne to Jacob, went out to visit the women of the land. 2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the ruler of that area, saw her, he took her and violated her. 3 His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke tenderly to her. 4 And Shechem said to his father Hamor, "Get me this girl as my wife." 5 When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he kept quiet about it until they came home. 6 Then Shechem's father Hamor went out to talk with Jacob. 7 Now Jacob's sons had come in from the fields as soon as they heard what had happened. They were filled with grief and fury, because Shechem had done a disgraceful thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter — a thing that should not be done. 8 But Hamor said to them, "My son Shechem has his heart set on your daughter. Please give her to him as his wife. 9 Intermarry with us; give us your daughters and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You can settle among us; the land is open to you. Live in it, trade in it, and acquire property in it." 11 Then Shechem said to Dinah's father and brothers, "Let me find favor in your eyes, and I will give you whatever you ask. 12 Make the price for the bride and the gift I am to bring as great as you like, and I'll pay whatever you ask me. Only give me the girl as my wife." 13 Because their sister Dinah had been defiled, Jacob's sons replied deceitfully as they spoke to Shechem and his father Hamor. 14 They said to them, "We can't do such a thing; we can't give our sister to a man who is not circumcised. That would be a disgrace to us. 15 We will give our consent to you on one condition only: that you become like us by circumcising all your males. 16 Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves. We'll settle among you and become one people with you. 17 But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we'll take our sister and go." 18 Their proposal seemed good to Hamor and his son Shechem. 19 The young man, who was the most honored of all his father's household, lost no time in doing what they said, because he was delighted with Jacob's daughter. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem went to the gate of their city to speak to their fellow townsmen. 21 "These men are friendly toward us," they said. "Let them live in our land and trade in it; the land has plenty of room for them. We can marry their daughters and they can marry ours. 22 But the men will consent to live with us as one people only on the condition that our males be circumcised, as they themselves are. 23 Won't their livestock, their property and all their other animals become ours? So let us give our consent to them, and they will settle among us." 24 All the men who went out of the city gate agreed with Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male in the city was circumcised. 25 Three days later, while all of them were still in pain, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and attacked the unsuspecting city, killing every male. 26 They put Hamor and his son Shechem to the sword and took Dinah from Shechem's house and left. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. 28 They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. 29 They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses."

Jacob's family had been dishonored, in a culture that puts honor above everything else. Dinah was probably no older than a teenager, given there is no indication she had been married prior to this. This spoiled, wealthy, son of a pagan king thought he could take what he wanted from this family with no consequences. But he had greatly miscalculated the fury and cunning of their revenge.

But what does revenge really give you? It is true that for a while I thought pretty hard about doing something to this guy, who lived in our town and whom I saw fairly regularly. This drunken slob of a man, who thought propositioning a pastor's wife at a children's charity auction sounded like a lot of fun, deserves to have retribution enacted upon him by me for dishonoring her. It would be the manly thing to get in his face.

But I am a disciple of Jesus. The Crucified One. The One who was betrayed, spat upon, beaten, and murdered by His own people. His resurrection has saved me from the the death penalty of my great sinfulness. He did not enact retribution. He forgave them, saying, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." 

I can do no less, mindful of the countless betrayals I am guilty of when it comes to my relationship with Jesus. I, who deserves infinitely worse than this man who dishonored my wife will ever deserve, have been rescued and redeemed from a fate worse than death. Its not about me or my honor or my wife's honor. Its about acknowledging that I am forgiven, and so now must forgive.