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Rev. Brian North Westminster Presbyterian Chehalis, WA April 25th, 2010
Matthew 5:21-26 The World’s Greatest Talk
Living Right Side Up
This morning we are continuing our series of messages on “The World’s Greatest Talk” as we look at Jesus’ authoritative and ground-breaking teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. The setting is that Jesus is on a hillside teaching to a large crowd of people. He began with what we call the beatitudes, where Jesus teaches that just because you don’t have it all together, or aren’t the kind of person on which the world shines the spotlight, you’re still blessed with the presence of God. He is with all people, regardless of their position in society. Then he continues on and teaches that this blessing of God’s presence and joy isn’t an end to itself, but we’re blessed so that we would be a blessing to others as we shine the light of Christ in the world around us. And then we also saw last week that as we live as salt and light in the world, there isn’t a legalistic, rigid way in which we do that, but rather we live in the freedom of God’s love while reflecting that love to the world.
That was in 5:17-20 where we saw Jesus transitioning into teaching about the law, where Jesus upholds the principals of the Old Testament Law, such as in the 10 Commandments, and the good life-boundaries that are set out for us in them. Today, Jesus begins to get into some of the specifics of the law, and he stays with some particulars through the rest of chapter 5.
So this morning we’re in 5:21-26, and in it Jesus is dealing with the subject of anger, and the results of built up anger in our relationships.
When I was in High School, I found myself angry at one of my classmates. His dad and my dad worked at the same company, and because of some things that happened there, I became angry at this other kid. I realized over time that I then became angry at people I associated with him or I thought were like him – in socio-economic status, and so forth. I was harboring this anger and resentment inside me, and it wasn’t healthy.
So…have any of you ever been angry? I know…ridiculous question because we all have. Anyone here ever carried a grudge or stayed angry at someone for some length of time? Have you ever found yourself angry for so long that you didn’t even realize you were angry, or forgot why? If so, listen up, because Jesus is speaking to us about it.
You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21). So of all the boundaries in life that are set out in the Old Testament, Jesus chooses to start with murder. We read that and most of us think, “I’ve never murdered someone; next subject please.” But Jesus isn’t done. He immediately says: But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire (Matthew 5:22).
Here, Jesus is getting to the heart of the matter. Killing a relationship with our pent-up anger and the walls of hostility that come with that is no good. We can keep the rule about not murdering, but our hearts can still be un-loving. Jesus wants us to be instruments of love and grace as we shine his light in the world. But when we harbor anger, there’s a figurative death that comes with it. It’s interesting that Jesus starts with anger. Why wouldn’t he maybe start with “Love God first” or “don’t have idols” or the subjects of pride or greed? Maybe Jesus knew what a study done a few years ago showed. Doctors looked at the hearts of 27 men undergoing one physical stress test (riding an exercise bicycle) and three mental stress tests (doing math problems in their heads, recalling a recent incident that had made them very angry, and giving a short speech to defend themselves against a hypothetical charge of shoplifting). Using sophisticated X-ray techniques, the doctors took pictures of the subjects’ hearts in action during these tests. For all the [men], anger reduced the amount of blood that the heart pumped to body tissues more than the other tests.
It goes to show that anger isn’t good for our bodies. But anger has more than just physical negative side-effects: it has relational ones, too. And that’s what Jesus is getting at. Because the anger he’s referring too, when he says, “if you are angry with a brother or a sister” is not the anger we express when someone cuts us off on the road, or we break a dish at home (I’ve done that a lot lately, by the way – like 5 in the past 6 weeks or so…I’ve become a klutz in the kitchen!), or the Mariners blow a baseball game in the 9th inning twice in two nights (UGHH!)…That kind of anger – while often not expressed in healthy ways – isn’t what Jesus is getting at. In Greek there are two words for anger. The Greek word here means an anger that is long-lived; it’s a nursed anger that we brood over and will not allow to die. This is a kind of anger that builds up walls between people. Over time, we might not even recognize that anger is at the root of it as the wall gets built higher and higher and the relationship grows colder and colder. But the root of it is anger, and that’s why Jesus addresses this subject, because it is so harmful to our relationships, and the consequences are so severe, as we’ll see from what Jesus says.
So this is a very serious matter. How serious? Listen to what Jesus says next: So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23-24).
Jesus is saying that this is such an important matter, that it should even trump the most important thing in our life, which is our relationship with God. The scenario he describes is a person who is in worship at the Jewish Temple, and in the midst of worship gets up and leaves to go and be reconciled with whoever it is that walls of hostility have been put up between them. Think about that for a moment. Jesus is saying that the most important relationship we have – with God – and arguably the most important facet of that relationship – the worship service – is to be set aside to go make things right with another person. That’s putting a high priority on reconciling our anger and the broken relationships that stem from it.
He continues on, using another scenario that wouldn’t perhaps be our experience today, but was common in their day: Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25-26).
Literally, in their day, if you were on your way to the court, you might find yourself walking along the road with your adversary. This wasn’t uncommon. In our day, we show up in our separate vehicles, maybe go in different doors to the courthouse, and we just aren’t likely to find ourselves in the situation Jesus describes. But what he’s saying to us I that we ought to work things out with the person where there is hostility. Go to them, talk with them, and seek reconciliation and restoration, even avoiding a third party to help the resolution, if possible.
So, out of this passage there are two primary points Jesus is conveying to us. We’ve already touched on them briefly, but let me go into them in a little more detail. The first one is that: We need to deal with our anger, and to do it now.
Fredrick Buechner is one of the great theologians and authors of our time and an ordained Presbyterian minister. He once wrote, “Of the 7 deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor the last toothsome morsel – both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
Harboring anger is not only bad for the relationship and the other person, it’s bad for ourselves, too. And for all of those reasons, we need to deal with our anger soon. Go to the person, and do it now. It’s important. It even impacts your relationship with God. Whatever is first on your list of priorities today or this week just got bumped down to #2. Jesus wants us to seek resolution for our anger first.
Now, Jesus doesn’t get into this, but the reason we don’t do that is because these conversations are hard. How many of us enjoy starting a conversation like this with someone? Not many hands going up! We think it’s better just to live with the pain and the anger. But that’s a deception as we seek to avoid a needed conversation. The other reason we sometimes wait is that we want to collect our thoughts. And this can be good.
Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, was once angered by an army officer who accused him of favoritism. Stanton complained to Lincoln, who suggested that Stanton write the officer a sharp letter. Stanton did, and showed the strongly worded letter to the president. “What are you going to do with it?” Lincoln asked. Surprised, Stanton replied, “Send it.” Lincoln shook his head. “You don’t want to send that letter,” he said. “Put it in the stove. That’s what I do when I have written a letter while I am angry. It’s a good letter and you had a good time writing it and feel better. Now burn it, and write another.”
In an age of email and text messaging where we can hit “send” without thinking about what we’re writing, this is a word we need to hear. And so sometimes we need a little time…but don’t let that drag on into weeks and months and years, because the anger will still be there and it will surface in different ways.
Now, deep inside, we have a need to express our anger and talk about it with someone. Even the quietest of human beings needs to talk and get their anger out. So, what we oftentimes do is, rather than talking to the person with whom we’re angry, we go and talk to someone else about our anger. And this brings us to the second thing that Jesus teaches us here, which is that: We should go to the person with whom we are angry, and not to someone else. Jesus doesn’t tell us to go to our friends or our neighbors, or our co-workers and discuss how so-and-so has hurt us. He tells us to go to the person and seek reconciliation.
Don’t raise your hand here, though all of us would raise them if we’re honest with ourselves: How many of us have not gone to a person we’re angry at, but gone to someone else and told them about the problem? Now it is true that sometimes we want to gain some wise counsel from someone we trust, and so we approach someone, share the problem, and ask for some guidance. That’s what Stanton did in going to Lincoln. But we don’t need advice from 20 or 30 people. And so often, when we go to other people, it’s really more to say, “Can you believe what this person has done to me?” I know we do this kind if thing, because I’ve done it. I’m guilty, too. But Jesus is telling us to go to the person who is the cause of the anger, and work it out with them.
When we go to other people we are hurting the person that we should be going to instead, and we’re hurting the relationship we have with that person. If we really value, appreciate, love and care for that other person, (and those are the people who have the greatest capacity for us to get angry at, by the way) then we’d go directly to them and speak to them about the hostility that’s grown between us. That is the loving and caring thing to do, rather than dragging that person’s name through the muck of conversations with other people. Go to the person…sit down over a cup of coffee or cookies and milk and talk with them, rather than with everyone else. That’s the second point Jesus is making.
When it comes down to it, this is such a simple teaching from Jesus. Go to the person, not someone else, and do it quickly. Make reconciliation a priority. I mean, how complex is that? And yet it can be so hard to do.
But this is living as salt in the world. Remember last week we said that two things salt is associated with (in their day, at least) are purity and preservation of what God values. Dealing with our anger instead of letting it fester is living with purity in our relationships, and it’s preserving what God values. It’s how we treat other people with respect, and ultimately, it treats ourselves with respect too. And when we live like this, it is heart-changing and life-changing. It will set us free and make us whole. We’ll have better relationships with the people in our lives, and a better relationship with God, because it gets us living right side up in a world that’s upside down so much of the time. Jesus wants to come into your life and my life and turn things around so that we would have healthy relationships with God and with people that are filled with love and grace, rather than anger, resentment, and walls of hostility. Turning us right side up is what he promises to do, if we will not only hear these words, but live them out. And he’s calling us to do exactly that, starting today with these words from the gospel of Matthew that Jesus says to us today. Let’s pray…Amen.
Spokesman-Review, July 29, 1993, p. D3.
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking Transformed by Thorns, p. 117. (SermonIllustrations.com. Wikipedia puts it at p. 2.)
