St Matthew
5.20-26 Trinity 6
St John's Ev LC,
Victor, IA 2013.7.7
In
the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I
must admit at the outset this morning / that when this portion of the
Gospels come up in the Lectionary, I feel quite ashamed and silly to
preach it. Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7 are Jesus' own Sermon on
the Mount. The task at hand is to take a portion of Jesus' own
Divine Sermon and make a sermon of my own. As tempted as I
have been in the past (as was the case this week, too) to just read
Jesus' sermon, say “Amen” and sit down, nonetheless, you've
called me to this task, and our Lord has promised His blessing upon
it, / so here goes (and hopefully not “nothing”):
/
You
get angry, don't you? Then you murder your brother. Who is it that
you get angry at? You have murdered that one.
Dearly
beloved, we are called by God to a righteousness that exceeds any
righteousness, any goodness, any morality that is found in the world.
And that shows just how screwed up we are. Just think about it:
God, who made this place, who created all that exists, He would not
have given His creatures some foreign or enemy
righteousness or goodness, but would have transmitted His own
goodness not only to the outward things of the body, but also to the
inner things of the soul. And so it was: man was created in
God's image, yes, even with God's own righteousness and goodness.
Man's heart, mind and soul were conformed to God.
Fast
forward 6000 years to today and what you have in this creation is not
only different from God's righteousness, but altogether
opposed to it. An enemy righteousness / has come upon us.
But that's not the worst part: the enemy and foreign righteousness is
also within us, even within the most outwardly
righteous and good
among us.
Jesus
said, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and
the Pharisees, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” The
scribes and Pharisees were the holy men of their day: the most moral,
the most caring, doing great works of mercy and charity, but also the
most religious, keeping all the regulations of the Law of God, and
even going beyond God's regulations as if they weren't strict
enough already.
If
those guys weren't right and good enough, the rest of us don't have a
chance. And yet, our righteousness must exceed their
righteousness, if we hope to enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Of
course what Christ is speaking of is a totally different kind
of righteousness than that of the scribes and Pharisees. The scribes
and Pharisees were outwardly / so good and pure; those outward
things aren't bad, they are good, but Jesus has something else in
mind: it is a righteousness of the heart, an inner goodness, a
purity of the mind, heart and soul, not only of the hands and voice.
And
Jesus explains what He means by giving us concrete examples. In this
portion of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives nine examples,
actually, and then concludes with a promise about how this kind of
righteousness of the heart lays up eternal treasures in heaven rather
than temporary treasures on earth.
Our
sermon text for today contains just one of these concrete
examples, the first of them, and perhaps the most difficult and
wide-spread unrighteousness: anger.
Listen
again. Jesus said:
You have heard that it was said
to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be
liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry
with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his
brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You
fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering
your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has
something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.
First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your
gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going
with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and
the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to
you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”
“So
if you are offering your gift at the altar,” Jesus said. What
altar is that? What altar do we offer our gifts to God? Is it not
the symbolic altar of incense, that is: prayer. What gifts do you
have that you can offer to God? What sacrifice of yours does God
really ask of you, is it not the sacrifices of a broken and contrite
heart? Yes, these the Lord will not despise.
So,
when you are offering your broken heart to God on the altar of your
prayers, and there remember that your brother has something against
you, stop your praying and go—first, before continuing your
prayers, go and be reconciled with your brother.
And
what might your brother have against you? How about let's just get
right to the point with the worst of all sin you could commit against
your brother, and not only the worst, but the first sin that one man
committed against another (remember Cain and Abel): murder. Murder
would be a pretty fair grievance that someone might have against you,
right? Killing someone is pretty bad, that is, causing someone
else's heart to stop beating. That's pretty bad; unimaginable,
right? / Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of
old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to
judgment.’ But I say to you [as if He's God, right? Giving a new
commandment, or at least redefining the old one] that everyone who is
angry with his brother will be liable to judgment...” Anger is
murder.
//
Who
is it that you are angry at? / Is there anyone in this room right
now? Perhaps one of your family members has done something to hurt
or anger you. Perhaps your friends or enemies have spoken a hurtful
or untrue word against you. Are you angry? You are murdering. And
if that weren't bad enough, Jesus says, “leave off with your
praying,” / you aren't even fit for prayer: that's the
“judgment” against you for being angry at someone. //
Or
did you think that the Christian life was only an outward thing, like
the scribes and Pharisees used to practice it? Who cares about the
heart and soul, just so long as your body is in church on
Sunday.
/
Repent.
Change your mind. Anger / is the petty and futile attempt at
keeping yourself safe. Let me explain: you get angry because
someone has come and disrupted your peace; like an angry bear being
wakened by someone disturbing it's winter slumber, or an angry swarm
of bees, having their hive disturbed by an intruder. When someone
does something to you that you think shouldn't have been done / or
doesn't do something that you were expecting them to do, / then you
get angry. Then you take revenge, if not outwardly with hands or
voice, then inwardly with thoughts and feelings. That's murder. God
hates that. Stop it. Repent.
//
But
how? We all have a problem with anger; some worse than
others. How do we correct it? // Well, let's start by
listening to Jesus. Jesus said, “First, be reconciled to your
brother, / and then / come and offer your gift [that is, your broken
heart].”
“Be
reconciled” means that you go and get your heart broken. (I bet
you thought it already was broken.) But there's nothing more
shattering than going to that one who “disturbed your slumber” or
“took your honey” and asking them to forgive you.
“I'm sorry for being angry at you, please forgive me.” And doing
it not just once, but if that person is intimately connected to your
life, like a husband or wife or child or mother or father or friend
or boss / then you'll be repeating this over and over again, for
years and years. //
Now
that's brokenness of heart, and pride, and will. And that's hard.
Reconciliation is hard work! Reconciliation is / what
repentance looks like in the real world. Reconciliation (that is,
peace and unity among brothers, not only outwardly, but first
inwardly, holding no grudges, truly forgiving from the heart, and
having compassion on your enemies, that is the righteous life that
exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, because it is
is nothing other than Christ's life.
///
If
you really want to see reconciliation and righteousness at its core,
at its heart; if you truly hunger and thirst for righteousness, //
[point to crucifix] then I encourage you to meditate upon that image.
By
becoming man, God became our brother. He left the altar of heaven
itself, and made it first priority to go / and do whatever it took to
bring us back into unity and peace with Him, with God.
What
you do, the hard work that you do in reconciling with one another,
doing whatever you can to live in peace with one another (including
confessing your own sin of anger and hatred) that work is so
great (and righteous and out-of-this-world), because that is God's
work, it's the reason that He became incarnate, it's the reason He
created us in the first place, to have unity (or community)
with us.
So,
dearly beloved, be reconciled, over and over again, each of you /
with every other one. Do not let anger separate any of you, which
would undo the precious sacrifice of Christ among you. Instead, live
at peace—first with God, then with spouse, then child and parent
and out and out and out to the rest of humanity, and even with
creation itself.
Can
you imagine this kind of life? Not only living with a peace within
your own soul and mind, / but also the peace of all relationships, /
of all families, / of congregations, / of work places, / and even of
whole societies!
Well,
it's possible. And it does actually exist. We'll get there someday,
for that is every-day living in the Kingdom of heaven, the Kingdom of
Peace, where the +Prince of Peace, together with the Father and the
Holy Spirit live and reign, now and ever, world without end. Amen.
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