Jesus taught us that the commandment “Thou
shall not kill” goes a lot
deeper than just the act of taking someone’s life. “Whoever is angry with
his brother will be liable to judgement.”
“Go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer
your gift.” (Matthew 5:20-26). It’s in the heart that murder is first
committed. Intention is what shapes the
quality, the character and the morality of what one does in freedom. To hate someone is to be a murderer (1 John
3:15). When we no longer see a human
being, or a group, or a class of people as images of God we’re guilty of
murder.
“Whoever is angry with his brother” (Matthew 5:22) allows a spontaneous
aversion, irritation, or resentment to influence and to color his attitude
towards the other. As anger continues
its destructive work in our hearts it will soon find expression in our outward
behavior. It will poison our thinking,
our speech, even our surroundings. Abuse
will follow, well rationalized, so that the abuse will appear as the due
response to the alleged evil in the brother.
As the voice of conscience is stifled so is the voice of truth, and it’s
easy to believe and perpetuate lies. The
final step is when the brother is declared evil and treated as evil himself. Murder in all its forms then appears fully
justified and the only right course of action.
This doesn’t mean that we’re to
abdicate our moral judgement; this would be cowardly. We’re fully justified in judging through
truth and love what is visible, but we must leave for God the label of evil and
condemnation itself. Otherwise we deny the possibility of our
brother’s conversion and the victory of Christ’s all-inclusive love. He died for all of mankind, for all times.
To nurse our
anger is to refuse to be reconciled.
Sacrifice is meant to effect reconciliation (Matthew 5:23). If our heart is blocked, and we’re unwilling
to be reconciled, what use is sacrifice?
This reminds me of the Old Testament
verse, “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6).
This verse was always interesting to me because it’s God speaking and
why would God require mercy from man? Jesus
makes it clear. “Be merciful to your
fellowman, then you can give Me praise.”
This is hard
most of the time because we have to admit wrong, even if we don’t think we were
wrong. We have to set aside our
pride. We have to put ourselves in the
lower place. We can’t be in
control. What if the other person doesn’t
accept our apology? What if they don’t
want to reconcile? What if they sneer at
us and further abuse us?
Yet, Jesus died for the victims and
the executioners. He loved all men and
commanded that we do the same. How is
this humanly possible? In truth, it’s
not. We can only act contrary to our
feelings and destructive inclinations or contradictory to all the pressures of
society by the grace of God. Only the
God-given power of hope for the other, for the enemy, rooted in the faith we
have of God’s love for ALL and the fidelity of His love for us can we begin to
truly desire, pray and work for reconciliation with our enemies and
persecutors.
Blessed are the merciful;
Blessed are the peacemakers;
Blessed are they who are persecuted for
righteousness sake.
Lord,
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Keep us free from temptation and deliver us
from all evil. Amen.
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