Am
I Killing or Giving Life?
You have heard that
it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be
liable to judgment.’ 22 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. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that
your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the
altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your
gift.”
Matthew
5:21-24
Dorotheos
of Gaza, a sixth-century teacher, once preached a sermon for the monks in his
monastery who were grumbling that they were unable to love God properly because
they had to put up with one another’s ordinary, irritating presence. No,
Dorotheos told them, they were wrong. He asked them to visualize the world as a
great circle whose center is God, and upon whose circumference lie human lives.
“Imagine now,” he asked them, “that there are straight lines connecting from
the outside of the circle all human lives to God at the center. Can’t you see
that there is no way to move toward God without drawing closer to other people,
and no way to approach other people without coming near to God?”
Have
you ever killed anyone? Have you ever wanted to? Did you ever feel like knocking someone’s
block off? Um, well, sure! Who hasn’t? The
Law that Jesus has come to write on our hearts reveals the truth that anger or
sarcasm or cruelty is, essentially, murder.
In my anger towards you, I am killing you.
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of
Discipleship says that “Anger is always an attack on the brother’s life,
for it refuses to let him live and aims at his destruction.
In
my anger, I lose sight of who you are and who you are created to be. In my anger, I marginalize you. When I make you an object of my contempt, I
reject the work of God in you. When I
pass judgment on you, insult you, or condemn you – then I myself will be
condemned.
If
that’s the case, then I’m in trouble. I
mean, who doesn’t get angry? Isn’t Jesus
being a little unrealistic here, telling his followers not to be angry?
The
point of this passage is not to tell us not to get irritated, but rather an
invitation to live into a new way of being. He suggests a way of transforming
our angry lifestyle into something that is more in line with God’s eternal
intentions.
The
way to enjoy right living with God is to live at peace with the neighbor. And the way that we live at peace with our
neighbor is by being right with God.
This lent can we take a decision not to be angry over little and big issues? Can we resolve unsettled issues with out friends family and near and dear ones?
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