THE MECHANICS OF RECONCILIATION

Sixth Sunday after TRINITY

19 July, AD 2009

TEXT:  St. Matthew 5:20-26

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“24 . . . 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.”  (ESV – St. Matthew 5:24-26).

The words of the Gospel appointed for today are taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and this entire block of teaching, from chapter 5, verse 1 through chapter 7, verse 29, tells, by Our Lord’s Authoritative teaching, about Life as it is to be lived in the Kingdom of God.  Specifically, Jesus is expounding upon the Sixth Commandment – Thou shalt not commit murder – as taken from Exodus 20:13.  As always, Our Lord is trying to get through to the Scribes and Pharisees, as well as to the other listeners, the importance of living into the Gospel message; having our lives to be in resonance with the Life that the Kingdom of God affords to all people who chose to live in it – both in this life and the life to come.  As before, He does this in two ways; through the theological constructs and realities of the Word of God, and His Authority as Son of God, and through practical applications God’s Word in our everyday life.

He begins with murder and the impulse which often accompanies it – Anger, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  The dangerous and destructive nature of anger is evidenced throughout the entire Scripture.  And because it typically entails some kind of desire or will to damage or destroy another person, premeditatively, either in some personal, physical way or something we know as “character assassination”, Jesus teaches us that it is tantamount to MURDER.  Anger, Jesus says, is liable to judgment.  Insults and gossip will land you in front of the local Council.  But to call your brother or sister, Raca, an untranslatable Hebrew word, worse than calling someone a Gentile “dog” or a fool, well, Jesus says, that action and the accompanying anger and contempt that goes with it will send you to the hell of fire!  That is, a destructive, vicious attack on one’s character and identity by one whose anger violates another person in this grievous way, will be cut of from the graciousness and Love of God forever.  Jesus absolutely condemns murder, to be sure, but just as Jesus taught the Scribes and Pharisees in chapter 15, verses 17 following, that it is not what goes into a man’s mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of his mouth, because IT IS FROM HIS HEART, His main concern here is not with the overt act of murder, but rather with the evil attitudes, maliciousness, evil motives, and the unforgiving, unreconciling spirit of the man or woman which are as deadly to the soul as murder or slander and will receive from God the same judgment as one who murdered another.  These are hard words from Our Lord and try as we might to gloss over them and not listen to them, they stand as God’s Eternal monolithic Truth which apply to all, universally, without regard to persons.  Yet, Jesus, Himself, gives us both a warning and a promise;  a way out from the fire of Hell.  This next section describes the mechanics of how to do so.

In Old Testament times the idea of Sacrifice was the means by which one could gain remission of one’s sins.  The great day of remission – The Day of Atonement, was the day on which this great remission of sin occurred.  An animal, usually a goat, was brought into the midst of the Court of the Priests and the High Priest prayed to God while pressing his hands down on the head of the animal, thus, it was thought, transferring the sins of the entire nation onto that animal.  In older times that animal was then cast out of the city to wander in the desert until it died, hence the name “Scape-goat”, but later, it was sacrificed on the Altar of Sacrifice before the whole nation.  But what was significant about this whole rite of Sacrifice and atonement for sin was that it was meant to atone for the sins between God and man, the nation, not those sins committed between man and his neighbor.  The Talmud makes this very clear, “The Day of Atonement does atone for the offences between man and God.  The Day of Atonment does not atone for the offences between a man and his neighbor, unless the man has first put things right with his neighbor.”  So what about those types of sins; neighbor against neighbor?  It is that type of sin which Jesus addresses in this last portion of our Gospel lesson.  He says, “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remebrest that thy brother hath ought against thee (or that you have wronged your brother); leave your gift there before the altar and go.”  Jesus is reminding the crowd of a very old Jewish principle – one they should have never forgotten.  We cannot be right with God before we are right with each other.  We cannot hope for forgiveness until we show contrition for our sins, repentance over them (that means turning over a new leaf and not continuing in them or committing them again), and reconciliation with those who have been wronged.  William Barclay writes in his commentary on this passage,

“We sometimes wonder why there is a barrier between us and God; we sometimes wonder why our prayers seem unavailing.  The reason is that we ourselves have erected a barrier, because we are at variance with our fellow men, or because we have wronged someone and have done nothing to put things right.”

Jesus is teaching us HOW to put things “right” with God and man in this passage.  “First, be reconciled with 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 into prison.  Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”  Here again is the practical Jesus teaching us.  Not to be reconciled will have devastating consequences on a human scale and that is bad enough, but the Authoritative Jesus, who is God, says something more ultimate and far-reaching than that of human consequences alone.  He is saying, “Put things right with your fellowman WHILE LIFE LASTS, because someday your life will end and you will stand before God who is Judge of all.”  We must all live our lives so that at the end, it will find us at peace with all men.  Therefore Jesus tells us to make the first move in reconciliation.  Be contrite for our sins, confess them, repent from them, and be reconciled to God and man.  Act immediately to tear down the barriers that Anger has erected and be restored.  Jesus, Himself holds out His hand of Reconciliation and Love.  Will you do the same and grasp it?  Your soul depends upon it!

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.

SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+