Killing Me Softly: Jesus Overturns Hate ~ Matthew 5:21-24

 

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

·       We often read Jesus’ statements in the Sermon on the Mount –“You have heard that it was said…” followed by “But I say to you…” — as replacing Jewish teachings with his own. We must take care in such contrasts, for Jesus neither erases nor discounts the teachings of the law (“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law,” verse 17). He uses the traditional teachings on murder, adultery, and prayer as essential grounds for building his case for righteousness. Jesus intensifies and radicalizes them for his listeners, extending these teachings into almost every area of life. In this way, Jesus does “not abolish but fulfill[s]” the law (verse 17). No longer do the teachings on murder and adultery apply strictly to acts of murder and adultery. Instead, they become doorways into the examination of many internal dynamics as well as external behaviors of one’s life: anger, derision, slander, etc. The point seems clear enough: You may never murder someone but there are many ways to kill a person.

·       So, Jesus is trying to create space to point us toward the root of hatred rather than the fruit of it. Murder is the culmination of hatred, abuse, and the dismissal of another’s dignity, and not the beginning. Jesus wants to explore how one gets there. What are its sources? But, before we move too quickly, what is actually being condemned here? Is Jesus saying it’s a sin to be angry?

·       What are we to avoid? What is being overturned? A few translation notes can be important: 1) First, the root of the term “anger” in Greek used here has an interesting etymology. It originally referred to the fermentation of rotting fruit. 2) Second, the verb used is a “present participle” indicating continuous action into the present. So this is not so much a flash of temper as something that over time festers, is stoked or even nurtured. In fact, to capture the nuance of all of this, the NEB version of the Bible translates vs. 22, “Anyone who nurses anger.” What images do you get when you think of nursing anger? Is anger your baby? Are there other Scriptures will help us understand this?

·       Jesus was angry. – Illus. Angry Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: Mark 1:41 – “Moved with anger, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean.”; Mark 3:1-6 – a man with a withered hand comes to be healed on the Sabbath and Jesus asks (in vss. 4-5), “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger, he was grieved at their hardness of heart . . .”; Mark 10:14 speaks of Jesus being “indignant” at the disciples who wish to keep children away from Jesus. Jesus rightly points us to a positive or useful vision of anger as a response to sin which keeps people away from God and others, keeps them wounded, keeps them bound, keeps them afraid – child abuse, racism, exploitation, disease.

·       Paul commands anger. The Sermon on the Mount must also be placed against the background of other Christian interpreters, Paul in Ephesians writes: “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on the your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Paul literally states an imperative, a command, “Be angry.” The NIV will seek to soften this by stating, “In your anger,” or other translations “If you are angry,” What have been the consequences in the church of people thinking that being angry was sinful?

Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of Gehenna.

·       The word “Raca” is not familiar to us. It’s an ancient onomatopoeia, an Aramaic word, which meant to mimic the clearing of one’s throat to spit. It meant “worthless” but was also something akin to: “I spit on you.” In the ancient world, when someone wanted to express his utter contempt for someone, he would spit on him, usually to his face. The term “fool” is a parallel – an act of name calling that names a person, labels them as “less than.” Both reflect a demeaning of another and, we will learn, a contempt that harms us socially and spiritually. When we rename someone, we give them a different story. When I yell at someone who cuts me off, perhaps even yelling “Idiot!” – I know, can you believe it? – my wife often corrects my story, like “Dear, she's not an idiot. She cut you off because she’s trying to get to the hospital. She’s having a baby.” She doesn’t actually know but it’s a far more gracious story than the one I was supplying and I didn't know either any way. Your story should match the One who made the person whose name your changing.

²³ “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

^·             Jesus’ reframing of righteousness exposes the easy truces we make. We can pat ourselves on the back for not committing murder while we ruin the reputation of a coworker through our words–we even call it “stabbing someone in the back.” Friends, let’s be honest, church folk can kill with the knife of niceness better than anyone I know.

^·             But there’s a further rub. How would you expect vs. 23 to be worded? If I were going to offer this teaching I would have said, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that you have something against your brother or sister.” Such a reading allows me to be in control, for me to define the problem, for me to set the borders and boundaries of offense. But that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus says that our responsibilities in a manner of offense are determined by others and not merely ourselves. The notion that we must reconcile with anyone who has something against us before we can give our gifts to God, stops us in our tracks. There is no easy, private relationship to God in these words. Resentment, alienation, and estrangement from others, prevent me from even giving my gifts to God.

·       Jesus doesn’t allow us to discern whether the “something” is religious or not, or whether we are utterly at fault or not, but disarms our means of shielding ourselves from the ways that our intent might help us escape responsibility. We are not given the out: “But Lord, I don’t have to go. I didn’t mean it.”

^·             Our denomination just did this by the way. The Evangelical Covenant Church just held its Annual Meeting and left our gift at the altar because we remembered that someone had something against us. On Friday, after a long process, our denomination adopted a new resolution which repudiated the doctrine of discovery. The Doctrine of Discovery was a set of legal and theological principles derived from a series of papal decrees in the 15th century. These ideas and documents provided theological justification for European monarchies to “discover” and colonize lands inhabited by non-Christian peoples and define them as subhuman. Much horror and devastation followed for indigenous peoples which continues into the present. The legacy and residual impact of the Doctrine of Discovery also gave rise to federal policies that led to genocide, assimilation, removal, the Indian reservation system, reorganization, termination, and relocation. In response to this devastation and our own complicity in these practices, the denomination adopted a resolution which outlines our confession, acknowledgement, lament, and action steps to redress the wrongs down. We agree with Jesus that reconciliation is not first and foremost as our about our rights, our privileges, but by becoming responsible for helping heal the hurt of others. Friends, we listened and accepted that our many indigenous brothers and sisters had “something against us”. And Jesus doesn’t say – “well, that’s their problem” but at the very least demands that we leave our gift and go as a healing agent.

^·             Who you are as a disciple is not just about you, but about you as a disciple in community, with others. When we remember that God is with us, not just that God is with me, we begin to realize we are not simply members of community but shapers of community and are shaped by community, all of which tells a critical theological truth—our God is a God of community. If we ignore another brother or sister who is hurting, we become estranged from their maker, our maker, who made all of us to be one.

"Have you not read": Jesus Overturns How to Read Scripture ~ Matthew 12:1-8

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. ² When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.”

·       One of the most pronounced elements of the Gospels is that Jesus was opposed by devout, faithful, Bible readers - the Pharisees. Their challenge revealed itself in two distinct ways: Jesus eating with sinners and Jesus and, like this passage, his followers breaking the sabbath. Undergirding both, however, was a deeper set of questions which display Jesus’ overturning ministry of how to read the Bible. How should we read Scripture? What does it mean? How should it be applied? And there was probably no single instance of interpretation more important or controversial than the biblical discussion of the Sabbath. In the Hebrew Bible, the Sabbath command is solid, fierce, and mandatory and mentioned multiple times. Sabbath keeping was the most distinctive mark of Judaism, to the point where one of the few things the average pagan knew about their strange Jewish neighbors was that they had a lazy day once a week.

·       You’ve got to love Matthew as a narrator. These guys were first rate artists so you must always pay attention to the nuances. He wants to clue us into an important problem with the Pharisees reading of Scripture. Look at vs. 2: “When the Pharisees saw “it”. It? What’s the “it”? The “it” refers to the offense. The Pharisees see the conduct of the disciples as a violation of the Scriptures clear command not to work on the Sabbath (Deut. 5:12-15; Exodus 20:8-11) – “plucking grain” was technically harvesting, a form of work clearly forbidden – connecting to one of thirty-nine classes of work prohibited in Exodus chs. 34 & 35.

·       But, it could have said, “When the Pharisees saw them” or “the ones who were hungry” or “the ones who were in need”? It doesn’t because they’re way of reading Scripture didn’t see people. They could only see the offense. It’s as if Matthew is saying, “Be wary of “it” Bible readers who refuse to consider people’s needs and rather focus on laws. Be wary of being those who read the Bible and ignore the hungry.”

³ He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests.

·       I’m struck by Jesus’ haunting question – “Have you not read” which he asks twice. The question is also a double whammy for it exposes two realities that challenge us and not simply the Pharisees: 1. First, do you know your Bible? Are you aware of this example? Can you guess the book of the Bible it comes from? To be able to love and converse like Jesus you must know your Bible well (in this passage alone he quotes from the three main sections of the Hebrew Scriptures (Torah, Ketuvim  [writings], Nevi’im [prophets]. And he had no special knowledge – he was a human being just like you and me. He had to learn it. It’s why we do Immerse and why we study the Old Testament. And friends, I want you to purge one thought out of your head right now that the Old Testament is somehow graceless or devoid of mercy. Every merciful act of Jesus, every challenge of grace to the Pharisees, Jesus supports by quoting from the Old Testament. But Jesus question exposes an even deeper reality: 2. Second, just reading the Bible does not make you a good Bible reader. The Pharisees did know where these passages came from. However, because they failed to read the Bible with the hungry, to study the Bible with people in need, they would never have thought to go to these passages.

·       Jesus first quotes a story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6, that does not concern the Sabbath at all, about David and his men eating bread from the temple that Levitical law (24:5-9) expressly forbids them to eat. The bread was specified by God as only being for the priests yet David and his men violated this direct commandment when they ate the bread of Presence, which was a thank offering placed in the temple. Of course, David had already violated the law by entering this part of the temple not to mention that David lied to Ahimelech that he was on a secret mission commissioned by Saul.

·       Notice that the passages are not connected thematically with regard to Sabbath at all. The passage from 1 Samuel does not mention it. So why would Jesus choose this passage? He connected the passages because of the awareness of human need and frailty. We hear in both vs. 1 and vs. 3 that the disciples as well as David and his men “were hungry”. By placing human need front and center Jesus reorients not simply how we read but what we read. Focusing on need will lead you to Bible passages that you had not thought to use or apply.

⁵ Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless?

·       The second argument from Numbers 28:9-10 is more directly relevant yet a more obscure reference. Here, Jesus points out that the priests technically perform “work” on the Sabbath which violates the law but are considered innocent. So Jesus is using the idea implicit within that text that temple service – the practice of forgiveness, doing the work of God, takes precedence over Sabbath observance. So, Jesus and his followers, like the priest, represent a special group who are not bound by the Sabbath because they too are about the work of God. Jesus reads this passage in light of a new day dawning in which everyone assumes a priestly role. We all have Sabbath work.

⁶ I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. ⁷ But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸ For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.” ~ Matthew 12:1-8

·       Finally, Jesus quotes from the prophet Hosea ch. 6:1-6 (a favorite quote of his that he also uses to justify his associations with tax collectors and sinners, c.f. Matt. 9:13) where God declares that careful law observance and the sacrificial system must give way to the priority of God’s new work of public love and justice – that welcomes people, feeds them, liberates them, unbinds them, and heals them. Mercy has us looking at people; sacrifice at maintaining a reading that places people in cages.  

Despite Jesus’ jabbing question, “Haven’t you read? . . .,” the Pharisees remain quite sophisticated Bible readers – they are careful, thoughtful, and, believe it. So why do they come to such different conclusions from Jesus? How does Jesus overturn the traditional reading of the Scriptures by the Pharisees?

1.     Jesus read the Bible with the hungry.

Immediately after this confrontation over plucking the heads of grain, Jesus will encounter a man with a withered hand, and the Pharisees will watch him carefully to see what he will do — will Jesus break the Sabbath again!? Jesus responds with a question, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep!” I believe that Jesus’ argument clues us into the significant difference between how he reads the Scriptures versus how the Pharisees read them. See, the Pharisees’ theology works from the abstract: Is Sabbath work forbidden in Scripture? Yes. Is plucking grain work? Yes. Is healing work? Yes. Then we have our conclusion—plucking grain and healing on the Sabbath are forbidden. Jesus’ reading of the Bible, however, also involves the value of the person: Here is a hungry group or a hurting person in front of me. What do they need? How can I help? Ah, but it’s the Sabbath. Let me now take this person’s unique situation to the Scriptures—and when we do that, we can see even more clearly that the Scriptures themselves address real human faces (e.g. the story of David). They accommodate and address human need. Moreover, Jesus will argue that the Sabbath itself aims to serve people and NOT the other way around (in Mark and Luke Jesus will say this strongly, “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath)!

 

2.     Jesus read the Bible sabbathly.

 

This gets at the real purpose of Scripture. Sabbath had a two-fold tradition. In Genesis and Exodus it’s spoken of as a time of rest, a ceasing from work but that’s not its only meaning. The other tradition comes from the Ten Commandments themselves, in Deuteronomy (5:15): God says, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” In this tradition the Sabbath isn’t about rest so much as freedom. Jesus reads the Scriptures sabbathly always privileging texts that speak of liberation, particularly of human need. We need to be Juneteenth readers.  Juneteenth is the combination of “June” and “nineteenth,” and it commemorates the true date that all slaves in the United States were finally freed. Despite the fact that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, it took two and a half years for Union soldiers to arrive in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the proclamation. It wasn’t until June 19, 1865, that the state’s enslaved residents finally learned they were freed. We have a Juneteenth responsibility with our Bible reading to move out to the borders and boundaries of our world, to step into places of oppression and slavery, and proclaim the freedom of the gospel. If you’re Bible reading doesn’t leave people liberated. You aren’t reading it right.

 

3.     The pharisees read carefully but destructively

 

In the next passage after these two Sabbath encounters describes Jesus reflects on the controversy with his disciples and, funny enough, quotes again from the OT, Isaiah 42:1-4, which details the work of God’s anointed. It says, “He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick . . .” The Pharisees, because they see no human face when they read the Scriptures, are quite willing to break reeds and snuff out wicks. Is it any wonder then why they missed the word of God with a human face in their midst? Though he heals a man yet does not read the Scriptures like they do, vs. 14 says they wanted to “destroy” him. That might be the biggest red flag of all for their type of Bible reading.

 

Which kind of Bible reader are you?