David Bahn – Reflections

Matthew 5:21-26

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²²But 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, ²⁴leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵ 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. ²⁶Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

We often think of sin as something quite obvious and outward. Murder is a sin. Adultery is a sin. Stealing is a sin. Jesus confronts such false thinking in these words from Matthew 5. He begins with murder and goes on to equate hatred and unkind words with this outward, obvious sin. How is this possible? Is Jesus serious? Is calling your brother or sister a fool tantamount to murder? And if so, why?

Jesus is teaching us the first part of being truly godly: loving all people. He shows that by saying that a good relationship with a brother or sister in Christ is so important that even an offering to God must wait for the relationship to be repaired until it is given. Surely part of that has to do with the fact that God needs no money or any offering from any of us; we need to give rather than God needing our offerings of any kind. But surely that point could be made another way.

Here Jesus is saying that our relationship with God is so closely tied to our relationships with others as to require us to get the relationships with others right if we are to be in right relationship with Him. Put another way, “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness” (1 John 2:9 – ESV).

Perhaps we think too little of sin; we consider it to be only those big bad things we do that really break the 10 Commandments. We minimize those little things (like refusing to forgive, harboring ill will, judging others, or even saying hurtful things) as trivial, or at least easily forgiven. But here Jesus reminds us that any thought, word or act is sinful that is contrary to the heart of God, and His call for us to love Him first and our neighbor as ourselves.

Jesus’ desire in these words must be two-fold: to confront us with our sin, and to help us see that living as a disciple of Jesus is intrinsically related to the way we treat our neighbor, wife, husband, daughter, son, or brother or sister in Christ.

God delights in our gifts to Him when they come as an expression of our love for Him shown in our love for one another.