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Minister: Rev Kirsten Barlow

What's Keeping You From God?  Matthew 5:21-26 (The Message)

21-22"You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' (Raca = good for nothing, fool) and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' (fool) at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire (Gehenna - valley where trash was burned). The simple moral fact is that words kill.

 23-24"This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.

 25-26"Or say you're out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don't lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you're likely to end up in court, maybe even jail. If that happens, you won't get out without a stiff fine.

When I was a kid growing up, there was this great football player that everyone seemed to idolize.  He had been a Heisman trophy winner in college.  As an NFL running back he had received numerous awards and broken numerous records.  What I remember though, was not his football, but the commercials that he starred in...running through airports, jumping over suitcases, showing off his nimble athleticism, just as he did on the football field.  To me O.J. Simpson was the spokesman for Hertz Car Rental.

That's the way I remembered him until that bizarre day in 1994 when I watched, probably with many of you, that strange low-speed car chase through the highways and bi-ways of southern California.    Obviously, there was a lot about OJ Simpson that I didn't know and probably didn't want to know.

Fortunately, we seemed to stop hearing about the trials and tribulations of OJ Simpson for quite a while...that is until last fall when all of a sudden OJ Simpson was back in the news again...and not for something good.

You may remember the story, it had been reported that OJ Simpson and several associates had broken into a Las Vegas hotel room and at gunpoint taken some Simpson memorabilia.  OJ's explanation?  They had taken my stuff (sports equipment, etc.) and I was simply taking back what was mine!  Oh yeah, and there were no guns.

I was mad.  They had stuff that they had stolen from me, so I was just taking it back.  Kind of like a school yard brawl over who the ball belonged to.

I don't know OJ Simpson and all that he has gone through in his life...but it seems as though somewhere he got off track...maybe way off track.

In the most recent incident, he got angry at what someone had done and acted in anger to rectify the situation.

Contrast that with what Jesus was talking about in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount. 

Jesus is talking to a group of people that know the Old Testament.  They know the 10 Commandments.  But Jesus is telling his followers that they may not fully understand the commandments that they have been taught to follow.  They knew that they weren't supposed to kill, but Jesus was saying that if you were angry with your brother or sister (used in a broad sense of someone that you lived in community with - not just a sibling) that you were guilty of murder.

What?  If you were angry you were guilty as if you committed murder?  Jesus isn't talking about the average run of the mill, someone cut me off in traffic and so I am momentarily angry at this person that I have never seen before and will never again see...I'll get over that anger in a matter of minutes.

No, Jesus was talking about the kind of anger that is long-lived.  It is the anger of one who nurses his wrath to keep it warm; the anger that one will just not let go; the anger over which one broods.  The kind of anger that perhaps OJ Simpson had at the people that had "taken" his stuff...he couldn't let it go...he couldn't just report the robbery to the police and then just let it go.

In Matthew, this anger is in Greek orgizesthai which comes from the Greek orge (long e) which describes this long lasting type of anger.  It is an anger that refused to be pacified, that seeks revenge, that won't be forgotten.

This is the type of anger that Jesus said was as bad as murder.  It is insidious and damaging.  It seeks to destroy another...even unto death.  It is contemptuous.

It might get you in trouble.  If you call someone idiot as today's translation reads.  "Raca" in the Greek:  brainless idiot, silly fool, empty headed blunderer.  One who is despised with an arrogant contempt .  Call someone this and you might get called into court - today it would be for slandering someone's good name.

Or call someone "moros" (first o long):  a fool - one who lives their life as if there were no God - they may know that God exists, but they live their lives with reckless abandon as if God didn't exist, someone with no moral code.  Call someone this and you might just end up in the fires that burn in Gehenna:  a hellish place where the trash was burned just outside of Jerusalem.  Jesus was telling his followers that they were not the judge of someone else's beliefs or actions.  That was not their place.
Jesus told his followers that if they had such a grudge against another, that they needed to go and clear it up before they could make their offering in the Temple.  The kind of offering that Jesus was talking about was not what we would think of today as the offering.  In Jewish tradition, there were a number of different types of offerings - probably the one Jesus was talking about here was the "sin offering".  To atone for their sin, there was a prescribed animal or grain sacrifice (as detailed in the Old Testament) that was to be brought before the Temple priest.  But the sin offering couldn't be brought forward until whatever had been done wrong had been rectified.  In other words, you couldn't just "buy" your way out of whatever you had done by bringing your offering.

Jesus is re-emphasizing this by saying that if you get to the altar to bring your offering and you realize that things have not been reconciled between you and another person, then your offering is of no value...you have to go and reconcile with the other person first.

You can't offer your sacrifice to God to make things right with God, if things aren't right with your fellow human beings.  Worship of God can't happen until reconciliation with our brothers and sisters occurred.

Remember when Jesus was questioned as to the most important commandment?  He said that the first was to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind and strength and that the second most important was to love your neighbor as yourself.  They are so closely related that you can't love God and worship God if you aren't loving your neighbor.

Bottom line, God knows the state of your heart.  If you haven't reconciled with your brother or sister...you can't reconcile with God.  There is a man-made barrier there.

Remember Jesus said we must love our neighbor as ourselves...maybe that's part of the problem...maybe we don't love ourselves as we should.  Maybe we harbor stuff that makes us feel unlovable and because we don't love ourselves we can't love anyone else?

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In
the room of two hundred, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?" Hands
started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $20 bill to one of you
but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the $20 bill up. He then
asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well,"
he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started
to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and
dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I
did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value.
It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled,
and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that
come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has
happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God's eyes.
To God, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are always
priceless."  (Traditional - from eSermons.com)

Did you catch that?  To God, we are priceless!  We really are.  God created us in God's own image.  We weren't created to be junk, to be discarded.   ...and if we really are priceless...then wouldn't we want to care for ourselves and others as we would a priceless treasure?

So, if we can understand and value ourselves as a priceless treasure and we are to love others as we love and value ourselves, then don't we want to do all that we can to reconcile with our brothers and sisters.

That can be tough to do can't it?  You remember the story of Judas and the betrayal of Jesus?  Judas sold information to the chief priests about where and when they could find and arrest Jesus.  Judas was trying to force Jesus to reveal who he was to everyone.

Much to Judas' chagrin, Jesus went quietly when the chief priests came to arrest him.  He didn't fight back as they tortured him and nailed him to the cross.  He didn't perform some miraculous feat (at least to Judas' eyes) while on the cross...he just died.

Unfortunately for Judas he didn't wait to see the miracle of the resurrection.  Instead Judas seemed to be convinced that he was lower than dirt for having betrayed Jesus.  He was sure that he was no longer of value in God's kingdom...that all was lost...that what he had done had separated him from God forever.

The sad part is that Judas missed the whole message of Jesus...that Jesus came to forgive us of all our sins no matter how large or small.  The very one that Judas betrayed is the very one that would have forgiven him for that betrayal...all that Judas had to do was to ask.  Judas let his sin keep him from God...from God's saving grace...from God's love...from God's promises.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tries to tell his followers that he doesn't want any of them to let anything keep them from God.

If we fail to settle our disputes with our fellow human beings, we may not be literally taken to court and thrown in jail (although that is certainly possible).  There are many ways that we harbor anger or hurt towards others and them towards us that are not violations of any secular law.  But Jesus wants us to know that the time of judgment for all of us is coming near and that we need to settle things now.  In a dispute, it would seem that it would be better to settle out of court than to go to trial.

Are we really following Jesus' commandments to love the Lord our God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself?

Don't wait until it is too late to make amends...Don't be like OJ and let revenge be your guide.  Now is the time...today is the day to set aside the anger, the hurt, the disputes between yourself and another that are keeping you from being able to worship God.

I can't tell you what it is that is in your heart that is keeping you from truly being able to worship today.  You know what it is and God knows what it is.

Robert Schuller once wrote, "There will never be another now - I'll make the most of today.  There will never be another me - I'll make the most of myself."  (Robert Schuller - p. 152 - Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!)

What's keeping you from God?

Now is the time to give it up before God.  Today is the day to settle that dispute. 

We are going to give you the opportunity to confess before God that which you have held in anger in your heart.  The ushers will direct you to come down the center aisle to receive a piece of bread and a cup of juice as together we celebrate the Lord's Supper.  If you would like to pause and kneel at the altar or sit in the front pew to have lift before God that which has kept you from being able to fully worship, I encourage you to do so.  If you would like to take communion and then leave by the side doors, you may do that as well.

Jesus invites each of us to take this bread and this juice to remember the great sacrifice that he made for each of us.  He gave his life that our sins might be taken away...that we might have the chance for a new life in Christ.  Don't miss this chance to get right with God.  All are welcome.  Let us pray...

God, as we come forward for communion this morning, help us to give up to you those barriers that have kept us from being able to worship you.  Where we have a dispute with our neighbor or our neighbor a dispute with us, help us to be the first to act to rectify the situation that we might truly be able to offer ourselves to you...to love you with our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to be able to love our neighbors with that same kind of love.  Make it so, in the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Come...