Embodying the Way | 3/8/26
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When you think about the "fence" analogy used in the sermon, are there areas in your own life where you feel a need to build a protective boundary to keep your heart from heading toward anger or resentment?
The sermon mentions that anger can feel like a "dark black spot" or a whirlpool that feeds on itself. When you feel that starting to happen, what is one small thing you can do to pause and keep that distance from growing between you and someone else?
If you imagine leaving a "gift at the altar" to go and make things right with someone, who is the person that immediately comes to mind? What would a first step toward that reconciliation look like for you this week?
Sometimes we think we have to be "fixed" or "right" before we can show up fully, but the sermon suggests that the act of trying to reconcile is, in itself, a form of worship. How does it feel to think of your messy, unfinished relationships as a space where Christ is already working with you?
Transcript:
Well, here we are again, friends, settled down close to Jesus's feet as he is perched on the side of the mount, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, where he delivers his sermon on the Mount. We've learned who is considered blessed, and this set-apart community instituted by God, a beloved community, one that elevates those who are considered the lowest of the low by the world's standards. We have been invited to see our place within that community as salt and light, challenged to let our light shine, and our saltiness indicate to whom our allegiance truly belongs.
Now, the question Jesus asks or answers for us is, how? How is it that we might live out our faith within the set-apart community in a world that still bows to the powerful few and elevates those who are rich? In a world that seeks violence over peace? A world that lives into a “just us” mentality, over and above justice for all. Like a good teacher would, Jesus offers us six different case studies, or six examples, where he holds up a well-known law from the Torah, from either the Ten Commandments or one of the other laws that were given to ancient Israel to help them cultivate a society that would best honor God in that time.
So he begins these examples by saying, "You have heard it said, you shall not murder”, or “You shall not commit adultery”. So on and so forth. And then Jesus takes it a step further, saying, “But I say to you”. He does so in a way that seems befuddling and downright impossible for those who are reading it or hearing it for the very first time. But the point is, for us to sit with Jesus’s extensions of these laws, to ponder how living into them might change the way that we choose to interact with the world around us.
Amy-Jill Levine describes Jesus's work here in these six examples as building a fence around the Torah. Just like we tend to baby-proof a house by setting up gates or those really fun cabinet locks that make adults struggle. We do this because we want to ensure that the child doesn't fall into something that could be dangerous to them. In the same way, these extensions ensure that the members of the set-apart community, Jesus’s followers, wouldn't even come close to faltering on this way. She says it like this: “Jesus is not opposing the Torah; he is extending it. By following the commandments as Jesus interprets them, his disciples walk as if they already have one foot in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
So this morning, instead of considering all six of these case studies, we're going to tease apart the first one to consider how Jesus might be inviting us to build a fence around the law, Thou shalt not murder. Because let's face it, friends, if there has ever been a time to start building good fences, I believe that time is now.
So here is what Jesus says in the next part of the Sermon on the Mount:
You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “'You shall not murder”. And whoever murders shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or a sister, you will be liable to judgment. And if you insult a brother or a sister, you will be liable to the council. And if you say, "You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first to be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Friends, this is the Word of God for us, the people of God, and we say, thanks be to God.
Will you join me in prayer this morning? Oh God of the past, God of the present, and God of our future, we ask that by your spirit, you would meet us in this moment this morning, that we might hear a word from you that will transform our hearts and minds. Open our hearts. Open our ears. That we might come to comprehend our place in your divine story. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Let me see if you can finish this phrase: If you can't say anything nice... don't say anything at all. Man, this phrase was on repeat upon my mom’s lips while I was growing up; my sister and I were always getting into some tit-for-tat or another. So every time my mom would say this phrase, it was a reminder that both my sister and I had a responsibility to do our own self-regulation. We both had a role to play in keeping the peace in the household. Though I remember some days of my teenage years where murder wasn't too far from my thoughts. She's fine now, I promise, and we love each other deeply.
But it sounded like, since you guys were able to respond and finish that phrase, that may be in your households, too; this was a common phrase. So what happened? When did this simply become a fun slogan of yesteryear, rather than something we choose to lean into in our society. As an adult, it seems like there is always something the world is angry about.
Hostility fueled by anger seems to be the way that we, as a society, choose to interact with the world around us. It's laced in every decision and every speech. It's the left. No, it's the right. It's those criminals. No, it's the top 1%. Hostility and anger drives wedges and creates chasms that seem absolutely impossible to cross, not only in our nation, but in our families too. As Jesus was sitting on that perch by the sea, he noticed that the anger, the hostility that the crowds arrived with, and that quiet space between his teachings. I wonder what Jesus saw. Did he see the sneer of hatred as the town's tax collector tried to weasel his way to that front row seat? Did he see the mother, wracked with grief over a once close and deep connection with her daughter, now irreparably severed?
Or maybe he was recalling the stories that Peter was sharing on their journey throughout Galilee together, recalling the stories that made it seem it was all too easy for Peter to drop his father's nets and follow Christ instead. Or maybe it was Andrew's desire to finally be considered worthy in his father's eyes, over and against the shadow of his brother, who always had it right. Jesus knew all too well the anger that was a part of human life. The fabric of humanity. It is one of the experiences that makes us who we are as human beings. Jesus also knew that it was important what you do with anger. It can be used as a means of protection from harm, or on the behalf of someone else who is being harmed, that we call righteous anger.
This kind of anger is not what Jesus is cautioning us against here. When he says, do not even be angry, he's talking about the anger that seeks to harm someone else, the anger that severs relationships, the anger that drives a wedge and can become an insurmountable chasm if we are not careful.
So, imagine with me for a moment this morning that you've taken great care to gather all the appropriate offerings in line with the ancient Jewish customs and practices. It took you days to harvest this gift, to wrap it up, to place it on a donkey and head on your way to the temple for days, maybe even weeks. Your journey was filled with that knock-out, drag-out fight that you left behind on repeat. It played over and over in your mind with each step. You become more sure that you were right and she was wrong. That he is the one who owes you an apology. That if you never see them again in your entire life, it would be too soon. The temple, though, the temple will set everything right on course again. You would often offer your gifts to God. God would make you right, and you can head along your way, hunky dory, everything back to usual. But when you arrive to the temple after journeying for days on end, you were instructed to leave your gift at the altar without offering it. Turn right around, head out the door, and reconcile your differences, making things right before you come to the altar again.
At first glance, it appears that Jesus was making the assertion that interpersonal reconciliation, forgiveness, and making things right with your neighbor, are more important than the act of worship. He says, " Leave your gifts, go settle your dispute, then come back and offer your gifts once more.” But friends, that could take weeks or months, depending on the difficulty and the relationship, maybe even years. It reminds me of another of Jesus's famous teachings, the one where true discipleship includes both the love of God and the love of our neighbors, even the ones that we are angry with.
If you've ever deeply, truly held anger in your being, you know what a toll it takes on your body, on your mind, and on your spirit. For me, anger feels like this dark, black spot on my heart and soul, almost like a whirlpool within my spirit, where all of my thoughts and experiences seem to loop back into that darkness and make it bigger. Feed the anger. It creates distance between me and my neighbors, whom I'm angry with, and makes it really difficult to see them as people who have sacred value. And because of that, it makes it really hard for me to worship, to come to this place ready and willing to meet God with my whole self and to offer my gifts most fully and completely for God to use. So Jesus says, go, forgive, reconcile, and then return.
Greg Jones, who was the former dean of Duke Divinity School while I was a student there, wrote a book on forgiveness that he calls Embodying Forgiveness. And in it he says this: “The practice of forgiveness entails unlearning all those things that divide and destroy communion, and learning to see and live as forgiven and forgiving people. The goal of this unlearning and learning is the holiness of communion: communion with God, communion with others, and communion with the whole Creation.”
This is why forgiveness and the work of reconciliation is so vitally important, because it begins the restoration of that connectedness we imagine as part of the future hope. You know that hope we all look for, where the kingdom on earth mirrors the one that is in heaven, the one that we believe can be experienced here and now.
Connection to God, connection to our neighbors, and connection to creation is what it means to be a part of this beloved community, to be living in the way of Christ. This means that it's really hard to worship Jesus with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength when we can't seem to work through the anger that we feel toward another member of the human family, where we are unable to fully see the image of Jesus within them. Especially the members of the human family where we really deeply, to our core, disagree with.
But you see, I don't think that Jesus was saying that reconciliation is more important than worship. Did you notice the instruction on what to do with the offering that was brought into the temple? That gift that was so deeply cared for?
Jesus said that offering was meant to be left before the altar, not offered upon it. It has not yet been offered to God, but placed before the altar. What that means is that the person who brought the offering left something of themselves in that worship space. They left something behind as that act of worship began, and they were told to “Go”. What that means is the work of setting right that relationship, the work of reconciliation and forgiveness, is not at all more important than worship. It is an act of worship in and of itself.
In 1966, Palestinian priest Elias Chacour demonstrated that the work of reconciliation is an act of worship in one of the most profound ways I have ever heard. It was just a year into his pastoral ministry with a congregation in Abilene, Israel, a community that has faced a conflict in every sense of the word.
One Sunday morning, as he was standing behind the communion table and leading the communion liturgy, he looked out upon the congregation. And in his book, We Belong to the Land, he describes that as he looked out upon the congregation, what was looking back at him was hostility and anger. He said so many people were at odds with each other. So guess what he did? He moved from behind the communion table, walked down the center aisle to the back doors of the church. These were the only two doors in the whole church. He took a key out of his pocket, and he locked the door! Then he marched right back to the center aisle and stood in that pulpit space, and shared with the congregation that he was heartbroken by the hatred and the bitterness that was bubbling up in that worship center space.
And so he said, “This morning, while I celebrated the liturgy, I found someone who is able to help you. In fact, he is the only one who could work a miracle of reconciliation in this village. This person who can reconcile you is Jesus Christ, and he is with us now.” By Christ's presence among them in that church, reconciliation was found, and Elias was able to unlock those doors.
That moment within worship set the congregation on a journey toward a continued practice of reconciliation, not just for their own church community, but for their whole village, where there was deep-seated animosity and conflict between Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. That made it almost dangerous for people to live in peace.
After those doors were unlocked, Elias removed the locks for good, as a sign of that trust and peace that was established within that space. Because you see, forgiveness and the work of reconciliation is an act of worship; it's not an act of worship because of anything that we do; it is because of everything that Christ has done.
The very presence of the living God is with us. And when we take a step toward healing what is broken, Christ is with us. It is Christ who is a great reconciler, not us. It is Christ who is doing the work within us and through us, and it has nothing to do with our own strength. Friends, this is what it looks like to embody the way of Christ, to allow Christ to guide us into the work of healing the relationships that have been broken in our lives. To allow for Christ's Spirit to soften our hearts and place the balm upon our open wounds that will heal them.
Christ shows up by helping us place good boundaries around our hearts, to allow the relationships that are being healed to grow in a healthy way. To help our hearts be open, our minds and ears to be open to listen well and fully understand before choosing to defend our own position. Forgiveness and reconciliation—these are acts of worship, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done within us and through us, and what Christ continues to do.
So, friends, my question for you this morning is, “Who is Christ calling you toward reconciliation, toward forgiveness?” Because trust that as you take the steps toward that person, Christ the Reconciler, is the one who goes with you. Thanks be to God. Amen.
