This sermon was preached at St Peter's Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder…” but I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today in our Gospel reading, Jesus teaches us particularly about the 5th commandment, “You shall not murder”, and he especially applies it in talking about anger. Now, I think, it’s fair to say, that today, there is far too much anger in our community, our society, our country, our world. People burst out, fight, rage – there’s so much hatred in our world today, and very little love.
It’s easy to get angry, especially when we see so many things around us going wrong, and not how we would like them to be. But it’s often hard to stay calm, and be patient, and show gentleness and friendliness, and to be reasonable. This is a battle that Jesus calls us to fight: the fight against our own anger. It’s a very difficult fight, and in order to conquer we must know where the remedy to our anger comes from. It comes from Jesus Christ himself, and his righteousness alone.
Our reading today starts with verse 20 of chapter 5 of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says: For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
This verse comes just at the end of a little section of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is talking about the law. He talks about the Law, then he talks here about the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and then he goes on in the next verse to talk about murder and anger. And these things all go together, actually. Let’s listen to the previous verses to hear what Jesus has to say about the Law. He says: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom od heaven. And then we read the verse, which begins our reading today: For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now, let’s think for a moment about the Law. Jesus says: I have not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
When you think of God’s Law, what do you think about? What comes to mind? Do you think about something good or something bad? God’s Law is actually all those things that God teaches us to do, or not to do. And also it includes the threat of his punishment if we don’t do what he commands, and also the promise of reward and blessing if we do do what he commands.
Actually, the Law comes all the way from the very beginning of the world. It goes right back to Garden of Eden. In fact, in the Garden of Eden, there was only the Law. There was no Gospel, because there was need for it. God created the first people in his image, and put them in the Garden, and instructed them what to do and what not to do. At this time, there was no sin in the world, and nothing wrong, and so the Law of God was Adam and Eve’s daily pleasure and delight. We read: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food… The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Here we see God’s wonderful Law at work: the beauty of his creation, the enjoyment of God’s good things, the satisfaction of work, the daily delight of enjoying the presence of God and his blessing. At that time, there was no anger, no murder, because there was no sin. There was only calmness and gentleness and enjoyment and happiness: and these things flowed from God’s own calmness and gentleness. God shared his own delight, his own calmness, and happiness with his creation.
We also read where God says to Adam: You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. Here we also see God’s law at work, because he permits Adam to eat from every tree, but he also forbids Adam to eat from a specific tree, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why does God do this? Why does God prohibit something to Adam? Why doesn’t he let him enjoy everything? Here we see the law of love. Because when God establishes his law in the Garden of Eden, and orders everything beautifully, and allows Adam and Eve to enjoy it all, he also wants to teach that love is also not simply about a feeling but about a choice. Adam and Eve are called to choose the things that God allows to them, and also to avoid the things that are not allowed to them. For example, in a marriage, we are called to love our husband or wife. But also, that love means that we choose not to go after other men or women. The love of a husband for his wife means that he avoids choosing any other women to replace her. The love of a wife for her husband means that she avoids choosing any other man to replace him.
And so, when Adam and Eve, simply enjoy the things that God gives them, and avoid the things that he doesn’t give them, they show their love for God. And they enjoy his perfect peace, and his perfect calm and gentleness.
This is why Jesus says: Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. We can’t get rid of the law, because to get rid of the law is to get rid of the Garden of Eden. To get rid of the law, to relax the law, is to chip something away from God’s wonderful order and the beautiful way in which he arranged the world in the first place for his people to enjoy. To relax the law is to say I don’t want to enjoy any tree in the garden, I would rather eat from the tree that God has forbidden me to eat.
But, when we talk about the law, we have to realise that we don’t live in the Garden of Eden anymore. As we read in Genesis chapter 3, the first people were deceived by Satan into sin, in such a way that they desired to eat from the tree which God had forbidden them to eat, and they fell into sin. This meant that they didn’t just have a knowledge and an experience of what is good anymore. But they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This word, “knowledge”, in Hebrew, doesn’t just mean that they knew it in their heads, but they experienced it in their lives. The very fact that you and I even know what evil is, is because of the fall into sin. We know what evil is, because we experience evil, and we ourselves have done what is evil, thought it, desire it, even when don’t want to, are clouded by it, are messed up by it, are entrenched in it, are bound to it.
This is where anger comes from. It comes from the fall into sin. It actually comes right from the devil’s own words to Adam and Eve: You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The devil implants this complete falsehood into their minds, this lie, this envy, this idea that God is stingy and he’s actually holding something back from us. And Adam and Eve, think, “What? God wants us to be blind? God wants us to less than our full potential? God wants us to be dumb and stupid? God wants us to be less than him? It’s not fair! I want more! I want things to be better than what they are!” And so they take the fruit and eat.
So, here’s where anger comes from. It comes from the desire to be like God, and to have things better than what God actually gives to us.
Now, on the other hand, the Scripture does speak about God’s anger. When we speak about God’s anger and his wrath, it is his anger against sin. It is a righteous anger. But there is also an anger from the devil, which is always the anger against God.
So Jesus says: I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now, because of the fall, the Law of God is no longer only our daily delight, but it also comes with thunder and lightning, because it condemns our sin and finds us out for who we really are. After the Fall, God gave Moses his law again, and reinstate it in the 10 Commandments, with thunder and lightning, not with birds and trees and waterfalls, as in the Garden of Eden. The scribes and Pharisees did not keep God’s law, but they changed it, in such a way that they made it achievable by themselves. They made up all kinds of traditions and practices, and made themselves into some kind of spiritual super-stars, who were super-pious, super-devout. In fact, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus talks about is not the righteousness of God at all. It is simply self-righteousness. It is self-righteousness that is blind to the law of God, in such a way that they end up leading the charge to kill Jesus, by having him crucified.
The only righteousness that will allow us to enter into heaven is the righteousness of Christ alone. His righteousness endured this false righteousness, his righteousness was crucified by our self-righteousness, which we share with the scribes and Pharisees, because we like them always want to avoid the Law pointing its laser beam at us and finding us. Jesus on the cross does not express his anger at them, but he says: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. We, because of our sinful flesh and our sinful hearts, never know what we’re doing. Only God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knows perfectly what we’re doing, and sees the full corruption of it, and the full blindness of it. And what does Jesus pray about those who crucify us, people like us who don’t know what we’re doing? He says: Father, forgive them. The way in which Christ shares his righteousness with us is that he forgives us our sins, through the shedding of his blood on the cross, and through his glorious resurrection from the dead. We simply trust him, that his words, his sacrifice and his promises are true, and this forgiveness is ours, just as Jesus said to the thief: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
This righteousness of Christ is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, and through faith, this righteousness is given to us and our sin is given to Christ. Jesus gives us his righteousness, and God the Father adopts us as his own children, when he poured out the Holy Spirit on us in the waters of Holy Baptism. He gives us this gift, we trust his word, and it is ours. And Jesus continues to strengthen us in this righteousness, when he feeds us with his own body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. The self-righteousness, through which we break the law, which we share with the scribes and Pharisees, which crucified Jesus himself, Jesus endures and suffers, and then he feeds back to us as his own pure righteousness, the righteousness through which he has fulfilled the law, and then shares with us. It is just so beyond our comprehension, and beyond our understanding, and beyond our wildest thoughts and dreams what the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ really is, and just how profoundly he has suffered for us, and just how immensely he loves us.
Now, let’s think about anger again. Jesus says: You have heard that is was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murder will be liable to judgment.’ But 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.
Self-righteousness, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, says: I haven’t murdered, therefore I haven’t sinned. Jesus says: but murder starts with anger. Anger is the first train station, and murder is just the destination of the train.
Now, we often think we have a right to be angry. And sometimes, we know that something is wrong, and we are angry about it. But we must know the difference between God’s anger, and the devil’s anger. Psalm 4 says: Be angry, but do not sin. St Paul writes a little comment on this verse in Ephesians, where he says: Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
I remember hearing a sermon from a pastor, many years ago, who said: At the end of the day, all of our anger is anger against God. I think this pastor was right, because we need to ask ourselves, when we get angry, aren’t we really just being angry with God who has allowed us to be in such and such a situation? Aren’t we just angry with God who hasn’t allowed things to be better for us in the world, and to be better for everyone, or to be better in general?
Remember at the end of the book of Genesis, when Joseph’s brothers went to him. Now Joseph’s brothers had been jealous of him, and had thrown Joseph into a pit, sold him into slavery, and then pretended to their father that he had been eaten alive by animals. But instead of getting angry with them, Joseph says: Am I in the place of God? You meant evil towards me, but God meant it for good.
Many things that we are angry about, are things that we don’t understand. We don’t understand why God allowed this, or why he let this happen. Think about it: often when people are about to die, if they are unbelievers, and they convert before they die, we say: “They made their peace with God.” Why do we say this? Because the reason why people refuse to turn to God, is because they are angry with him. They wanted things to be different.
We might look at our own lives, and our own society. We might look at our marriage, or our families, and we see things there, that we wish were different, that we wish were better. Are we angry about it, do we take our anger out on other people, or do we acknowledge even when we don’t understand, that God has allowed certain things for our blessing? Jesus says: What I am doing, you do not understand, but afterwards you will understand. He says: You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice. Psalm 30 says: By your favour, O LORD, you have made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
We might look at the way that COVID has made a mess of our lives in the recent years. We might look at the way at the way in which the marriage laws, the abortion laws, and the euthanasia laws have changed in Australia in the last few years. We might look at the way in which we can no longer trust the mass media in our country to provide us with unbiased news. We might look at the way in which there is corruption at all kinds of levels of society. We might think about all kinds of terrible injustices and sick perversions: child slavery, human trafficking, the wealthy industry of pornography. We might look at the way in which wealthy people, with high levels of influence, try to manipulate governments and nations to bring about great harm to many people. We might look at the way in which communists and “wokists” seek to destroy the family and free society, and aim to corrupt young people, turning children against the parents, and seeking to shut down and cancel any contrary views. We might look at the way in which churches all throughout the world have sacrificed the truth, and exchanged their birthright for a bowl of soup like Esau, just so that they can be more accommodating to the world.
Are we angry about these things? Yes, because these things are wrong, they are tragic, they cause us to weep, to cry, to lament. They cause us great bitterness, great anguish, great heartache. But we must also realise that the future of the church is not in its anger. The future of the church is not a whole lot of angry people. Jesus says: I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
What Jesus is doing now, you do not understand, but afterwards you will understand. Isaiah 38 says: Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness, but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back. In all your confusion, Jesus has given to you the peace of God which transcends and surpasses not just all human understanding, but all angelic understanding, and all the combined understanding of heaven and earth. We might have once asked God to increase our faith, and help us in our life, and instead we end up feeling our sin even more deeply than before, and our helplessness even more, and the raging of the evil one even more.
They raged against Jesus too. And he said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. When we do not know what we’re doing, and in our sinful blindness we do not know what God is doing, still, we have the forgiveness of sins, we have a faithful Saviour, we have his grace, his mercy, his love, we have Baptism and his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, and the promise of eternal life. Remember the anger of those people who stoned the first Christian martyr to death. Stephen prayed: Lord, do not hold this sin against them. We also pray the same prayer against our enemies too, and for all those in the world who continually take their stand on the side of evil.
But
in the meantime, when it comes to anger, the greatest fight is against our own
anger. Yes, there are things that we can see that are wrong, and that are not
right. But do we trust in a God whose ways are beyond our ways? Do we trust him
to make things plain to us in his own time, even when we don’t understand now
what he’s doing? After all, despite all that we know to be wrong in our lives,
and in our world, Jesus still glorifies his Father by bestowing his grace upon
us. And that is a thing more precious than anything in the world. It exceeds
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, because their righteousness—our
self-righteousness—is a righteousness which goes from anger to anger to anger.
The righteousness of Christ is a righteousness which has won perfect peace
by his blood on the cross. It is a righteousness which cleanses us from the
guilt and condemnation of sin by his blood. It is a righteousness that opens to
us the gate of heaven, where an even more wonderful peace will prevail than was
even there in the Garden of Eden. From this righteousness come the fruits of
the Spirit, and all things good, and wonderful, and beautiful, and holy, and
pure, and perfect. In this righteousness, we can look to Christ, walking on the
water, with the storm raging around us and above us and within us, who says: Peace!
Be still! Fear not. It is I. May God our heavenly Father send us the Holy
Spirit, to root out of us our anger and our discontent, and point us to his
Son, our righteousness, and our perfect peace! Amen.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in
Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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