Sermon 19th January 2014

Today our Honorary Curate, Gill Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from Matthew 5 verses 17 to 30.

The Sermon on the Mount:

Anger

David received a parrot for his birthday. This parrot had a bad attitude and even worse vocabulary. Every other word was a swear word! David tried hard to change the bird and was constantly saying polite words, and playing soft music. But nothing worked. He yelled at the bird & the bird got worse. Finally, in a moment of desperation, David put the parrot in the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird squawking, kicking and screaming and then, suddenly, no more noise came from the freezer. David was frightened he might actually have hurt the bird, & quickly opened the freezer door. The parrot calmly stepped out onto David’s arm, and said, "I'm sorry that I offended you with my bad language. I ask for your forgiveness."David was astounded and was about to ask what changed him,  when the parrot continued, "May I ask what the chicken in there did?"

Anger and swearing – I wonder whether they’re issues in your life? In the part of the sermon on the mount that we’ve just heard, Jesus has a lot to say about these issues, and others. We’re going to look at what he says, especially about anger and lustful desire. He challenges our words, and actions, and it’s a call to be more self controlled and do the right thing.

But it’s MUCH more than that! This morning we need to really grasp the main point Jesus was making with these words, which is this: It’s not just our actions that need to change; it’s our hearts. It’s not just what we do on the outside, what other people see; it’s what we’re like on the inside, that only we and God see.

As Cameron said last week, in this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching his followers how to live in the kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven, in the here and now. (Read or listen to his sermon on the website, or ask for a paper copy, if you want to.) And in this morning’s passage, Jesus takes us to the source of our actions, good and bad, to our heart. He takes us deep into the kind of people we are, the kind of love God has for us, and the kind of love that, as we share it, brings us into harmony with God’s life.

That’s what American theologian Dallas Willard says about these verses, and I draw on some more of his ideas and Bishop Tom Wright’s too, in what I say this morning.

So, before we look in detail at the 2 issues of anger and lust, that effect us all surely, we need to get the point of the first paragraph we read this morning, headed up Teaching about the law. It’s key to what follows.

In that first paragraph, Jesus relates himself, and his teaching, to the Old Testament Law & the Prophets. This meant not only the Ten Commandments, but the massive body of hundreds more laws and regulations built up around them. Ceremonial law that related to how to worship the one true holy God. Civil law that applied to daily living in Israel. And the moral law that revealed the nature and will of God. Jesus says, referring to these laws and to the truth about God revealed through the Old Testament prophets, that he, Jesus, hasn’t come to abolish the law and prophets but to make their teachings come true, or to fulfil them.

No Jesus wasn’t intending to abandon the law and the prophets. Israel’s whole story, commands, promises and all, was going to come true in him. Now that he was here, everything was changing, God’s kingdom was coming, and life could be lived in that kingdom not by just keeping rules but by a change of heart & mind itself.This was truly revolutionary, and at the same time deeply in tune with the ancient promises of the Bible. Jesus embodied the way of self giving love which is the deepest fulfilment of the law & prophets, as the commands of the law provide a blueprint for the way of being fully, genuinely, freely, gloriously human.

So, not only does Jesus say he’s not doing away with the law, he goes on to say to this followers that they’re to be more faithful than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees in doing what God requires.

The teachers of the law and especially the Pharisees were scrupulous in their attempts to follow their laws. So what does Jesus mean calling his followers to be more faithful in doing what God requires?

Well the Pharisees were content to obey the laws outwardly, to go through the motions, to do the right thing. That’s fine as far as it goes, but Jesus calls his followers to something greater, something deeper. He calls them (and us) to a change of heart, to a goodness that flows from the heart, not just effort.

In the first 2 examples that follow, the practical outworking of this in dealing with anger and with lustful desire, Jesus says we have to go further and deeper than just changing our actions, we need to change our hearts, change our attitudes, our thinking, what goes on inside us, not just the outside.

And that’s the big big challenge of today’s reading. It’s not just: can we control our anger or our lust? It’s, can we become people who aren’t easily angry, who don’t have obsessive desire? Can we change, and not just: can our words and actions change?

Let’s look at each of the two areas Jesus discusses in detail and then we’ll come back to the question of how we can change from the inside out.

First anger. Anger is a spontaneous feeling that arises as a response when our will is crossed, when something happens that’s different from what we want. We can’t help that first feeling of anger, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But then we choose what happens next – do we embrace it, encourage it, stir it up by thinking about how we shouldn’t have been treated like that, how dare they say or do that to me? Often our anger is based on self importance, self righteousness or vanity. And we nurture it by holding on to those ideas and thoughts that we’ve been mistreated or wronged; we go over and over it in our heads.

And of course it spills out. Either straight away, with harsh rude hurtful words or actions, or later, if we’ve kept them in but still gone round with them inside us. So some small incident on the bus or in the car sets us off with an angry over-reaction. Road rage so often began somewhere else.

And all too easily anger slips into contempt. The Good News Bible uses the phrase “you good for nothing!” as the example of a hateful insult. The original Aramaic word, Raca, was used in Jesus day to express contempt for someone and to mark out him or her as contemptible. It may have originated from the sound you make to collect spittle from the throat in order to spit.

In anger I want to hurt you. In contempt I don’t care whether you’re hurt or not. You are not worth consideration one way or the other. Today we wouldn’t say Raca. But we have other words in our vocabulary of contempt, some with sexual or racial or cultural bearing, others just personally degrading. It’s not always done crudely, sometimes it is done with refinement! We see it in the school playground, at a party, in the home and even in the church. Someone being put down or left out, even if subtly.

The intention of contempt - and its effect - is to exclude someone, to push them away, leave them out and isolate them. Contempt spits on our deep need to be accepted and belong, and it hurts and destroys very badly and deeply too.

So, Jesus says, don’t let your anger rip, don’t be contemptuous. And he says it’s so important to be in the opposite frame of mind, so important to have good, loving, respectful relationships, that when you don’t, when you’re angry with someone – or even just if you know they’re angry with you! – sort it out as a matter of the utmost priority. He says it’s so important, so urgent, that it takes precedence over even the sacred rituals of worship. If you’re on your way to the temple and remember a strained or broken relationship, go and sort it out straight away. He says to leave the animal offering you had for God there at the altar, and go make reconciliation and then come back to complete your worship. Speaking to people in Galilee, several days’ journey from the temple at Jerusalem, this may well have been an amusing exaggeration – leave an animal standing there for 4 or 5 days?! But the point was clear. Make reconciliation an urgent priority. Even if you consider yourself in the right, and it’s the other person who has something against you, not vice versa. And again, if someone is suing you, make reconciliation with them, make peace with your adversary if you can, without bitterness or hostility.

...Challenging stuff...

And so we see how Jesus is taking us much much further than just the commandment, do not murder. Because with Jesus, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, has come! Living in it means living in new ways, like we heard in the Beatitudes last Sunday. With God as our king, and Jesus the embodiment of his love, we can see the world and other people as he does. And value and love them as he does. So when we’re angry, we remember that this other person is God’s child, made in his image, and infinitely valuable and precious to him. We won’t stir up that anger or become contemptuous of them, we’ll forgive, make peace, be genuinely committed to what is good for them, and to seek their well being. We’ll be prepared to sacrifice our interest for that of another if that seems wise. And we’ll keep a joyous confidence in God regardless of what happens.

This is what it means to be more faithful than the Pharisees in doing what God requires. Simply not killing looks quite empty by contrast with this doesn’t it.

So, let’s think about this personally. Whether anger is a big issue in your life or not, I’m sure we ALL experience the feeling of anger from time to time and have to decide what to do with it, hold on to it and nurture our indignation, or not.So, let’s think for a moment about which of these ways are WE most likely to express our anger? yelling? sarcasm? moodiness? withdrawing? grumbling and complaining? criticising ? cynicism? feeling like a victim and saying ‘poor me’? Which way do you and I most often ‘do’ anger?

Now let’s think of someone we are, or have been, angry with, and ask ourselves: How did my anger express the fact that I didn’t value that person as God does? How would it feel to value that person?

Am I sad about the harm that the anger between us is doing, to them, to me, and others around us?And, in all honesty do I long for reconciliation? Have I done all I can to move toward that? Truly?

Do I offer genuine actions of love instead of going through the motions?

..........

Plenty to think about there, about anger. Now, and much more briefly, the destructiveness of lustful desire.

As with murder, a specific action is forbidden by the commandment, do not commit adultery. But as with murder, not committing adultery doesn’t go nearly far enough. Do we look at someone, gaze lingeringly at someone we find attractive, deliberately taking pleasure in imagining or fanaticizing about what an encounter, romantic or sexual, with him or her would be like? Of course it’s different for men and women, and for different individuals, but we all know what it means to cultivate and savour a ‘look’ at someone we find attractive. But it can be very destructive, demeaning them, or progres to inappropriate action, especially harmful if we’re committed to someone else, or spill over into sexual harassment, or worse. Even if it seems less harmful than that, we stop seeing the person as a valued, loved child of God, and see them only as someone to give us shallow pleasure.

A sexual response to someone we find attractive is not wrong, any more than anger is. It’s what we do with it that counts. Scholars say that in verse 28 the wording refers to looking at a woman with the purpose of desiring her. That is we desire to desire. We indulge and cultivate desiring because we enjoy the fantasy.

So Jesus says, with another exaggerated illustration, cut off your hand or gouge out your eye, deal drastically with this problem, which again flows from an ungodly heart.

We’re back to the heart. It’s our hearts, our inner attitudes, which must be changed.

And they can be! In this new Kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven era, that has arrived with Jesus, we can be changed deep down inside! ?Yes, truly! But – BUT – we will only change if we really REALLY want to.

We have to really REALLY want to, because it’ll take humility and teachability. In order to change, we have to first be willing to see what’s in our hearts, our inner attitudes, as bad, as needing to change. As horrid and abhorrent, as sinful and a part of what Jesus had to die for. We won’t change unless we are prepared to tear away the excuses and defences we try and cover it up with. We have to see the state of our heart for what it is. We may be blind to it, or to the fact that there are layers of it that have to be recognised and peeled off. We may find there are deep seated causes of our anger, we may find hurts that need addressing before we can be free from them. But if we ask God to, with genuine humility, he will help us see what needs to change. Look at Jesus, read what he was like and what he said and did, and pray and see yourself in the light of it.

We might need to ask someone to help us see what we’re really like. The greatest times of true change in my inner attitude have come when someone who loves me has pointed out what I’ve been blind to see myself, on one occasion a self-focused attitude I was completely blind to, and how it played out daily. Ouch that’s painful. Yes recognising our sin is painful – but we do so in the light of God’s love and mercy. So when we do recognise it, we want to fall to our knees and repent of it; my God I’m so sorry...

And when we do that, THEN God’s LOVE and mercy and grace and power can forgive us, cleanse us, start to change us, and free us. Bit by bit we’ll replace the bad attitudes with good and Godly ones, by starting to see and value others as God does, infinitely precious and loved.

Do we want that? Do we want to change? Not just carry on a battle to control our temper or our words, our actions? But our hearts? Not just to stop angry and contemptuous words and lustful looks, but to become people who aren’t angry or contemptuous or lustful; people from whom good deeds and words flow naturally, people who are loving and gracious, like God our Father is?

Then let’s pray... Heavenly Father, thank you for your mercy and your grace to forgive us, and for your power to change us. Please help us to see where our hearts need changing, so that we can become the people you’ve made us to be, living and loving as you love us. In J name, amen.