Forgiveness For Murderous Hearts And Slandering Tongues
Grace
and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Tonight,
as we continue to journey towards Calvary’s Cross, we move on to the Eighth and
the Fifth Commandments.
The
Eighth Commandment states,
“You shall not give false
testimony against your neighbor.”
The
Fifth Commandment states,
“You shall not murder.”
Now,
both of these commandments have a somewhat similar theme. That theme is the protection of the gift of a
good reputation and the gift of life. In
other words, the gift of a good reputation has to do with the protection of
one’s overall quality and disposition—that which tends to be in the sphere of a
person’s character—whereas, the gift of life has to do with the protection of one’s
overall physical body. Indeed, both a good reputation and physical life are
precious gifts given to us and should be protected in every way. Both your neighbor’s reputation and his life
need to be protected, that is to say, protected from you and from me.
But
why do these gifts need protection from us?
They need protection because of our hearts and because of the tactics of
the Evil One. Yes, from our hearts
proceed all evil thoughts. These evil
thoughts are not just left alone in the heart, but are like hot embers. They are hot embers that are fanned by the
Evil One in order that they catch fire.
When they catch fire, the flame attacks other persons by an abusive
tongue, or possibly through a punch thrown into the face of a neighbor.
There
is a pretty definable pattern in all of this, even for us Christians. What typically happens is that “Satan gets
another Christian to sin against us in deed or word. It pleases Satan if a
person with spiritual significance or authority, such as a parent, pastor,
spouse or leader in the Church sins against us. Their spiritual status, their
office, magnifies their offense and intensifies the damage that it does. This
is a kind of ritual abuse, the misuse of holy things against us.”[1]
“After
the offense has occurred, Satan gets us to brood over it, like a stuck track or
a video loop, repeatedly and obsessively in our minds, with every greater
emphasis on the gravity and injustice of it. As we process the offense and its
effect on us, Satan gradually distorts our remembrance and our assessment of
it. He uses this offense to encourage us to bring our mental accusations
against the offender in the court of our minds. There he presides over the
proceedings as we hold a secret trial in which we both prosecute and pass
judgment on the wrongdoer.”[2]
“The
more we brood on the offense, the angrier we get against the offender. [This is
the beginnings of hatred.] We remember
all the other offenses that we have ever suffered from that person and all the
other people that have ever hurt us. And that fuels our anger and our desire
for justice, [thus the start of our breaking the Fifth Commandment]. We maintain that we are in the right; we are
justified in our judgment of them. We hold the moral high ground against them.
Then, before we know it, anger leads to bitterness and resentment. This, in
turn, leads to outrage, hatred, and lust for revenge. And so we end up stewing
in our own poison.”[3]
Keep
in mind though, that this poison of anger and hatred don’t merely remain in our
hearts, but rather, as previously mentioned, this poison seeps out through our
tongues with passive aggressive slander towards our neighbor behind their
back.
Things
are heightened though, because more times often than not, this passive
aggressive slander becomes focused towards our neighbor’s face with direct
verbal attacks. Yes, if not curbed and
stopped, the poisonous anger and hatred
go from passive aggressive slander to direct slander, and then to physical
threats; if left unchecked, the physical threats are enacted with a push, a shove,
and/or a fist hitting our neighbor’s face, and then to the pinnacle of the conflict,
possible death.
Dear
friends, when we begin to hate those whom we should love and when our tongues
turn from instruments of praise to weapons of slander, not only does Satan have
us right where he wants us, but we have violated the Fifth and Eighth Commandments.
Yes,
when our hands and tongues are not instruments of help, but weapons that damn,
curse, and tear down, we have gone the way of attacking the gift of life and
the gift of a good reputation.
But
you may say to yourself, “I don’t need to worry; I have never physically
murdered anyone before. I don’t need to
worry for I have never told a lie in the court of law against a person on
trial.” This is a common response to
God’s Law. Indeed, this is a very common
response. You see, all of us try to
defend ourselves when we look at the Law.
We say to ourselves, “At least I have not killed anyone. At least I have never lied under oath.” We attempt to believe that God’s Law is for
other people, those people ‘out there’ in the messy world. We convince ourselves that we are not that
bad, in order to convince ourselves that we are righteous.
In
tonight’s reading though, from the Gospel of Matthew, we hear from Jesus on
this subject of the Law. What is
interesting to note is that Jesus does not take the Old Testament Commandments
to a new level. He is not adding to the
Laws of Moses or adjusting the Ten Commandments to accommodate a unique
message. There is only one Law because
there is only one Lord. In other words,
what Jesus does is that He simply expounds on the essence of the commandments. For example, in our reading from tonight,
Jesus essentially states that if you have anger towards a brother or sister or
if you have insulted a brother or sister, you are guilty of breaking God’s
Commandments. Otherwise stated, Jesus is
closing any loopholes that we might create with God’s Law. He is attempting to show that no one is
righteous, that no one does things right, and that we all fall short.
Permit
me to do the same as well tonight. That
is to say, permit me the opportunity to close any loopholes by applying the
Eighth and Fifth Commandments to you.
Dear friends:[4]
Have you gossiped, delighted
to tell others about the faults or mistakes of another, excusing yourself
especially by saying that you spoke only the truth?
Have you slanted stories to
your benefit or deceived others by withholding some evidence of the story?
Have you found ways gladly
and willingly to explain, in the best possible way, those words or actions of
others that hurt you?
Have you defended your
neighbor when things said about your neighbor have made others think badly
about him or her?
Have you been faithful in
keeping the secrets of another’s heart entrusted to you in confidence?
Brothers
and sisters, repent, for you have broken the Eighth Commandment.
Dear
friends:[5]
Have you treated your
neighbor’s body and life as gifts of God to him?
Have you injured your
neighbor with violent actions, hitting and beating on your neighbor, spoken
debasing and insulting words, using foul or dirty words to describe the
neighbor, or murdered him with thoughts of anger, contempt, and hatred?
Have you injured your
neighbor by ridicule, by neglecting to feed or clothe him, withholding
compassion and comfort from him?
Have you avoided giving help
to your neighbor, avoiding involvement with him in his difficulty?
Brothers
and sisters, repent, for you have broken the Fifth Commandment.
As
we can see, we tragically assassinate our neighbor’s character through the
careless use of our tongues and we murder our neighbor through injuring their
body by neglecting their needs or inflicting harm upon them. Truly, something can rub us the wrong way
about our neighbor and our anger can quickly ignite, causing our blood to boil,
and then hatred seeps through our pores.
In a matter of minutes our tongues can get going a mile a minute and
before we know it, we’ve injured our neighbor to their face or behind their
back. Undeniably, our neighbor needs to
be protected from you and me. We need to
be protected from our neighbor as well, for this is God’s design. This is what the Eighth and the Fifth
Commandment are all about. They are
about God setting a protective fence around us and around others in order to
protect the gift of life and the gift of a good reputation.
There
is another side to all of this as well.
In these commandments the Lord is trying to protect you from yourself. You see, once hatred sets in, you and I can
not only do a tremendous amount of damage to our neighbor, but believe it or
not, this hatred can also slowly begin to dislodge us from Christ’s Church. That’s
right, hatred, which is sin, can lead to spiritual suicide. This hatred seduces us, because it makes us
feel justified in our anger. We convince
ourselves that we are right and everyone else is wrong, in order to validate
our hatred. Sadly, we then cut ourselves
off from anyone that would disagree with our assessments. We will even cut ourselves off from Christ’s
church, for we do not want to let go of our anger; our hands are just too
clinched around our hatred. Darkness
sets in. Isolation increases. Spiritual suicide encroaches.
Lord,
have mercy, Christ, have mercy. Lord,
have mercy on us.
Dear
friends, not only are the Ten Commandments the way that God intends to protect
His gifts to and for us, but they also reveal the disastrous depths of our
depravity. Sure, the Fifth and Eighth
Commandments are designed to protect the gifts of life and a good reputation,
but these commandments also do something profound, they make our sin known. In other words, the commandments not only
protect God’s gifts, but they reveal and expose our sinful nature, that which
wreaks havoc on our lives and the lives of others. The commandments uncover that we do not fear,
love, and trust the Lord, and that we do not love our neighbor as
ourselves. The commandments not only
curb our outward actions, but they show us the utter depths of our broken heart
as well.
We
need mercy.
We
need forgiveness.
We
need grace.
We
need Mt. Calvary.
We
need Jesus.
Fear
not dear friends. Contrary to what you
may think, the Lord does not reject a heart that is broken by and ensnarled by
hate. The Lord is not turned off from a broken,
beat down, and crippled spirit. The Lord
loves, and does not hate those broken from the seduction of hate. The Lord loves, and does not curse, those
whose tongues have been contaminated by sin.
Rather than loathe, the Lord joins the broken heart and the foul tongue—the
sinner—to His mercy, for forgiveness and healing, for peace and purity.
Dear
Baptized Saints, hear!
The
Lord joined you to eternal life in your baptism and gave you a divine
reputation by placing ‘His’ name upon you. In your baptisms you partake of
Christ and the fruits of his death and resurrection.
Hear
the good news!
You
are forgiven of your hatred. You are
forgiven for your reckless tongue. These
sins are buried deeply in the wounds of Jesus, where they will never be able to
rise up to condemn you.
Look! You are Baptized and fed in the Holy Supper!
You
are washed clean in your baptisms, given a holy reputation as a redeemed
Saint. Your tongue and mouth are
redeemed by the precious body and blood that are laid in your mouth at the Holy
Supper.
Protection
of physical life! Eternal Life! A good reputation! Declared a Saint! All given to and for you—as complete and
total gift.
The
Lord, create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit within you. The Lord, create in you a clean heart to see
the gifts of the life and a good reputation.
The Lord, renew a right spirit within you to walk in the Eighth and
Fifth commandments, towards your neighbor.
The Lord protect and keep your life and your reputation, now, in the
days to come, and unto everlasting life. The Lord, restore to you the joy of
your salvation.
May
the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] John W.
Kleinig, Grace Upon Grace (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2008),
234-236.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ken Korby, “The
Ten Commandments Preach Repentance; That Is, By Them God Shows Us Our Sin And
How Much We Need A Savior.” (12 April 2013)
http://www.pastormattrichard.com/2013/04/the-ten-commandments-preach-repentance.html
(9 March 2015).
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