Ephesians 2:1-10
Matthew 5:21-26
“Be Reconciled”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor Of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN
I hate it when I make a mistake.
I just hate it when I do something that makes someone angry at me.
It’s like a heavy load on my back.
And I’m not at peace until the situation is reconciled.
Of course, sometimes that does not happen.
Sometimes people hold grudges and they will not let go.
Some folks will just not accept an apology.
And some folks will not apologize themselves.
Alas!
What to do?
Part of the tragedy of anger is that it spreads.
People take their public anger back home with them.
We can all relate to this.
The executive whose boss has shouted at her goes back to her own office and shouts at her secretary.
The secretary goes home and shouts at the children.
The children shout at the cat.
If part of human maturity is learning how to recognize our anger, and deal with it before it gets out of control, we must come to the conclusion that many of us are not very mature.
We are called to be the light of the world.
This is our true vocation.
So, how can all this misguided and very damaging anger be dealt with?
How can anger be defused, and prevented from spilling out all over the place?
Jesus has provided us with a blueprint—with a new way of being fully, genuinely, and gloriously human.
It’s a way that goes down deep into the roots of our personalities and produces a different kind of behavior altogether.
You know, it’s a shame.
Every time we let our anger smolder inside of us, we are becoming a little less than fully human.
We are belittling ourselves, really.
So, what’s the alternative?
Jesus offers two remarkably specific and practical commands.
Be reconciled; make friends.
How simple that sounds—and yet how hugely difficult and costly it is!
It will almost certainly involve climbing down from the high pedestal on which we sometimes place ourselves, and giving up our position of superiority over the person we are angry with.
But genuine humans don’t live on pedestals; we have our feet on the ground, on a level with everyone else.
It takes great humility and courage to admit to someone we were wrong, and come to them asking for forgiveness.
And it takes a lot of grace for someone to make the decision to forgive us and set us free from the bondage of hostility.
A couple of years ago I made a church member very angry at me.
I can’t exactly remember what it was about, but I do remember the pain it caused me.
When I called that person on the phone and asked for forgiveness…
…by the grace of God, that person said, “It’s no problem. Don’t worry about it. I forgive you.”
I immediately wrote in my journal the word: “Grace.”
“It is GRACE when someone forgives you!
They set you free from the bondage of guilt and remorse.
Thank you Lord for Grace!”
In our Gospel lesson Jesus says, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.
First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”
This is striking!
Reconciliation takes precedence—even--over worship!
Now, if we keep in mind what this kind of reconciliation would have meant in Jesus’ day, we see the importance of His point.
Imagine someone getting all the way to the Temple courtyard, buying a sacrificial animal on the way, and suddenly remembering, when approaching the presence of the Loving and Holy God, some relationship that has gone wrong.
It takes about three days to get back to Galilee where most of Jesus’ hearers lived.
He cannot seriously have imagined a worshipper leaving a live animal sitting there in the Temple courts for a week while they scurry back home, apologize to the offended person, and then return to Jerusalem.
But reconciliation is that big of deal!!!
We are to live, day by day…minute by minute and second by second…
…in such a way that when we come to worship there is no anger between us and our neighbor, sister, brother, spouse…whoever!!!
Impossible?
Of course!
That is, it’s impossible until we look at Jesus!
Jesus Himself refused to go the way of anger.
Instead, He took the anger of His enemies on to Himself, and died under its load—even forgiving those who were killing Him!
From that point on, reconciliation is not simply an ideal we might strive for.
It’s an achievement, an accomplishment, which we can embody.
For when we are saved; we die to self and live for and in Christ.
One of my favorite passages of Scripture is the one from Ephesians Chapter 2 that we read earlier.
The reason?
It’s all about Grace, love, forgiveness and reconciliation!!!
And, after-all that is what Christianity and God are all about!!!
When we were “dead” in our “transgressions and sins…”…
… when we “followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air…”
That is, the devil and his deadly ideas.
When we were already heading down the road, with no hope of turning off, let alone turning back, and apparently no brake on the car to stop—when we were in this situation—heading for the cliff…
As Paul writes,
… “disobedient…following the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts…”
“We were by nature objects of wrath.”
What a horrible and awful picture…
…but the truth in it…
…oh, the truth in it.
Have you ever walked into a room, a store or a shop or maybe a party or any place where a group of folks were meeting and sensed a “power in the air”?
Sometimes, and hopefully most times it is a good power.
Like walking into a room filled with beloved family and friends who you know—love you unconditionally.
Or walking into this church building for worship, and seeing the smiling faces of persons who genuinely care about you.
But sometimes we might walk into a place or situation where we feel a different kind of “power in the air.”
And that power is evil.
There is a meanness about it.
It has a bite and sharp teeth.
There is no love in that power.
There is no room for grace.
That is the place where we have all lived, and done our shopping.
But even while we were in this place of despair.
Even while we were so self-absorbed that love was the last thing on our minds…
“because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
And this comes about, only through the death and Resurrection of Jesus!!!
Christ has been raised—and so have we!!!
He has been installed in glory, in the heavenly realms—and so have we!!!
This is the secret of life for all of us who belong to Jesus.
And this should cause us to stand in awe of the sheer, almost unbelievable, magnificent kindness of God.
If ever, anyone says, or implies, that God is a bit stingy, or mean, or small minded---look at Ephesians chapter 2!!!
Of course, lots of people who are heading at a high speed in the wrong direction want to think of God as being a “kill-joy”…
…just like people who are enjoying their drive don’t like it if someone tells them they are going the wrong way, and that they are about to pass the last chance to turn off and head back again.
Often, people don’t believe there’s much wrong with the human race, and with themselves in particular.
As a result, they may not see much need for God’s grace.
Perhaps, some people think, “God might help me out in a tight pinch here or there, but basically I can get along fine without God.”
All that God has to offer, it seems, is a kind of spiritual enhancement of ordinary life, rather than a radical rescue from imminent danger!!!
God’s grace is much, much greater than mere enrichment.
It gives life to the dead!
It is God’s free, undeserved gift.
And it sets us free from the bondage of sin, death and despair!!!
When we accept God’s grace, reconciliation occurs, and we now travel in the right direction, after the dangerously wrong journey of our life before.
And Ephesians 2:10 is key to our new life in Christ!!!
We are, Paul writes, “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
It has kind of an artistic ring to it, does it not?
It’s like, you and I…
We are God’s work of art, like a poem, painting or sculpture.
Now, certainly we are a work in progress, but a work none the less…and nothing in all creation is more exciting and worthwhile than this!!!
It’s as if we are now God’s musical score, which we are now to play.
And this is the genuine way of being human, laid out in God’s gracious design, so that we can follow it!!!
The “the good works” Paul mentions are not the same as the works of the Law.
As the rest of Ephesians attests, the good works are all about love, mercy, forgiveness and grace!!!
What happens to people’s moral and spiritual lives if they don’t grasp the fact that our entire life, never mind our salvation, is God’s undeserved gift?
Well, there are just too many examples of that for us to mention.
Anyhow, to not experience forgiveness; grace; is the most destructive thing imaginable.
We need to forgive and know that we forgiven.
“Be reconciled,” Jesus tells us.
This is what grace is and does.
This is why Jesus died for the world, for you and for me!
“Be reconciled!”
This is the only way to be.
Amen.
