Matthew 5:21-26
“Anger Management”
I recently read a story about a woman who just had to have some Chicken McNuggets.
And so she went to her local McDonald’s and went and ordered a 10 piece McNuggets and as she ordered the McNuggets the person processed the order, rung up the bill, collected the money and put it away.
He was preparing her order, but when he went to the back to put the McNuggets in the bag he realized there were no McNuggets that were cooked.
And then he went searching for McNuggets and realized that there were no McNuggets in the entire restaurant.
Apparently McDonalds has a very strict policy of not giving refunds.
However, the guy went to the lady and said, “We do not have any McNuggets but I can give you something of equal value or even more---I will give you whatever you want to replace your Chicken McNuggets.”
But apparently this lady really wanted Chicken McNuggets and she was so upset, so irate that she did the only thing that she thought to be logical.
She pulled out her cell phone and she dialed 9-11!!!
And she began to tell the operator her situation.
And by the end of the day…
…when all was said and done…
…she never got a single McNugget, but she did get a ticket for improper use of the 9-11 system.
I doubt any of us have gone to McDonalds and called 9-11 over our order, but I bet all of us can relate with being so upset, so angry with something that we sort of lost our wits in dealing with the situation.
Our anger can overcome our rationality.
We can probably all identify with being angry with something not going our way.
Which is why this passage is so challenging for us.
Because Jesus…
…point blank says, “Do not be angry with your brother or sister.”
Now that is a very difficult and direct command!
Every morning we get out of bed there are lots of opportunities for us to get angry.
Perhaps we are running late for something, and our child is taking a long time getting dressed.
Maybe when we are running behind it always appears that we get stuck in a 45 mile an hour zone behind somebody going 15 miles an hour.
Or maybe you get caught in a traffic jam.
Or perhaps you’ll be tired in the evening and come home and the slightest thing seems to set you off.
It’s very difficult to never be angry with a brother or sister.
So what does Jesus mean in this passage by telling us to not be angry?
He goes on in this passage, after He explains not to murder…
… “anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment”…
…He goes on to say, in essence, “for instance I tell you don’t say bad things about other people.”
He says, “Don’t call other people a ‘fool.’”
Or He uses this phrase.
It’s an interesting phrase.
He says, “Don’t say someone else is empty headed.”
I don’t know if anyone has ever knocked on your head before and said, “Don’t be empty headed.”
But that is what Jesus is saying in this passage, “Don’t say somebody is empty-headed.”
Now, what is He trying to say?
I think when He is talking about anger…
…what Jesus realizes is that as we progress into the emotion of being angry and we begin to dwell on this we begin to look at other people as if they aren’t human.
Instead of calling a person by name we call them a “fool”!
And so in our anger we learn to dehumanize somebody, so that we can not just be angry with them…
…but we can actually grow to hate them!
But then Jesus says that if you do this to somebody you are in danger of the fires of hell.
Not only do we dehumanize other people with our anger, we dehumanize ourselves when we are angry with others.
In the book, If Grace is True…
…in one of the stories in the book the author tells about an Oprah Winfrey Show where they had a group of Nazis on the show.
And this group of Nazis were sharing about all the people that they hate.
And you can imagine that the audience was beginning to get worked up as these Nazis…
…one after another…
…were talking bad about other folks.
And then Oprah Winfrey did an interesting thing.
She allowed the people in the audience to begin to share their feelings of frustration and anger towards these Nazis.
And as the people in the audience began to hurl insults at these Nazis…
…finally one of the leaders of the Nazi group stood up and said, “I’m glad we all can agree on something.”
“The reality is we agree that we hate people.
We just have a difference of opinion about who we hate.”
Even those who were in the audience with good intentions allowed their anger to dehumanize them.
That’s what anger does.
Well, Jesus goes on and says to us, “You know there’s ways to deal with our anger issues.”
And He tells an interesting story about a first step that we can take in dealing with our anger.
He basically shares what probably would have been a funny story and I’ll explain why.
He says, in essence, “Say for instance, you are on your way to worship and you have your offering you are going to give and you realize you have something against someone else…
…leave your offering at the altar and go back and make amends.”
Now, this is interesting because when you think about an offering in the 1st Century it was probably alive.
So it would be a little bit difficult to leave a live animal and just walk off and have any hope of seeing it again when you get back—
---especially because oftentimes people would have to walk two or three days to get to the Temple.
Often, we read this passage and we say, “Well, before we come to church we need to go and make everything right.”
Well, that’s not exactly what Jesus is saying.
But here’s what I think He is saying, “The way we relate to other people has a direct impact on the way we are related to God.”
“And if we are going to take our relationship with God seriously,” Jesus says, “we have to take our relationship with other people seriously.”
And then Jesus takes another really interesting step.
Basically Jesus says, “Let me give you another example.”
“Let’s say you are on your way to court.”
“And let’s say you are walking to court with somebody you have a dispute with.”
He says, “Before you get to court…
…settle the issue outside of court because when you get to court your fate is not in your hands.”
In other words, what Jesus is saying is “Examine your life because there is a possibility that you are not correct.
And if you are not correct it could cost you dearly.”
Isn’t it true that oftentimes the things that make us angry…
…when we take a step back…
…we can realize that maybe…
...just maybe…
…we are the ones at fault.
And just maybe it is our responsibility to take the first step and to be humble and to ask for forgiveness.
I heard a story about the Vietnam War.
One night some soldiers landed on this hill and they dug in and they were waiting…
…and some Vietnamese came over the hill.
And these Vietnamese would put grenades on themselves and launch themselves into the foxhole and blow everybody up.
Well, apparently this guy they were writing the article about was in a foxhole, and a guy jumped over and it blew up.
And he survived but he was very maimed.
He was back in the United States and one day his Marine Unit decided to have a celebration for him and they gave him a plack.
And this is why I found this interesting.
On that plack were these words, “Give what it takes.”
I find that fascinating because I really believe that we live in a world where we so often take what we can get!
But I think that what Jesus is saying in this passage is that if we really want to deal with our anger issues…
…instead of always looking at the world for what we can get out of it…
…let’s look at our relationships and ask ourselves, “Can we give what it takes? Can we give what it takes to bring reconciliation?”
I read a story about a guy named Lloyd LaBlanche.
Lloyd was the father of a guy named David who passed away.
David was actually murdered.
He was shot in the back of the head by two brothers.
The reason the article was written is because Lloyd went to the house of the mother of the 2 sons that shot his son.
He went and he talked with her and they had this really great moment.
And then he forgave these two boys and it was a really amazing reconciliation moment.
In this article they asked him, “How can you go to that family and just forgive them like that? How did you do that?”
And he replied, “You know, when they called me to come identify my son I saw him laying there dead with a hole in the back of his head.”
He said, “The only thing I knew to do was to begin to pray.”
And he said, “I began to pray the Lord’s Prayer.”
Then he said, “I asked in the Lord’s Prayer for God to forgive me as I forgive others.”
And then he said, “You know, the thing I did not want to do the most was to forgive those boys.”
But he said, “I realized it was the only thing that I could do.”
And here’s what the article says at the end: “Lloyd embodies forgiveness.
Not just something we can do for others, but forgiveness that says ‘I am not going to let this anger or hatred kill me.
I am going to remain kind and loving.’
Forgiveness is a path not a single act.
One’s commitment to it has to be renewed every day.”
How do we, as Christ’s followers, live into this morning’s passage?
I think part of the answer is…
…every time the emotion of anger springs up…
…we are to live a life that can face that anger and offer an apology and a forgiveness until it becomes our way of life.
Because it is the way Jesus teaches us to live.
Let us pray…
