You have never killed anyone, but are your hands really clean, when Jesus equates cherished anger with murder? In a world where conflict has become the new normal, in politics, in families, online, this sermon turns to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), where Jesus uncovers the source of all evil: anger and contempt born in the heart. We will hear how righteous anger differs from destructive anger, and why words can strip a person of their dignity, and sometimes of their life. Yet Jesus points to a way out: reconciliation, which begins with the transformation of our hearts.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Matthew 5:21-26 Jesus moves from the command "do not murder" to anger, to saying "raca," to calling someone a fool. What does this progression reveal about how anger turns into contempt?
- Why might the picture of someone leaving a gift at the altar after a pilgrimage of several days, in order to first be reconciled with a brother, have struck Jesus' first listeners so strongly?
- The sermon says anger in itself is not wrong and that there is such a thing as righteous anger. How do you tell the difference in practice between anger that defends justice and anger that destroys?
- Jesus uses the word for anger in a continuous sense, meaning nursing anger over time. In what situations do you catch yourself replaying again and again how badly you were treated?
- The speaker said you do not need a knife to kill a person, words are enough. What words you have heard or spoken show you that stripping someone of dignity begins in the heart and on the tongue?
- When the face of a specific person comes to mind in silence before God, what one step toward reconciliation, such as a message, a phone call, or the examen prayer, can you take this week?
