Sermon by Rev. Frank Rose

Lessons: Matthew 5:21-26; Arcana Coelestia 374

Sermon: Four of the Ten Commandments have to do with crimes against people. They are: murder, adultery, theft and false witness. Which one of these crimes horrifies us the most and at the same time fascinates us the most? I know for many people, it is the crime of murder. Certainly, judging by our entertainment, one of our favorite things to do is to watch murder mysteries. If people were to judge our society on the basis of our entertainment, they would imagine that murder is much more common than it is, and it is much too common. I know in my lifetime it seems that the number of murders keeps on increasing. We are at the same time horrified and fascinated.

Sometimes we are not horrified enough. It is possible to pass these things by and not really stop to think about the damage that is done to human life. A few weeks ago, I was called upon to conduct a memorial service for a woman who was murdered by her husband. The situation was a nightmare. This woman had lived in a marriage, in which she endured 36 years of violence and threats. One day she and her husband were fighting and at one point she walked out the front door. Then in a drunken rage he shot her in the back. She died instantly. Realizing the horror of what he had done, he was sickened with grief and shot himself.

At another time I took part in a victim witness ceremony, in which one after another, people stood up and shared their stories. One had a sister who was murdered, another had a brother, for a third it was her father who was killed, and, most painful of all, for one family it was their child. Can you imagine the pain when your child has been murdered?

Murder is a terrible crime. Would anyone call it good to murder? Well clearly when three young men go to a convenience store armed, they are prepared to kill. And in one sense, they think it is good to kill, to achieve what they want to achieve. Whatever sense we make out of the assassination of President Kennedy, one thing is clear, the person who killed the president thought he was doing good! That’s what is so sick, when murder is declared to be good; when it becomes a way of life. And unfortunately for many people it is just a harsh reality. I once saw an interview with the young man living in the ghetto and the person interviewing this boy asked him about his life style, and remarked on the fact that he always carries a gun. The young boy said," I don’t expect to live beyond the age of 20". Society is sick when murder is so common.

We are horrified at the thought that people actually choose murder as a way of solving problems. Imagine thinking that you can solve a problem with murder. Of course these individual murders are nothing compared to the mass murderers of history, people who count their victims in the thousands and even millions. Think of the killing fields of Cambodia. Think of Stalin in his purges in Russia in which he killed millions of his own people. And of course there is always the example of Hitler. There are many examples in history of power-crazed rulers, who used a policy of extermination of vast numbers of people as a means of holding power. Millions and millions of people have been killed. In a 300 year period, 8 million women were murdered because they were suspected of being witches. I know these statistics are horrifying. and it's even worse when you think of how many people are involved in that kind of an attempt to exterminate a segment of society.

There’s a fascinating story of a man who decided to pursue the great Nazi war criminals, because many of them disappeared from Germany after Second World War. This man made it a project to track a certain man down. The story goes that eventually he found him. And some 40 years after the end of the Second World War, the Nazi criminal was put on trial. The man described his feeling going into the courtroom and finally seeing the person he had been pursuing for 40 years. He collapsed. His knees shook. He totally broke up. And what was it that was so horrifying about coming face-to-face with this ancient criminal? It was that this old Nazi looked liked an average person. He was so ordinary. All these 40 years he had been creating a picture in his mind of this great monster and when he looked at him, what he saw could have been anyone you would meet on the street or in a café. And it dawned on him that any one of us could be a murderer. That realization totally unnerved him.

In Hebrew the commandment reads: “You shall not murder.” It is really incorrect to translate it as: “You shall not kill.” But murder is the real subject of this commandment, not just killing.

In the New Testament the Lord supported this commandment, but He also spoke about the commandment in such a way as to help us to see the ways in which we transgress it in heart if not in fact. The murder of the body is not all that is implied. It includes anything done by one human being to harm another, whether it be with physical violence, with abusive words, with criticism, or with scandal. Anything we do that brings injury on another is a violation of this commandment. But even more than that, this commandment is talking about our attitudes.

Have you ever had the experience of perhaps going to a movie in which there is some terrible villain and the villain gets away with one crime after another and at the end of the movie the villain gets what’s coming to him, and you see him killed and your heart rejoices? And then, do you stop and wonder: “Am I part of that same crime? I am rejoicing in the death of the villain and yet I object to the fact that he murdered people.” In the olden days public executions drew enormous crowds. People loved to see the murderer put to death. But what does that say about their own anger and their own bitterness? Isn’t it frightening to think that you would take joy in the death of another person, even if that person was a murderer? How could you do that without in some way becoming like the person you are criticizing or rejecting?

And so the Lord said, "You have heard that it was said to them of old time you shall not murder, but I say to you whoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment." Now anger is a natural human emotion. It is a natural response to an attack on ourselves or someone we love. But anger often turns into hatred and bitterness, and that is something we need to fear. We need to recognize that there are parts of ourselves that are murderous. When we want our own way, or when other people seem to be interfering with our happiness, our heart says: “I would like to kill them.” We do well to learn to fear that part of ourselves and not listen to that voice.

The Lord went on to say, "whoever says of his brother Raca is in danger of the council." The word “raca” meant a worthless one. When you describe some other human being as worthless, then you murder him in your heart. Historically we have seen this again and again when an invading people, described the native peoples as being somehow less than human. As soon as they declare them to be less than human, then they murder them without compunction or without any feeling of guilt.

In the Vietnam War there were some reports that said that the Vietnamese people don’t feel the pain of death the way we do. Can you imagine that self-deception? "Those people, they are used to death, it doesn’t bother them that much." You see, that is declaring them to be somehow not as human as we are. And the moment you do that, then you can inflict injury on them without realizing the horror of what you are doing. Genocide, the wiping out of whole races, comes very often out of this contempt. You say of your brother, "raca" you are worthless and therefore it doesn’t matter what I do to you.

In the deepest sense, the Lord said if you say to your brother: you fool, you are in danger of hell fire. The expression “you fool” means I hold you in utter contempt. I hate you. I reject you. And since I hold you in utter contempt, therefore I would rejoice at your death. I would rejoice at the thought of your being tortured. And it doesn’t bother me at all to hurt you or to see someone else hurt you.

When the Lord said you are in danger of hell fire, you might think that after death there is some punishment that awaits you, but you are in hell fire already because the fire is that feeling of hatred. And hell fire separates you from other people and separates you from God. And that is the separation we have to fear.

So for us, this commandment means we need to treat one another with tremendous reverence and respect, and not allow other people’s behavior to trigger our contempt, our bitterness, our resentment, or our anger, because when those things flare up in our heart, we are in hell fire. And that is what separates us from our brothers and sisters and it separates us from our God. That’s why Isaiah said, " Your iniquities have separated you from your God." That’s what we need to be afraid of. We need to be afraid of those sources of murder: selfishness, resentment, or contempt for other human beings.

Now every commandment has a positive side. What is the positive message in the fifth commandment? Isn’t this commandment another way of saying: You shall love your neighbor as yourself? Essentially it is a commandment of love. If you love your neighbor, you wouldn’t think of hurting him or her in any way. You feel that your neighbor’s pain is your own pain. You feel your neighbor’s needs, as your own needs. So if you would want to be treated with respect, you treat others with respect. And you don’t allow the mistakes, the problems, the criminal acts of others to be an excuse for you to enter into a spirit of hatred that is so contrary to love and charity.

We grieve for the murderers of the world and the pain they cause others and the pain they cause themselves. They get far more torture out of their acts than we could ever wish on them. So we need to let go of the idea that we are here to judge other people’s criminality. We can reject murder as being wrong and at the same time have a sense of compassion knowing that, "There but for the grace of God go I." Who knows when we might be put in a position in which we are pushed to a limit and we end up with blood on our hands? For in our hearts, we often have the blood already, whenever we have a sense of contempt, rejection or hatred. That’s what we need to fear, because it gets in the way of the wonderful, warm and loving spirit which the Lord radiates to all people in heaven and on earth. This is why we do well to turn our back on bitterness and contempt and open our hearts to the positive side of this commandment, which is, you should love your neighbor as yourself.