My First Bible #13: Matthew 5:23-24

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.  Matthew 5:23-24


One of the interesting things about this exercise of looking back at Bible verses I highlighted almost 20 years ago is trying to remember exactly why each particular verse stood out to me sufficiently for me to make a note of it.  Some I can remember vividly, others not so much.  Digging back into the recesses of my mind, I feel like this verse probably sprung out to me as a challenge to radically authentic discipleship (although I'm sure those weren't the words I would have used then!).  A few years previously I'd been drawn to the dignified ritual of 'Christianity', only to discover something far more challenging when I realised that this God was someone real, the worship of whom would affect one's whole life.

The context is the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is starting to unpack the meaning behind the law, and the Ten Commandments.  He starts with "do not murder" - teaching that it should not be our aim merely not to murder, but to kill the source of murder itself - misplaced anger.  "Do not murder" suddenly ceases to be that relatively easy commandment that many of us can tick off as "passed" ("well, I haven't murdered anyone..."), as Jesus holds up a mirror, not to our worst actions, but to the motivations of our hearts.  It is not enough that circumstances have not grown our anger, spite or grudges to drive us to actual murder - the seeds in our hearts are enough to cause harm, and condemn us just as much as the highest-security prisoner.  (So if you have 'actually' murdered someone, I do not consider myself to be morally superior to you).

I don't think I noticed, when I originally highlighted this verse, that it falls as part of Jesus' teaching on anger.  I don't think I noticed the therefore.  But it doesn't take long to spot.  These words are part of Jesus' application for his more general point about anger: particularly, in this case, anger between believers.  And it seems that Jesus' key point is this: not allowing anger to fester between believers is of paramount importance - it is a pre-requisite for worship, and we should take drastic measures to ensure it.

One clarification to make is that I don't think Jesus is suggesting that we can't worship, can't approach God in prayer, at all, if we are in any state of disagreement with our neighbours.  If such were the case, then what would we make of the book of Psalms!  And what would we make of the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:12) - coming to God to ask for his forgiveness - if we could never come to God when things are in a mess!  Of course, the Lord's Prayer then goes on to say: 'as we forgive others who sin against us' (ibid.) - prayer should take us to a place where we can give God our anger, leaving vengeance to him, remembering our own sin, and finding that we can have mercy on others as God does on us.  However, this aside, the context for this teaching is not private prayer, but celebration - in the first century Jewish context of a freewill offering used to give thanks to God (Leviticus 3:1-17, 7:11-21).  It's a special occasion of ritual and liturgical worship, and of feasting too.  One other point of clarification: Jesus' focus here is other people who have something against us - i.e. when we're the ones who need to say sorry.  This is about making peace when it's in our control - not about when we've been wronged by others.  However, this slightly narrower focus than one might otherwise assume does not make the command any easier!

So firstly, let's look at the drastic measures.   And here we have to consider that many people would have to travel long distances to sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem.  To his listeners' eyes, Jesus' example is almost hyperbolic: a person travels for many days up to the temple, is ready to give his gift (maybe in celebration and thanksgiving for something good that has happened), and then remembers that his fellow countryman has something against him.  So he leaves the gift on the altar and travels all the way back to where he has come from to sort it out, and then travels all the way back to offer his gift.  With distance and faff involved, it has something of the ring of the shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12–14, Luke 15:3–7), leaving his 99 other sheep and searching everywhere for the lost one (representing the lengths God himself will go to restore relationship with us).  So precious is peace between believers that we should take great lengths to restore.  But although hyperbolic, this is no parable, but a command.  

Secondly, again hyperbolic in style but nonetheless real, Jesus' example shows us that making peace with our brothers and sisters takes precedent over our worship.  This sacrificial offering is an important and holy event, for which extensive rules are laid out in Leviticus, and yet the person in Jesus' example pauses it all to go off and deal with a dispute with his neighbour.  It's like a minister stopping in the middle of a service - maybe even as he's is about to break the communion bread, to deal with something else.  However, I think it would be misleading to say it is 'more important' than prayer and worship - as that pits the two activities against each other.  It is essential that we come to God in prayer and worship, otherwise our faith is reduced merely to moral living, with no acknowledgement that our own moral efforts cannot save us.   I think a more helpful conceptualisation would be to say that peace between believers is needed for our worship to be sincere.  In other words, so-called celebratory and gathered 'worship' is empty if it does not reflect a life lived according to God's way.  It's easy to be reminded of these verses in Amos 5:21-24:

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Jesus' example is, in practical terms, removed slightly from the contemporary Christian context in a number of ways.  However, even though we no longer sacrifice at the altar - Jesus' sacrifice having been the sacrifice to end all sacrifices - we will be reminded of the liturgically stipulated Exchanging of the Peace before celebrating the Lord's Supper which I think, is probably common to many denominations.   Nonetheless, this goes further.  Sharing the Peace before we come to celebrate the Lord's Supper is a great opportunity to make amends (in fact, there is many a time when a rushed Sunday morning getting ready for church has meant raised tempers in our house - at which point the Peace is excellently timed!), but it is not the whole picture.  We should seek always to build up the church - Christ's body - so that we can be truly celebrating the hope that we have, not as individuals, but as a people.

And so perhaps one of the most potent conclusions we could draw is that worship, or faith, or religion, or discipleship - or whatever you call a life lived with God, is not just 'between me and God'.  It is not a private affair that concerns no-one else.  In increasingly privatised and segmented lives, I think this is something that many outside the church, and even those professing faith, do not understand (or do not want to accept).  I am not saved as an individual, but saved as part of a people.  I have brothers and sisters in Christ and our discipleship is each others' business - whether we like it or not.  Coming before God in worship is also about coming together, and anger between each other is a serious issue.  In fact, as already mentioned, this verse is not even about when you are angry with others, but when they are angry with you!  It's almost as if Jesus is calling on us not only to guard our own hearts against anger, but to guard our brothers' and sisters' hearts too!   The way Jesus presents it, it's a matter of life and death.  We should take drastic action to do all we can to live at peace with each other.

The summer I was 17 years old I read my Bible cover to cover for the first time.  I was captivated and completed the whole thing in 4 months.  Although I clearly read it at quite a pace, I still jotted down passages that sprang out to me in my still relatively new faith.  I still have that Bible, and the scraps of paper are still there, bookmarking each verse.  So I decided to go through, 18 years later, and visit each of them.  They are from the Good News Bible.