Get off the hell train

 This week's verses are Matthew 5:21-22:

“You have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders will be subjected to judgment.’ But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell.

 You've heard me say it before, but we're called as Christians to love one another. In this week's verses, Jesus is talking about when things go the other way. How attentive should we be to our coldheartedness? As long as we don't kill anyone, everything is fine right? Nope.

The commandment is "do not murder" ("thou shalt not kill" in ye old King James-ese), but is sin really about quantum states of wrongness? On the slider between perfect Christian love and shooting the "worthless scoundrel" between the eyes, where do we draw the line? 

A legalist would draw the line just short of murdering. If his fellow Christian offended him, he wouldn't kill him, because that would be a sin. But he might knock his teeth out, or badmouth him behind his back, or insult him to his face, or just shun him, because those things don't have commandments against them. So he can tally up his score and still feel righteous, even though he's been nowhere near loving to this other Christian, and nowhere near staying away from sin.

Legalists are a bit like the teenagers wearing masks on their bottom lips in places where masks are required, noses and upper lips poking out as they talk and laugh. They know the mask is required, but they're not rebellious enough to take them off, so they do what they want in such a way that they can argue back if someone tells them they are in the wrong. They try to see how close they can get to the line without obviously crossing it. It's not a good look.

What Jesus is saying is that we shouldn't approach the commandments as legalists do. The commandment is telling us the end result we need to avoid, but the road to that end result is still not somewhere we want to travel. First we're angry, then we're mean, then we're contemptuous, and finally we're cold-blooded murderers. Why not stop that train when you get to "angry" instead of staying on to see where it takes you?

If you're angry with someone and don't feel the need to correct it, that's not a good place to be. Forgiveness is difficult when the emotions are running strong and you feel you're in the right. If you're angry with someone, you should correct that situation as soon as you can, because it is way easier to be loving towards someone you're angry at than what comes next.

If you're insulting someone to their face, probably in front of others, you're beyond angry. You don't just feel like you're better than them anymore or that they are in the wrong. Now you're out to hurt them. It's way harder to be loving and forgiving to someone we now trying to hurt. If we're pushing someone's buttons, we're driving the wrong way down the highway of God's will for our lives. It's best to turn around while we can, because it gets more dangerous if we keep going.

At the point where you're calling someone a fool, you don't even care about them as a person anymore. You're feeling contempt towards them. Relationship counselors say that this is the one thing that kills relationships permanently, when one or both of the partners have contempt for the other one. Contempt blows the other person off and places no value on their thoughts or feelings. Contempt paints the other person as an obstacle or a burden, a thing, not a person who can be loved.

So how are you supposed to love one another if you're feeling contempt? What remorse are you going to feel for hurting a person who is no longer even a person to you? You have already effectively killed them in your mind. It's only a matter of time before you'll kill them in real life, if that's in your nature. But even if you never kill someone, you're still in danger of hellfire if you let things get this far.

Murder is the blossom of a plant that should have been uprooted as soon as it began to sprout. With a noxious weed, you don't want to wait around and hope you can catch it before it goes to seed. As soon as you see it, you pull it out. 

And this is how we should be with sin, not just focusing on the specific legalistic interpretation of the commandments themselves, but also paying attention to what leads up to them. Sin begins in the heart, and that's where we need to look if we want to catch evil's weeds when they are small enough to uproot.

So if you're finding that you're on the train to sin, get off as soon as you can. Don't wait until it reaches its final destination and leaves you stranded in hell.