Friday, Week of 1 Lent

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before that altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

This passage begins with Jesus redefining sin: not only is it wrong to kill, but it’s wrong to be angry, to insult, to belittle. Wow. Can you imagine what it must have been like to hear for the first time that angry thoughts are wrong, just like killing is wrong? That thoughts are something you can do?

Then, Jesus tells you that if someone has something against you, you have to go and reconcile with them. If they’re angry with you, if they’re accusing or insulting you, you have to go to them and make it better. It’s so important that you’re supposed to leave your offering and go.

Either way, you’re responsible for making things better between you, either by letting go of your anger or by beseeching them in theirs.

It’s all about the relationship: whatever anger or resentment or accusation is between you has to be resolved or it damages your worship of, and relationship with, God. You’d think that the two would be completely separate, but Jesus is always making things harder by saying that they’re intertwined.

You have a responsibility to make it better either way because you are responsible for how you behave with other people, regardless of who has the problem or who started it. Jesus is telling us to reach out, to ask for forgiveness, to offer forgiveness, to let go of whatever drives a wedge between us. It might just be the hardest thing we ever have to do.

Peace and goodwill between us, and respect, are really just aspects of being willing to love even when it’s difficult to do so. And love, the love that Jesus calls us to and demands of us, is the law and the prophets that Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill.