Sermon: "An Inside Job," (the Sixth Commandment), October 24, 2021

Preacher: The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture: Exodus 20:1-13

The Sixth Commandment in our Sermon Series on the Ten Commandments, “You Shall Not Kill.”

Today we're continuing with our Ten Commandments series with the 6th commandment, best known by the traditional King James Version of the Bible: “thou shalt not kill.” Thou shalt not kill. You'll have noticed that the modern translation that we've been using says something slightly different: “you shall not murder.”

Now, as part of our regular morning prayers, our family is memorizing the commandments. The conversation was a little awkward a couple days ago when we had to explain what adultery is to a four year old. But when we were learning today's commandment, the commandment not to kill or murder, one of the boys laughed. He laughed and said something like “geez... who even needs to be told that it's wrong to kill.” Like what kind of fool doesn't know that already?

Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that today's commandment, is probably the easiest to keep. At least on the surface. Few, if any of us, have taken part in a plot to, or outright killed another human being. Whether unintentionally, or on purpose.

We know that to take a human life is a grave sin, even if you don't use that word, one with severe consequences. We're told in Genesis chapter nine that “whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human that person's blood shall be shed, for in his own image God made human kind.” Human life is exceedingly precious. To take one isn’t just offence against that person and their loved ones, but an offence against the God who created them.

It's not just the Bible, either. As far as laws go, this one is pretty universal, from the most ancient law codes chiselled in stone to the modern, secular Canadian penal code. To not kill’s part of what's called “natural law.” It's built into the fabric of human societies, across cultures as wrong. That's probably why it's the commandment that's easiest to keep. You can do just about anything else, but there's something uniquely terrible and wrong about killing. It's a given, more or less across the board.

It's the easiest commandment to keep. At least on the surface. I say on the surface, because if you've been listening to sermons on each commandment, or reading along with our Bible study, you'll know that these commandments go deeper than face value. The commandments may be simple. But actually keeping them isn't so simple. Nor is it easy.

We only really have to look to Jesus. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus gathers his disciples on the mountain, and he begins to instruct them. The location is intentional—Jesus is delivering his own version of the law like Moses delivered the Ten Commandments. For Christians, Jesus is the definitive interpreter of the law. The moral buck stops at Jesus' sandals.

Now, generally, when we think of Jesus, or the New Testament in comparison to Moses and the Old Testament, we think something like this: New Testament God nice, Old Testament God mean. Moses lots of laws, legalism, judgment versus Jesus, who is empathetic, understanding. Sin? Don't worry about it. We expect that Jesus'll maybe loosen up some of these laws... But listen to Jesus' take on today's commandment:

“You have heard,” Jesus says. “You have hear that it was said to those of ancient times, 'you shall not murder.' You shall not murder, and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say... I say that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment. [And what's more] if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council.; and if you say, 'you fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).

So, let's get this straight. You all heard before that you kill and God's coming for you? Well, I tell you that if you're angry at someone. If you insult someone, if you dismiss somebody as a fool, it's just as bad. In fact, you might as well have killed 'em because your tickets' gonna be stamped with the same fiery destination anyway.

Doesn't exactly sound like the easiest commandment to keep now, does it? Rather than lowering the moral bar on murder, Jesus turns the amp of accusation up to eleven. He kicks the whole thing up into fifth gear, from avoiding killing to actively purging our hearts from hatred itself. In Jesus' eyes anger itself is akin to bloodshed. If Jesus is right, none of us have kept this commandment. If Jesus is right all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If Jesus is right we're all guilty. Without exception. If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. Search your own heart, and you'll know that it's true.

Now, of course this begs the question as to why Jesus would give us a commandment that we couldn't keep. It seems kind of sadistic to set a bar so high that none of us can reach. Settin' us up just to knock us down.

But Jesus is doing something a little unexpected. You see, Jesus is getting at the true nature of the human problem. For Jesus, the issue isn't just that we kill. That’s a given. He knows that killing doesn't just happen out of the blue. Killing's a symptom of a deeper disease, one that infects each and every human heart.

The issue is the disease we call Sin. Not lowercase sins—or violations—but sin with a capital “S.” Sin, of which every sin is a symptom. Just as every old growth cedar begins as a tiny seed, every murder's got its origin in the human soul, cultivated by anger, resentment, fear, selfishness, and jealousy. On account of our fallen human nature, each and every one of us has this seed within us. One that, given the right circumstances, could sprout, and grow, and bear deathly fruit. The great theologian Karl Barth, who in the 1930’s saw his nation shift on a dime from liberal democracy to Nazi tyranny put it like this:

“In most of us the murderer is suppressed and chained, possibly by the command of God, possibly by no more than circumstances, convention, or the fear of punishment. Yet he is very much alive in his cage and ready to leap out at any time. This is revealed by the amazing ease with which, in spite of every deterrent, war has always been approved, and even enthusiastically welcomed and vigorously prosecuted not merely by individuals but by whole nations.”[i]

Jesus knows that we can prohibit killing all we want, we can even get rid of all the bad people who kill and maim. But we won't erase that which makes killing possible in the first place. Sin still lurks at the door of our souls. Hell still hides in waiting in each of our hearts. Jesus knows we can’t truly deal with the outward act of murder, without first dealing with its inward originating impulse.

And that's why Jesus came in the first place. Jesus came to cure our collective ailment. To bring about a whole New Creation, a whole new humanity. To heal us from the inside out.

According to the Biblical account, to accomplish this the eternal God himself became human. In Jesus Christ, the transcendent Creator became small, and entered into our predicament. God took on our human flesh, took on all of our pain, our sorrow, our suffering, and indeed our sin. He kept this commandment in its entirety. When he was betrayed and arrested, he had Peter put away his sword. When he was whipped and stripped he didn't speak a mumblin' word. When he was spat upon he spoke no word of anger, even though he was totally innocent. He neither mocked, nor berated nor belittled anyone—not even his friends who'd scattered, denied him and betrayed him. Not even his enemies, not even the soldier who pierced his side. And though he could have called upon hellfire to save himself, he bore hell's fury instead, in his own broken body. And when his hands were pounded into wood the last words to pass through his lips were words of forgiveness, rather than vengeance.

On the cross Jesus did what we, as individuals, as a society, as a species, what we’ve always needed to do, but couldn’t do. On the cross, God spoke an unequivocal “no” to all that is in us that poisons us and an absolute “yes” to human life. On the cross, Jesus came not just to encourage us to quit our killing, but to terminate the impulse itself, the one that makes our killing possible in the first place, so that grace might grow in its place.

A couple months ago there was this great interview with the famed African-American scholar and activist, Cornel West in The Atlantic Monthly. The piece was titled “Why the Left Needs Jesus.” West is well-known for his socialism and his outspoken politics. But West is also a passionate, unabashed Christian. Now this often puts him at odds with secular progressives, people who share his politics, but not his faith.

Back in 2017, West joined a counter-protest against the “Unite the Right” rally, a gathering of various neo-Nazi, White Supremacist and other far-right groups in Charlottesville Virginia, a gathering that eventually turned violent and ended with the murder of one counter-protestor and many others. Many progressive commentators were understandably disturbed and outraged, calling for reprisal against these moral monsters. But West’s approach is different, informed by Jesus.

“My dear brothers and sisters on the left have their own perspectives on this thing,” he said. We come together in terms of analysis and, oftentimes, practice. But I do have a Christian root that is profoundly grounded in this sense of, as W. H. Auden put it, “How do I learn how to love my crooked neighbor with my crooked heart?”

When I was in Charlottesville, looking at these sick white brothers in neo-Nazi parties and the Klan spitting and cussing and carrying on, I could see the hounds of hell raging on the battlefield of their souls. But I also know that there’s greed in me. There’s hatred in me. People say, “Oh, you’re so qualitatively different than those gangsters.” I say, “No, I’ve got gangster in me. I was a gangster before I met Jesus. Now I’m a redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.” It is a very different way of looking at things than many of my secular comrades.”[ii]

West understands the sixth commandment. He knows that no law will save us, and that vengeance is no way out, because he knows that there’s a gangster inside each and every one of us. He knows that isn’t just about refraining from killing, or punishing killers. What's truly needed is a complete reconstruction of human nature, a whole new consciousness, metanoia, repentance, a change of mind. One that begins with the recognition of our own falling short, our own need for forgiveness. One that Jesus Christ has won for us on the cross.

How do we keep this commandment? Well, it begins by searching your own heart. Where's your anger? Where's your resentment? Where's your judgment, your spite? What can't you let go of? Who can't you forgive?

The good news is that on account of Christ you can let your old self die. You can let go of your anger, your resentments, your self-justifications, all those things that result in murder, all those things that are leading you and me and all the rest of humanity down the road to perdition. We no longer have to let them drive us and enslave us, but we can lay them at the foot of the cross, and let them die. And the promise is that if we let them die in us, Christ will be raised in us in their place.

Friends, no matter where the murderer in you lies in waiting, Christ is already two steps ahead. Ready to make a blessed peacemaker out of you yet, for the sake of the world.  It’s the only way out. And the only hope we’ve got.

May the crucified God have mercy on us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.

Amen.

[i] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III:4, 413.

[ii] Emma Green, “Why the Left Needs Jesus: an interview with Cornel West,” in The Atlantic Monthly, August 13, 2021 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/08/cornel-west-jesus-progressives/619741/