Lenten Series
Reconcile; Making up is Hard to do. 

John
Tonight we continue our Lenten Series of dialogue sermons on the Sermon on the Mount which is found in Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7. Again, these are some of the oldest teachings of Jesus that we have in the gospel. These are teachings about practical, everyday living. These are not doctrinal teachings but “down to earth” teachings.  

Ed
The title of the sermon for all students in grades 5-9 is:  

Both John and Ed
Making Up Is Hard To Do.  

Ed
The title is, Making Up Is Hard To Do.” The text is Matthew 5:21-26.  This sermon tonight is a difficult one for us. That is, all of the people in this sanctuary tonight have conflicts. We have very serious conflicts with others and we also have “not so serious” conflicts with others. We all get angry. We all get mad. We all get drawn into real conflicts. That is common to everybody here in this room. It is a tough one that we all struggle with.  

John
Not only is it a tough issue, but these are tough texts to deal with. There is a Bible verse in the Gospel of Matthew that says “If you call someone a name; if you call your brother or sister a name, you will go to hell.”  

Ed
You can go to hell for that?  

John
That is what it says.  

Ed
You can go to hell for calling someone a name?  

John
That is what it says.  

Ed
It seems rather strange to me.  

John
It seems very judgmental. It seems very condemning. This is a very difficult text. So the question is: Are we to take this literally? Are we supposed to take these teachings literally?  

Ed
No. We are not supposed to take these Bible verses literally. Write that down, kids. Don’t take literally. Write that in real big letters. Don’t take literally. You spell “literally” l, i, t, e, r, a, l, l, y. Don’t take the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount literally. Now, what does it mean, John, to take things literally?  

John
That is an important thing to understand. Literally. When you take something literally, you do exactly what the words tell you. There are several places in the Sermon on the Mount where the sermon has these very difficult sayings. For example, the teaching that says “if you eye causes you to sin, you pluck it out.” For example, if you are up at the local grocery store and you pick up that latest issue of Sports Illustrated.  

Ed
Sports Illustrated?  

John
The swimsuit edition.  

Ed
The swimsuit edition?  

John
You look at it and you pluck your eye out. (Both John and Ed make the motion of plucking their eye out.) That is what it says if you take it literally.  

Ed
Or, if you go to that same 7-11 store, and you see that there is a pack of gum there that you really want. You reach into the shelf and take that pack of gum and put it in your pocket and walk out of the store with it, not paying for it but stealing it; Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” (Both John and Ed make the motion of cutting off their hand at the wrist.) To take something literally is to do exactly what the words say.  In some religions and nations of the world today, who take similar teachings literally, those nations literally and actually cut off the hands of thieves.  

John
Or, if you tell a lie and you use your tongue to speak the untruth, you take the teachings of Jesus literally and you cut your tongue out. (Both John and Ed make the motion of cutting their tongue out.)

Ed
Or if you get angry with somebody, you go to hell. You literally go to hell. That is what Jesus said to you in this Sermon on the Mount. If you take it literally, you do exactly what the words say.  

John
If you take it literally; if you do not forgive your brother or sister, the Bible says, “God won’t forgive you.”  

Ed
God won’t forgive you?  

John
That is what it says when you take it literally.  

Ed
We are saying to you that we are not to take the Sermon on the Mount literally, where you do exactly what the words say. If your eye causes you to sin, cut it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut if off. God does not want us to take these Bible verses literally.  

John
One really good example of that is in the puppet show tonight, when we redid the script. There is a place in the script where it said that if Lucy continues to call Charlie Brown names, Lucy will go to hell for that. We, as pastors, looked at that. We realize that young children take almost everything literally. Young children take the words literally. That is just what they do. We as pastors thought, “This isn’t what Jesus meant here.” So we rewrote that to say, “If Lucy continues to call Charlie Brown names, God will be very upset with her.” Now, that is true.  

Ed
Where we changed that script, that God would be upset with her, that was really good. Rather than say, “Lucy, you are going to hell for that.” We don’t take this teaching literally. … Now this is important to realize through the whole Sermon on the Mount. Not only for tonight but for all twelve sermons. In the Sermon on the Mount, you need to realize that Jesus often uses “strong exaggeration” to make his point.  

John
Well, Ed, if we are not supposed to take these teachings literally, then how are we to understand these teachings for our lives today?  

Ed
We are to take Jesus’ teachings seriously, really seriously. Write that down, kids: Take Jesus’ teachings really serious. God is serious. What God says is serious. When God says, “I don’t want you to be angry,” God is serious. When God says to you and me, “I don’t want you to call each other names, God is serious.” And when God says to you, “You need to make up with that person,” you need to seriously attempt to make up with that person with whom you are having an awful conflict. God wants you to take his Word seriously.  

John
I think that is a very important distinction to make, not only for this text but for the entire Bible. Jesus never intended for the Sermon on the Mount to be taken literally.  

Ed
So the first important thing we want to say tonight is that we are to take the teachings of Jesus seriously but not literally.

John
In the Bible passage for tonight from Matthew 5:24, Jesus says that if you are having a conflict with someone and come to church, leave your gift at the altar and go and reconcile with that person. Jesus commands us to go and make up with people with whom we are having conflict.  

Ed
Now, why should we make up? We have these little conflicts with people? We have real serious conflicts with people, and these conflicts are really serious and really painful. Why should we make up? Why should we reconcile? What do you think, John?  

John
One of the biggest ones is for our own personal health. For our own mental, physical and psychological health. There has been a lot of research done how we feel inside in our emotions affects our physical bodies. I like the quotation that I used in a sermon recently, “Anger is like an acid that does more damage to the vessel in which it is stored upon anything on which it is poured.” Anger is like acid that eats away at our insides. So for just our personal health, it is not good to harbor that anger which festers within.  

Ed
Another reason that it is important to reconcile and make up with people is that the only way to live with imperfect people, is to forgive them. That is the only way to live with imperfect people with any harmony and peace. I have said that a thousand times to a thousand young couples who are going to be marriage. “He is really imperfect. She is really imperfect. The only way you can live with an imperfect person is to forgive.” The only way that I can live with imperfect person like my wife is to forgive. The only way that my wife can live with an imperfect person like my is to forgive. The only way we can live life successfully is through forgiveness and making up endlessly, repeatedly, infinitely, again and again, throughout our whole married lives.

John
Why do we need to reconcile conflicts? When we spend so much time being angry inside, it interferes with our ability to do God’s work. Let me give you a really good example of that. This was on one of our Mexico missions. We had this one trip to Mexico and there was all these little feuds going on within the team, these little arguments. These petty arguments and feuds got in the way of the team getting close to one another. You could tell. And that is the same for marriage and friendship: little feuds and arguments get in the way of getting close to one another.

Ed
I remember you talking about that mission trip and that the work of Christ didn’t get done the way you wanted it to because of conflicts. Similarly, I have seen congregations start to argue and fight with each other. As soon as congregations start to fight with each other, they don’t do what God wants them to do.  

John
The same thing happens with families. When there is fighting within the family, there is little harmony and all the work and jobs that families do, that work does not get done.

Ed
It takes so much time and energy when we fight with each other, as husbands and wives, as parents and children, within congregations, within mission teams.  

John
It is consumes so much negative time and energy to fight and argument, God wants us to use time and energy positively to do with work in the world. We all have so much time and energy and we can waste it by having conflicts with others, rather than doing God’s will in the world.  

Ed
So you boil it down. Why reconcile? It is healthy for everyone. Why reconcile? It is wise. It is the only way to live with imperfect people like you and me. Why reconcile? Because it helps us to do the work of God in this world. Why reconcile? Because conflict is a waste of time and energy. When you boil it all down, we know that God wants us to reconcile. God wants us to make up. God invites us to make up. And finally, God demands us to make up. God clearly commands and God clearly demands: God wants us to make up. Jesus commanded, “When you have conflicts at church, leave your gift on the altar and go and reconcile with that person. That is at the very heart of the will of God for you and me.  

John
We know that God wants us to do this. But it is so hard. It is so difficult. What are some of the things that stand in the way of us making up? Let’s think of children. One minute, young children are angry at each other. The next minute, they make up and are playing with each other. Children seem to be able to do this much better than adults.  

Ed
What gets in the way of making up? Write that down in your notes, kids. What gets in the way of making up? The human heart can be so deeply hurt that it is difficult to make up. That is one thing about the human heart. We are capable of being deeply loving people. Which means that we are also capable of being deeply hurt. The human heart is capable of deep love which means that the human heart is also capable of deep hurt when that love is violated. That is one of the primary reasons why it is often difficult to make up.

John
I agree with that. But Ed, you know that we have all run into people who are really hard to get along with.  

Ed
You mean, the bristly type.  

John
We have a word for those folks in church. They are called the EGR.  

Ed
What is an EGR?  

John
Extra grace required. There are those people who are just hard to get along with. We as God’s people need to have a little extra grace. We need to exercise a little more of that God that God gives us in order to get along with those people.  

Ed
I think another thing that gets in the way of us making up is just plain pride. Old fashioned human pride. “I have my pride. I have my principles. I am not going to give up my anger because of my principles and my pride.” This is plain, old fashioned pride.  

John
There is that old “win/lose” kind of thing. “Either I am going to win or you are going to lose. Or you are going to win and I am going to lose.”  Rather than coming together and reaching a common agreement, the focus becomes winning or losing. Most people say to themselves, “I am going to win.” And there are no winners in that situation.

Ed
Another reason it is hard to make up is that some of us feel that the other person needs to be punished, and I am going to make sure it is done. God is in charge of wrath and I have decided that it is up to me to make sure that the other person gets punished. I may do it quietly and subtly but I will do it. I may punish them for days, weeks, years. I may punish them with my mind for even decades.  

John
Good old revenge.  

Ed
Good old revenge.  

John
We realize that this is difficult for all of us and we all struggle with it. But, what helps in those situations? Where can we turn for the help that we need?  

Ed
When we come to the point that we want to reconcile, it often means that our hearts have become healthy. Hearts that are healthy are those hearts which are filled with the love of God and the love of Jesus. Hearts that are healthy are hearts that understand that everybody makes mistakes. Deep down in my heart, I am mature enough to know that everybody makes little mistakes and big mistakes. Everybody does, including you and me and everyone here. I think that at the core of all healing is a healthy heart. It is a heart that is filled with love and forgiveness for another person.  

John
That leads me into the next point. Whenever there is a reconciliation going on, it has to start somewhere. It has to start with me. (Pointing to his own heart.) It has to start with me, in my own heart. It has to start with ourselves. We have to recognize that we are imperfect too and that we can make mistakes and that we can cause problems. We need to start with ourselves. We need to make that first move.

Ed
That first move is usually a move in prayer. Where we say, “God, this is really hard. I have been hurt so much.  I am so angry. Things are so mixed up. Lord, I don’t know how I am going to do it. God, please help me. God, please heal the anger and hurt in my heart. This conflict is so enormous, I can’t do it. Please God, help me.” That first step is to go to God in prayer and say, “God, heal me. Heal me of my anger. Heal me of my hurt. Heal me of my pain. Heal me of my vengeance. God, please heal my heart.” This is often the way it begins.  

John
God often comes and helps us through our Christian family and friends. Let’s not forget the people who are around us. Let’s not forget the community of faith. It may be very helpful to go to our Christian friends and bounce some ideas off of them, to do some reality checking. “This is what I am thinking. What do you think? This is what is going on in this conflict. Can you help me understand it better? How shall I approach this?” It is wise to go to other friends and family to get their help with those issues.  

Ed
I think it is a sign of dishonesty if you try to keep other people out of the conflict. That is trying to avoid the reality of what needs to be done. I really agree with you, John. But how about those situations of a family explosion some fifteen or twenty years ago and those families still haven’t made up. It is fifteen or twenty years later and the grudge and anger and frictions and division are still there.  And both people are Christians. What do you say to that, John?  

John
That is really tragic and we know that happens all the time. We know that it takes time to reconcile. We do know that one thing is above all, that is very important.

Ed
And what is that?  

John
That God’s forgiveness is greater than all our anger and all our conflicts.  

Ed
That is true. God’s forgiveness is greater than all our anger and all our conflicts. So.  

John
So  

Ed
Making up is hard to do.  

John
But God says it’s the right thing to do.


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