Last week I was back in my home city, and I decided to visit the Grafton Cemetery. I have not been walking through this — one of the few quiet patches that remain in the inner city — for many years. When I was a student I avoided it, mainly because I was in a hurry to get a bus home. I particularly wanted to look at the holocaust memorial and the Jewish graves. The Victorian graves are themselves interesting.

But the gates to the Jewish area were padlocked shut. The photo I have at the beginning of this was taken looking onto that area. There have been too many desecrations of the graves, despite fairly clear penalties if one is caught.

This hatred was damned by Christ. If you hate, and despise, or in conflict with your brother or sister — and Christ expanded who was your neighbour to include the despised — you are as guilty as if you murdered them.

Matthew 5:21-26

²¹“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and 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. ²³So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, ²⁴leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. ²⁵Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. ²⁶Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

This passage leaves a huge gap, where people can say that one must be completely tolerant, and to not call errors is correct, for otherwise you care calling people fools. If that is the case, I’m damned, because I do that fairly often. However, by my own acts I’m damned already, but in Christ.

Others could say that it does not matter what you do, but that you reconcile with one another and deal with that. This misses the point, and here I am going to quote fairly extensively from Calvin, editing out some of the footnotes that are scattered throughout the English version. .

Here a question may be put. Is it not absurd, that the duties of charity should be esteemed more highly than the worship of God? We shall then be forced to say, that the order of the law is improper, or that the first table of the law must be preferred to the second. The answer is easy: for the words of Christ mean nothing more than this, that it is a false and empty profession of worshipping God, which is made by those who, after acting unjustly towards their brethren, treat them with haughty disdain. By a synecdoche he takes a single class to express the outward exercises of divine worship, which in many men are rather the pretenses, than the true expressions, of godliness. It ought to be observed that Christ, adapting his discourse to that age, speaks of sacrifices. Our condition is now different: but the doctrine remains the same, that whatever we offer to God is polluted, unless, at least as much as lieth in us, (Romans 12:18,) we are at peace with our brethren. Alms are called in Scripture sacrifices of a sweet smell, (Philippians 4:18;) and we learn from the mouth of Paul, that he who

“spends all his substance on the poor,
if he have not charity, is nothing,” (1 Corinthians 13:3.)

Lastly, God does not receive and acknowledge, as his sons, any who do not, in their turn, show themselves to be brethren to each other. Although it is only to those who have injured their brethren that these words are addressed, enjoining them to do their endeavor to be reconciled to them, yet under one class he points out, how highly the harmony of brethren is esteemed by God. When he commands them to leave the gift before the altar, he expresses much more than if he had said, that it is to no purpose for men to go to the temple, or offer sacrifices to God, so long as they live in discord with their neighbors.

Be agreed with thy adversary Christ appears to go farther, and to exhort to reconciliation not only those who have injured their brethren, but those also who are unjustly treated. But I interpret the words as having been spoken with another view, to take away occasion for hatred and resentment, and to point out the method of cherishing good-will. For whence come all injuries, but from this, that each person is too tenacious of his own rights, that is, each is too much disposed to consult his own convenience to the disadvantage of others? Almost all are so blinded by a wicked love of themselves, that, even in the worst causes, they flatter themselves that they are in the right. To meet all hatred, enmity, debates, and acts of injustice, Christ reproves that obstinacy, which is the source of these evils, and enjoins his own people to cultivate moderation and justice, and to make some abatement from the highest rigor, that, by such an act of justice, they may purchase for themselves peace and friendship. It were to be wished, indeed, that no controversy of any kind should ever arise among us; and undoubtedly men would never break out into abuse or quarrelling, if they possessed a due share of meekness. But, as it is scarcely possible but that differences will sometimes happen, Christ points out the remedy, by which they may be immediately settled; and that is, to put a restraint on our desires, and rather to act to our own disadvantage, than follow up our rights with unflinching rigor. That Christ frequently gave this exhortation is evident from the twelfth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, where he does not relate the sermon on the mount, but gives an abridgment of various passages in our Lord’s discourses.

We have to be realistic. Paul quarrelled with Silas. Calvin was a controversialist. To defend the truth, sometimes you have to say others are wrong. We are all fallen, and we all err. The scripture is God inspired, true. But it was written by men just like us, and without God’s involvement our errors and biases would come out.

[As a complete aside, the idea of speaking into the silence of scripture is dangerous. There are areas where there is no teaching — how to deal with the internet, for instance, or state run education. Such things did not exist in the time of Christ, and Christ taught to his audience. If we stray from the text, our own biases come to the fore — be they feminist, libertarian, Pharisaical. socialist or all of the above]

I don’t think it is loving and merciful to tell someone who is in error that they should consider themselves good. It’s better to instead recall our faults, and then do what we can to seek reconciliation.

And one of the best places to start this is to pray for them. Which is incredibly hard. You may then find that you have to go and try to reconcile. You may fail: for many in this world consider themselves good, worthy, and rich, without any need to repent or change.

Not realizing that one of the reasons Christ taught this way was that his audience — good Jews all — would examine their conscience and realize that they too, had to change, for they hated, or quarreled, or oppressed, or damned each other.

As do we. And our giving does not cover our hatred.

_________

Notes.

1. At times we have to defend our neighbours and region against others. At times this means war. Being a soldier, and protecting others from enemies that will kill and enslave us is not hatred: it is the duty of men.
2. Pray for Nairobi, where Al Shebab linked terrorists have killed at least 68 and the death toll is rising. Pray for the victims and their families. And pray that the light of the LORD will bless Somalia and it’s rulers, so that they may see that hatred engenders isolation, mistrust, and their own destruction, and turn away from the endgame (The Kenyans know how to deal with nests of terrorists and pirates)