"Changing The Color Tags"

"Changing the Color Tags"
Matthew 5:21-24


If I asked for a show of hands in response to the question, “How many of you have murdered someone?” I don’t think I’d see any hands.  Maybe some of you have fought in a time of war and have had the unpleasant duty of killing others who were the enemy.  Thank you, for allowing yourself to be put in that position, to protect us, and our freedoms.  But what I am talking about here is more the idea of premeditated murder.  I doubt if anyone here has been involved in that kind of crime.

When Jesus quoted from the 10 Commandments, “Do not murder,” we can all self-assuredly, and with some amount of self-satisfaction, profess to have upheld that one.  It doesn’t say we haven’t thought about it, possibly, from time-to-time.  We run across people who are criminally hurtful and physically abusive.  We can imagine a better world without them in it.

The pastor I worked with, when I was in San Jose, CA, was once asked, in a Sunday School class about marriage, if divorce had ever crossed his mind.  He quickly replied, “Never.”  But then he added, “Murder, yes, divorce, no.”

His response reminded me of the story about the high school student who asked his father to help him write a term paper on the theme of how wars get started.  “Well, now,” his father began, “let’s suppose we got into a quarrel with Canada.”
“That’s ridiculous,” the boy’s mother interrupted.  “Why should we quarrel with Canada?”
“That’s besides the point,” her husband said.  “I was merely using an example...”
“Well if you had an ounce of brains you wouldn’t think up such stupid examples,” interrupted the mother.
“Who do yo think you’re talking to?” shouted the father.  “I wanted to teach my son...”
“YOUR son!?” the mother screamed.  “I suppose I had nothing to do with his being here.  You just found him someplace...”
“Mom; Dad; please,” the boy pleadingly interrupted.  “Forget it.  I just figured out for myself how wars get started.”

What the boy found out was that there are often deep feelings and hurtful words exchanged between people way before the taking of a life happens.  We may not have ever let those feelings have their way and end up murdering someone.  So, according to the letter of the law, we have never murdered.  Very few people carry out that violent act.  Yet, can we not identify with the feelings that lead up to such an act?

Our sense of God’s will and our individual morality keeps us from taking another person’s life.  But we still give vent to our angry feelings in other ways that are just on this side of God’s will and personal morality.

For example, we call people names.  When our anger begins to boil, in order to not let it get away from us, we vent a little steam by calling the object of our wrath some derogatory name.  We walk away feeling a little better, proud of the fact that we didn’t become physically violent.  Instead we indulged in a little “harmless” character assassination.

We may not call people names to their faces.  It’s usually behind their back, or in a group where we know we will be reinforced, and therefore “justified” in our feelings of disgruntlement.

There was a man who was invited to speak at a women’s organization.  Afterwards, the women asked him if he would stand in a reception line following his speech.  All the ladies coming through the line were very complimentary of his speech.

Pretty soon, a little boy came through the line and was standing in front of the speaker.  He looked straight at the man and said, “Your speech stunk!”  There were other ladies coming through the line so the man just ignored the boy.  But a little while later the boy came through the line a second time.  Again, he stood directly in front of the man and said, “We heard all your jokes before--and they weren’t funny.”

Well, that bothered the man a bit, but there were still people in line, so he continued shaking hands and greeting the ladies.  Then the boy got in line for a third time.  He got up to the speaker, and this time said, “You’ll never be invited back here again!”  At that point the man really didn’t know what to do.  He figured the boy was too little to hit, and he was too embarrassed to let the ladies see a grown man cry, so he shrugged it off, and continued greeting the ladies.

Wouldn’t you know it, a little while later he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the bratty kid was in line for a fourth time.  At this point the mother must have finally noticed him too, because she came running over to the speaker.  She grabbed the boy, just as he was getting ready to say something else.  Not knowing what the boy had been saying, the mother said, “This is my son, Lenny.  Please don’t pay any attention to him.  He’s at that age where he simply repeats everything he hears.”

For some reason, we get a lot more satisfaction out of behind-the-back character assassination, especially in a group atmosphere.  Maybe we feel less guilty, or more justified if there are others who share our feelings.

I’ve talked to youth groups a lot about this kind of talk.  I’ve asked them what names they use to vent their anger.  I’ve accumulated quite a list over the years.  Some were old standards, passed down from generation to generation.  Others were quite inventive.  Most of those I couldn’t find in a dictionary.  I didn’t think I wanted to find them anyway.

They were a bit more graphic than the terms that Jesus used as examples of the name-calling and character assassination of his day.  “Fool,” or “worthless,” are fairly tame compared to some of the names I have used in my more angry times.

Jesus was talking about the moral fool.  Someone who constantly cared nothing for God and God’s ways.  Someone who appeared to have no sense of right and wrong.  And part of what Jesus is saying here is that even though it may be clear to everyone that such-and-such is a so-and-so, we are not allowed the freedom to mouth off about it.  That kind of judgement is left to God, who is the only one who sees the big picture.

Often we don’t know the whole story.  Our judgements are made on such little knowledge of the person and their situation.  Such judgements, and name calling are usually made out of anger.  We haven’t the right to condemn a person as God-less, or a “lost soul” in any way.  There is only One who is able to make that evaluation.  And it ain’t us.

The other name that Jesus uses as an example of name-calling judgement is “raca.”  This word, usually translated “worthless” or, “insults,” is not so much a name-calling as it describes a negative tone of voice.  It’s the tone of scorn, hatred, defiance, or sarcasm in our voice when we speak.  It’s almost like spitting on someone.  We can make a statement in two different tones, using the same exact words, but come across with two different meanings.  That’s what “Raca” is--using a certain tone of voice that is insulting and dehumanizing.

There is power in our words and actions.  Including the tone we use.  I am sure that most of you know already from experience how words can wound just as powerfully, and sometimes just as mortally as a knife, gun, or bomb.

I’ve been kind of following some of the on-going story surrounding the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, and the others murdered in Tucson.  One of the men at the shooting was Steve Rayle.  He was the guy who was, at one time, an emergency room doctor.  He was there and saw the people getting shot.  He hid behind a concrete pillar, until the shooter was jumped and held down.

Steve Rayle immediately went to work.  He described how his emergency medical training kicked in, as he went from person to person.  He began a process of quick triage, determining who was already dead, who was wounded, but whose wounds weren’t serious; and who was wounded, but needed immediate attention to save their lives.

Triage was something that was developed on the battle field.  Doctor’s and nurses would use color tags on the wounded.  One color meant hopeless--nothing could be done to save that person.  Another color meant they would live whether they got immediate attention or not.  The third color was for those whose prognosis was iffy--they are the ones who got top priority.

Imagine how our anger and name-calling “tags” a person.  Out of our boiling anger, we mark a person with similar categories.  We may tag them as hopeless scum buckets, a label that horrifyingly may stick on them the rest of their lives.

Jesus told his disciples that this kind of unthinking name-tagging happens because of our anger.  The kind of anger Jesus is talking about is not the explosive kind.  What Jesus is talking about is the long-lived kind of anger.  It’s the kind of anger a person keeps cooking over a medium heat.  It never quite boils over, but is never turned off, either.  It’s a brooding anger which isn’t allowed to die, which refuses to be pacified, which will not forget, which may even conjure up plans for revenge.

There is an old Chinese proverb that states, “If an enemy does wrong to you, buy each of his children a drum.”  The problem with that kind of anger is that it creates the same feeling on the other side.  After your kids get drums for presents, you are immediately challenged to think of a oneupmanship way of getting back.  There will be no end of it, and no winners.

There is only one way for the spiral to end, for the anger to cool, and for the name-calling to cease.  That is to reconcile before it gets out of hand.  It is the only option given to us by our Lord.  In fact, he said that taking the initiative to reconcile ourselves to another person is more important that coming to worship.

Jesus talks about it in terms of bringing one’s offering to worship.  I don’t think he’s talking about money here.  I think he’s talking about the many kinds of animals that the Jewish people had to bring to worship to be sacrificed for the atonement of their sins.

What Jesus is saying here is that God sees our sin and recognizes it.  He wants it to be cleared.  But he wants it done in a way that will be most healing to all those concerned.  It’s not enough to just ask God for forgiveness for our name-calling anger, and the way we have hurt others.  Those involved must face each other.  The situation must be rebuilt by mutual confession and asking forgiveness.  In Jesus’ eyes, this process is more important than coming to church and going through all the religious motions.  Just think how much more worshipful coming to church will be when those relationships are returned to health and well-being.

Only when our angry name-calling, our form of color tagging people, is reconciled, will our altar gifts of seeking forgiveness from God be accepted.  We cannot just hope to go to God and seek forgiveness for what we have against another person.  God is going to make us get up and do what needs to be done first.

I read about a man, who, while serving in Iraq, was in a jeep with other soldiers that was blown up by a roadside bomb.  One leg of this soldier was mangled like a plate of spaghetti.  The triage doctor made the decision that, because he had lost so much blood, he was a hopeless case, and color-tagged him as such.  He was left to die.  But a nurse noticed he was conscious and began talking with him.  They discovered they were both from Ohio.  After getting to know him, the nurse couldn’t let him die.  She broke all the rules and changed his color tag.

After preliminary medical work, there was a two-day trip in the back of a truck and months in the hospital.  But he made it.  Even without his leg, and with complications from other wounds, he eventually began to put his life back together.  All because a nurse broke the rules and changed a tag.

Maybe the task of Christ’s followers is to go against our angry instincts and change the tags with which we have labeled others.  This may mean a personal re-evaluation as well, in terms of our attitudes and name-tagging anger.  Perhaps the most holy worship we can offer our Lord is to retag those we have labeled as hopeless.  Especially since that’s what Christ has done with our own color tag.