THE POLLUTION THAT IS ANGER

 

trash-dump fire, similar to the Hinnom Valley

 

 

`You heard that it was said to the ancients: Thou shalt not kill, and whoever may kill shall be in danger of the Second Court;

²² but I -- I say to you, that every one who is angry at his brother shall be in danger of the Second Court, and whoever may say to his brother, Empty fellow! shall be in danger of the Sanhedrim, and whoever may say, Naval! shall be in danger of the Hinnom Valley’s Great Trash-dump Fire.

²³ `If, therefore, you bring your Qorban to the altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you,

²⁴ leave there your Qorban before the altar, and go -- first be reconciled to your brother, and then having come bring your Qorban.

²⁵ `Be agreeing with your opponent-at-law quickly, while you are still on the way to court with him, so that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and to prison you be cast;

²⁶ Indeed I say to you, you may not come forth thence till that you pay the last penny.’ (Matthew 5)

 

The above translation is based on Young’s Literal Translation, but modified by terms explained in the Real Yeshua blog’s invaluable posts on Yeshua’s Teachings on Anger. I will try to summarise these here.

            The opening sentence shows the audience that what follows is a completion of the old Torah’s commandment against murder. Whoever commits murder will deserve to be judged by the higher Beth Din, of 26 judges (the Lower had three judges).

            BUT I SAY – this initiates the New Torah’s completion of the old: the reinterpretation in the key of inwardness which, if it is followed, will make its followers more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. Three stages of anger are discussed.

            Simple anger at one’s brother/neighbour is the equivalent of murder. Why? Because it opens a Pandora’s Box and can lead to murder. To a scriptural Jewish audience this would have called to mind humanity’s first murder, and would thus have identified the present discourse as a commentary on the story of Cain and Abel.

            If one calls one’s brother/neighbour raka – an empty fellow, useless, of no value – one is contradicting the Creator, who has created him in His own image, and thus committing a blasphemy, to be judged by the Sanhedrin, the highest Court.

            If one calls one’s brother/neighbour naval, one likens him to the naval who in Isaiah and in the Psalms says ‘There is no God’ and therefore denies that God does tov (all that is good, beautiful and healthful for Creation). This is the ultimate blasphemy, and means that he who utters it deserves to be thrown on the burning, stinking trash dump in the Gey-Hinnom, the Hinnom Valley outside Jerusalem – but which also functions as a metaphor for the destination of those rejected by God at the Last Judgement.

            These three points are an increasing emphasis on the importance of one’s inward condition and attitude towards one’s neighbour. Nothing is trivial, says Yeshua. A tiny mustard-seed can become a great bush. Simple anger, if untended or even fed, can end in murder, blasphemy and denial of God and His love. 

 

Now comes a further step, an image not readily understood by modern readers unfamiliar with the customs of Yeshua’s time and place. 

            A qorban is an offering, of which there were many kinds, and the rules for them were multiple and complicated. The bringing of qorbanot to the Temple was a form of drawing near to God, and for repairing one’s relation to Him. It was a regular part of Jewish life. To bring a qorban, a Jewish man had first to go to the Temple’s double gates (where he could see and smell the Hinnom Valley) and have it examined. The he had to go the ritual-bath complex and be purified by immersion supervised by priests. Following that he had to pass through the Court of the Gentiles, pass the Beautiful Gate, cross the Court of Women, pass the Nicanor Gate and enter the Court of Israel. Here he would wait until he was called by a priest; and when he was, he would finally bring his qorban to the altar and perform his part of the ritual.

            So that when Yeshua talks of remembering ‘at the altar’ that one’s relation to one’s brother was still polluted by an offence of anger (whether the brother is aware of this or not), and then leaving one’s qorban there, at the very altar itself, and going back through all those steps to go and find one’s brother and repair one’s offence against him, before finally coming back through all those stages again and actually offering one’s qorban – this is extreme. At the very last minute. 

           But it is crucial. Why? Because, says the Law, God cannot accept your qorban, your offering, and thus cannot grant you His forgiveness, unless you genuinely regret your offence and have obtained the victim’s forgiveness.

 

            And finally, another metaphor. If you are on the way to court with your neighbour who has lodged a complaint against you, you are well advised to obtain his forgiveness before you get there. Otherwise you will have to face the full legal consequences to the limit of the penalty; whereas if you obtain his forgiveness before you get to court, he can and will cancel the complaint.

 

Both these great images emphasise the point of Yeshua’s sermon on the sin of Anger or Ira: it is the root of all violence and thus, as the later Church called it, a capital sin, a sin that is truly Deadly.

 

MOVING AND PROFOUND

 The French author Daniel-Rops published, in 1952, a little book called "Missa Est" with very fine B&W photographs by Laure Albin-Guillot and a series of brief texts explaining parts of the Mass followed by short meditations on each part. Here is his meditation on the Offering of the bread and wine (my translation):

If you have nothing else to offer the Lord, lay before Him only your works and your travails:

this piece of bread resting there on the paten cost many men many efforts.

If your hand is empty and your mouth painfully dry, offer your wounded heart, all you have suffered:

for the wine to be poured into the chalice, did the grapes not have to be trampled and their skin opened?

If all you have inside you is sin and bitterness, the pain of living and all humanity’s anguish:

let your hands lift up those sad things, for Mercy has received them in advance in His Supper.

And if you do not even have the strength to offer and implore, if all inside you is absence and abandonment:

only accept in silence that Another take care of you on your behalf and accept you, so that the Offering and the Offerer may be one gift. 

LAETARE: IT'S GRACE, STUPID.

The fourth Sunday in Lent is known as Laetare from the Psalm that begins "Rejoice". It is a pause, as it were, when we may breathe in the midst of our intense self-discipline -- yes, well. Most of us are not very good at intense self-discipline, and so we can feel mildly guilty at not having earned Laetare.
Which brings us to the whole topic of Lenten guilt. Somewhere around Ash Wednesday many of us fully intend this year to "do a good Lent", fasting, praying and giving alms with sincerity, assiduity and regularity. By the time of Laetare for many of us this lovely plan lies in ruins, and we feel guilty.

It is worth stopping to reflect on the similarity of this experience with that of New Year's Resolutions.  And with that of weight-loss plans. For these last, the permanent success rate, it has been proved, is between 2 and 5 per cent: the figures may be the same for New Year's and Lenten resolutions. Even if we consider slimming to be a form of vanity (which it is, health excuses notwithstanding) and Januarius to be a pagan idol (which he is), we are still left with the shards of our Lent.

 The key, of course, lies in the possessive pronoun. Our Lent. My Lent. Not selfishness: I wanted to bring God the offering of a "good Lent", because I love Him and want to do something for Him, as one does for a loved one. Uh, huh. Niet. Time and again, with a divine smile or a heavenly tear, God raps us over the knuckles and says "You've done it again! You've misunderstood me again! I don't want your immolated oxen, your roasted rams, nor do I want your good Lent!"

Right, Lord: what do you want, then? "I want you to realise, once and for all, that contrary to what you humans keep saying it is more blessed to receive than to give, and also a great deal more difficult. I have given you, and keep on giving you, my complete love. I have given you, and keep on giving you, my only-begotten son. I was under no illusion as to what you would do with him. But I knew that once you had done that, I could turn precisely that horror, that evil so typical of y'all, into the greatest good, for you. So look at what my Son said to Nicodemus, that intelligent believer. 'God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but so that it might be saved through him. He that believes in him is not condemned; he that does not is already judged. The world did not accept the Son because men of evil deeds prefer the dark to the light.'"

So we should work at doing good deeds? "Yes and no: what He went on to say was 'but whoever does truth comes into the light.'" Doing truth. Not doing good deeds. Doing truth. It sounds odd and illogical. Is truth something you do?

Here we are with the shards of our Lent. But Lent is still going on. And we have failed. Again. So we smile, say "Thank you, Lord, for the lesson," and get up and go on. Knowing that we can do absolutely nothing; that we have been given the gift of God's love free and without charge, and that it does not matter a tinker's fart whether we fast or eat, write cheques or save, and go to Church or not. God did not check up on all those things before deciding whether we were worthy of his love. What we do, being loved like that, is work at fully realising it, taking it in, letting ourselves be overwhelmed. That, I suspect, is what "doing truth" is. Being love, God's love is always the same as our love, which is why we can love him back. Being God's, it is always also different. Always a little unsettling. But not -- pace much modern church rhetoric of the "naught for your comfort" kind -- demanding. I'm not sure God ever demands. I think he gives, and waits for us to receive and accept. Learning to do that is "doing truth". And it results in rejoicing. Laetare, indeed.

KINGS FOR A DAY?

I have from time to time in this blog translated meditations by the French Benedictine hermit Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau; and I found her remarks on this Sunday's Epiphany celebration particularly perceptive. So I offer them here in my own translation, in the hope that others will find them as helpful as I do.

Matthew 2:1-12

THE OFFERING THAT PLEASES GOD

The Epiphany liturgy gives us a coherent collection of prayers and readings to meditate, centred on Christ, the light of nations. It invites us to note the universality of salvation, which is the basis of our unconditional acceptance of ourselves and others.

Preparation

‘You wanted neither offering nor sacrifice, you have opened my ears: you asked for neither holocaust nor victim, so I said, ‘Here I am: I come.’ (Ps 40:7-8)

Observation

Let us look at the Magi’s response to the proposed salvation discerned in the sign of the star, to the hope it awoke in them, to the point of committing them to an adventure upon unknown roads. Men of open mind, seekers after truth, humble enough to ask men far less cultured than themselves for what they did not know, they are not unlike a fair number of our contemporaries in their quest.

            Their gesture of adoration and offering particularly draws our attention. The diversity of their gifts represents the unique something that each person can bring to God. And let us not forget the Church Fathers’ interpretation which identifies the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh as the recognition of, respectively, the royalty, the divinity and the humanity of a Christ destined to death.

Meditation

Let us ask ourselves what we offer the Lord and in what spirit we do it. Are we Christians who are rooted in the thankfulness of being in the world, conscious of receiving everything from God and having only loving to do? Or are we like those who want to lay hands on him, to justify themselves in his eyes – and in their own --, proving to the whole world their value and their superiority like the Pharisee in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 16)? Are we able to give ourselves to the Lord just as we are, in the truth of our being at the same time sinners and made in his image: clay vessels bearing a treasure, the valuable mixed with the vile? If our response is negative, let us not be discouraged. Let us rather ask to be granted the inward freedom of those who know themselves unconditionally beloved in their singularity and who, consequently, are able to receive others with that goodness of which the wellspring is in God.

Prayer

‘Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed and filled us with the blessings of the Spirit in Heaven, in Christ.’ (Eph. 1:3)

OFFERING

I found this meditiation from the 'Offertory' section of Daniel-Rops's Missa Est moving. All too often, while the priest prepares the bread and the wine, the congregation fumbles for coins and treats this moment as an interval; yet the Offering is that of both the 'kindly fruits of the earth' (much more present in a country parish among fields of wheat and vineyards), and of what we bring, in matter and/or in spirit, and which the priest's preparing of bread and wine represents.  

If you have nothing else to offer to the Lord, simply present your work and your pains;

it has cost many men much effort, this piece of bread lying on the paten.

If your hand is empty and your mouth painfully dry, offer your wounded heart, all that you have suffered;

for the wine to be poured into the chalice did the grapes not have to be crushed and the skin torn?

If all you have in you is sin and bitterness, the pain of living and all the anguish of humanity,

let your hands lift those pitiful things up to heaven, for Mercy has already received them in advance at his Supper.

And if you do not even have the strength to present and to implore, 

if all that is in you is absence and abandonment,

simply accept, in silence, that Another take care of you for you and take charge of you, 

so that the Offering and the Offerer may be a single gift.

OFFERING

In the admirable little book Missa Est by Daniel-Rops (the nom de plume of Henri Petiot 1901-1965) with stunning photographs by Laure Albin-Guillot, which I have had occasion to mention here before, I found a little text that moved me and that I thought I'd share. In the section on the preparation of the bread and the wine -- of the offerings ---, after the explanation of the history of this part of the Mass, he writes the following:

If you have nothing else to offer the Lord, only give him your efforts and your pains:

it took much work by many men, the piece of bread lying there on the paten. 

If your hand is empty and your mouth painfully dry, offer your wounded heart, all that you have suffered:

for the wine to be poured into the chalice, did the grapes not have to be crushed and their seeds opened?

If you have nothing in you but sin and bitterness, the distress of living and all the anguish of being human,

let your hands lift up those pitiful things to heaven, for Mercy has received them already beforehand, at His Supper.

And if you no longer have even the strength to offer and to beg, if there is nothing in you but absence and abandonment,

merely accept in silence that Another take care of you for your sake and accept you, so that the Offering and the Offerer may be one gift. 

For those who read French, I'll give the original, which is far better than I can translate:

Si tu n'as rien d'autre à offrir au Seigneur, présente-lui seulement tes travaux et tes peines,

à beaucoup d'hommes il a coûté beaucoup d'efforts ce morceau de pain qui repose là sur la patène.

Si ta main est vide et ta bouche douloureusement sèche, offre ton coeur blessé, tout ce que tu as souffert,

pour que le vin fût versé dans le calice n'a-t-il pas fallu que la grappe fût broyée et le grain ouvert?

Si tu n'as rien en toi que le péché et l'amertume, la détresse de vivre et toute l'angoisse humaine,

que tes mains tendent au ciel ces pitoyables choses car la Miséricorde les a reçues par avance à sa Cène.

Et si tu n'as même plus la force de présenter et d'implorer, si tout en toi n'est qu'absence et abandon,

en silence accepte qu'un Autre se charge de toi pour toi et t'assume, pour que l'Offrande et l'Offrant soient un seul don.

MON DIEU, JE VOUS L'OFFRE

  

Travelling (I’m in Chicago for a conference where my edition of Sidney’s Correspondence is having a prize presented to it) is conducive to thought but mainly in bits, choppily, and perhaps more suited to Twitter than to a pensive blog.  On the other hand, its vicissitudes include, at my age, aches and pains and contrarieties, and those lead me to consider the old French expression of resignation Mon Dieu, je vous l’offre. It is repeated, mutteringly or with a shrug, even now by those who may years ago had a Catholic education but who have since confined their churchgoing to Christmas and Easter.

However, early one morning I thought of it again and wondered what it really meant, or could be brought to mean. The idea was, or so the young were told, that when something unpleasant happened to you you offered it up to God. Why, I wondered. If I miss an aeroplane connection, or if I am experiencing a nasty arthritic cramp, what would God want with that? And yet even my beloved Carthusians mention such offering in their writings, and they are so far advanced in spirituality that I can barely see their dust. So I kept pondering.

In the first place, I began to see, it may clean the wound, so to speak. If I miss that plane or have that cramp, I am filled with negative vibrations – rage, anguish, pain – that take up all the space in my mental house and make it a damned unpleasant place to be. If I off-load all those vibrations on to Someone else, I shall be rid of them. Oh, goody.

Yet there remains the problem: why would I saddle God (Who, one hopes, has better things to do) with all that grudge and grunge? Here, Lord, You take it, I don’t want it. An unattractive attitude, surely?

Well, in the course of some stubborn pondering, three answers either suggested themselves or, I prefer to think, were suggested to me. The first one has to with that chap Yeshua. I (thank God) so far have mainly aches, pains and contrarieties; He went all the way. If He could offer all that horror up to His Father, then – whether I understand it or not – it has to make sense. What’s more, He did it for me, which is a sobering thought.

Secondly, it leads one to think about what “offering” means. And the more you think about it, the more you realise it’s not just  dumping or unloading. It’s giving. Now that still seems odd; but if you give what is attacking you to God, it does two things to your spirit. It reaffirms your status as a child of God: when a kid meets a problem too big for its understanding, it presents it to its father who, being an adult, can and should handle it. Pain, suffering of all kinds, passes our understanding. C.S. Lewis once said that for a modern Westerner the only rational choices are Stoicism or Christianity (or perhaps Judaism if you are born into it). So if you give your suffering to God, you are recognising Him as your Father and behaving as you should. Also, the giving is an offering: you give to God something that either is precious to you or at least takes up a large space in your life. And you give it as an act of thanks, as an expression of belonging, or as an act of beseeching: here it is clearly the latter.

Thirdly, if what you want in life is to be filled with the Spirit of God, the Spirit that is God, think of those moments of giving, of offering – even the small ones – as creating, and opening, a small window in the wall of your spiritual house: a window that lets in a little more of the Spirit Who is always waiting, loving and surprisingly patient, outside until you are ready to open up. A large suffering, offered, opens a large window: my father, spending every day and night for several years looking after my mother who had Alzheimer’s, I suspect opened a huge window. But even a small suffering – an ache, a pain, a contrariety – can open a small but important little shutter and let in another bit of that huge and wonderful Spirit Who is very much a Person also, one-third of the Triune God.

And – as a friend who posted Philippians 4:4-7 on Facebook reminded me – if you do manage to do this, the ache will frequently go away, and at least a little piece of the Great Peace of God, which passeth all understanding, will take root and grow in your heart.

This is a really small and clumsy beginning of coming at, and getting a glimmering of, what seems like a huge truth. Stay tuned, and we can explore it some more. For those interested: I’m reading Lewis’ The Great Divorce and finding it moving and perceptive – perhaps it has something to do with these scattered intuitions.

The painting above is Holman Hunt's "The Light of the World".