A Whole Lot More Than Not Killing Someone

Exodus 20:13; Matthew 5:21-26; Romans 13:8-10

Hebrew is a frighteningly fluid language. Words shift into subtle shades of meaning depending on who is speaking, to whom they are speaking, where they are speaking, and how they are speaking. It is a language of verbs instead of nouns—actions carry weight and heft that we would find completely overwhelming. 

So it is with the Sixth Commandment, a dictum most English Bibles render with blunt directness, Thou shalt not kill. However, the word rendered “kill” is a whole lot broader than we imagine. A far better rendering that captures all of the subtle nuances is reading the commandment as, Do no harm. 

That being so, we suddenly become aware that God wants far more than murder eliminated from God’s creation. 

Both Jesus (completely unsurprising) and St. Paul (a bit surprising) grasped this point as they reflected on the dictum. As we follow Christ, applying Paul’s systematic theology to our practice of faith, we enter this broad world of interpretation. That leads us into full obedience, showing us how to accept this commandment, fleshing it out into a daily experience instead of a terribly unlikely circumstance of not murdering someone. 

Paul taps into the deepest truth of the commandment. What God truly wants from those who seek to be obedient is application of the foundation on which all of God’s commandments rest—the embodiment of love in human life. Doing no harm leads us into this realm of compassionate care for all people. If we set doing no harm as our first priority and mindfully apply that standard as we interact with other people, we will guard words, actions, and even thoughts, seeking to minimize damage done.

Apply this standard to all sorts of everyday activities. Driving becomes a non-contact sport in which we will carefully and stridently watch our own actions and those of others to keep harm out of the picture. Eating becomes an avenue to health as we guard ourselves from ingesting foods damaging to our bodies. As we share a cup of coffee with a friend, we guard our speech, avoiding the regular habit of disparaging others not present. And on it goes—TV choices, computer browsing, shopping, and just being all get altered into doing no harm. 

The more we make this approach simply a state of being, the more likely we are to find peace in daily life. Even the inevitable conflicts can become more manageable if we will stop, breathe, refocus on doing no harm, then broach areas of conflict for resolution. We realize that less sharp interaction and inter-being are truly possible. 

Now, though, we are ready to face Christ’s reinterpretation of the Sixth Commandment. 

As with all of the commandments Christ reinterpreted in the Sermon on the Mount, this one also gets an extreme makeover. Christ moves directly into one of the roots of murder—rage—anger on steroids! Christ ratchets up the standard of obedience—it is not enough to refrain from murder (or even doing no harm), you must eliminate rage itself from your experience. As with so many of Christ’s admonitions, most folks will hear this one and agree that it is a wonderful ideal and something that really could alter reality as we know it, but simultaneously dismiss as being possible. We know ourselves too well, and we know the world too well, and we know that some things just ain’t gonna happen! Rid ourselves of anger? Even the most enlightened Zen master finds such a standard laughable. Thich Nhat Hanh reflected on his own anger when he received word of a horrible government reaction to some of his fellow monastics in Vietnam as they were arrested and tortured. If a master such as Thay wrestles with anger, then all of us are going to deal with it always. But Christ is adamant—the Kingdom of God is free of anger—we cannot participate if anger still burns through us. We find ourselves despairing with St. Peter, “Who then can be saved?”

Christ knows us too well to leave us in a hopeless situation wherein our inability to be obedient dooms us from the get-go, ergo, we should simply abandon all praxis of faith right now. No, God is good and grace abounds. No, there is always hope, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. 

The key is to take ourselves out of the picture. 

What?

Yes, remove reliance or dependence on who and what we are as the means by which we fulfill God’s will, and instead, hand ourselves over to God to make it so. We practice something Karl Barth emphasized again and again—God’s sovereignty is manifest in God’s grace, and faith accepts that sovereignty and releases all hold on control, self-will, and self-reliance into opening ourselves fully and completely to the working of God. God will be with us. God will work through us. 

So, even as we feel the first embers of anger ignite within us, we pray. We do whatever it takes to empty ourselves to allow God to fill us. We turn over our anger to God. God can take it in, transform and transcend us, and free us from the awful consequences of rage. God can put out all sorts of fire. 

So, what Christ offers is grace—God’s presence that makes obedience possible—the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God to form us as disciples.

Who can be saved? All of us—any of us—as we abandon ourselves to God.

Do no harm. Enter the Kingdom.