FEEL MY WRONGTEOUS ANGER

What can Jesus mean when he says that if we are angry with our brother and sister, we will be liable to judgement?
And that if we insult a brother or sister, we will be liable to the council and the hell of fire?

In 2008, a day after his 16th birthday, Jimmy Mizen went to buy his first lottery ticket. Then, along with his brother, he
entered a bakery shop in south east London, so that his brother could buy a sausage roll. He never left the shop.

They had fallen into an argument with an angry 19 year-old, and Jimmy was attacked, wounded in the neck, and was soon bleeding to death.

Remarkably, his Catholic mother was later saying that when people asked why she was not angry about his death, she answered that it was anger which had killed Jimmy in the first place.

"There is too much anger in the world," she added.

"I could be angry now, but what's going to happen? It's going to make me much more difficult to live with, and my family need
me.

"And it's not going to bring Jimmy back."

"But we didn't get here overnight," the family went on, referring to street violence.

This problem is the result of 20 to 30 years of the way society has been living, but we can still change it."

Presuming Mrs Mizen wasn't still in shock, these remarkable words, made 2,000 years after Jesus said them, suggest
that a love which is merely the opposite of anger is a very partial love.

A God of love which is merely the opposite of a God of wrath, is presumably just as partial.

So what strikes me is the way Jesus makes no allowance for justified or righteous anger, but describes anger as a problem
making us liable to judgement.

Even anger towards the devil is not allowed by Jesus. Does this present us with a decision to make between
Jesus' recommendations about anger, and those of Judeo-Christian scribes both before and after Jesus?

And if it does, and we are to chose the tradition or the book over Jesus, are we, like the Pharisees, replacing relationships with rules?

Because Jesus is emphasising relationships for us when he says that if we are offering our gift to the altar, and we remember
that our brother or sister has something against us, then we are to leave our gift and first be reconciled with them before
offering it.

The saviour emphasises the importance of relationships over ritual. He tries to shift our attention away from the outward act and places it firmly on the inward state.

Because it is so easy to spot faults in another person, and so hard to be aware of the person who is doing the fault spotting.

Jesus urges us to come to terms with accusers on the way to court. Perhaps he knows the effects on society of attempting to solve differences with a conflict, however civilised. Or perhaps Jesus is urging us to go beyond our own little concerns and body and see the bigger picture, God's perspective.

Once we focus on inward states, there may be no end to it.

The beautiful thing about Jesus is that he doesn't seem to think he is any better than the sinners - rather, this is what others think of him. So does he live on in his followers?