Building Relationship Anger Destroyed

Immediately after Jesus warned us that there were serious consequences to misplaced anger in Matthew 5:21-26, he emphasized what we should do about it when we do fail.   In the extreme example Jesus used, anger resulted in a lawsuit against the person getting angry.  Jesus warned the offender that God will not step in to help the offender, so it is up to the offender to go to the person offended and work out a deal.  This was so important to Jesus, that he told his audience to forget about offerings and gifts for God until issues are resolved.

Jesus gave us extreme examples and gave extreme warnings of extreme consequences about anger.  We may not always go to court because of our anger; but there may be times that we simply sever relationships with family or friends.  Even if our anger causes far less damage than that of Jesus' example, we are to take anger and its consequences very seriously.

I think that Jesus used the extreme examples and warnings because he wanted his audience to see the seriousness of what anger can do.  Angry people usually feel justified in their anger, despite the consequences.  Angry people hold on to their anger because they believe that it is the right thing to do.  So to get his message through those who hold on to their anger, he spoke harsh warnings.  The warnings were designed to shake up and dislodge the areas in where anger resided.

Once anger was exposed, and once people saw that they needed to deal with what their anger had done, Jesus told them how to best make things right.  He told his audience to go to the offended person and get things resolved.  This was so important that Jesus told his audience to leave God alone until this was done.  Once again, this was extreme to make a point - If you want to please God, get things right with others.

WHEN YOU GO TO THE OFFENDED PERSON

Jesus didn't tell his audience at the Sermon on the Mount what to say or do when they went to work on reconciling.  On another occasion he told his audience members what to do if someone offended them, but never what to say when the audience members offended others.  At best they were left with the advice to go and work it out. 

Because so little is said about how to work it out, I can only assume that Jesus was trusting his audience to use their own wisdom in doing and saying what was needed to work out the issues.