Murder?

Q #105: What is God’s will for you in the sixth commandment? A: I am not to belittle, hate, insult, or kill my neighbor—not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture, and certainly not by my actual deeds—and I am not to be party to this in others; rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge. I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself either. Prevention of murder is also why government is armed with the sword. Q #106: Does this commandment refer only to murder? A. By forbidding murder God teaches us that he hates the root of murder: envy, hatred, anger, vindictiveness. In God’s sight all such are disguised forms of murder. Q #107: Is it enough then that we do not murder our neighbor in any such way? A. No. By condemning envy, hatred, and anger God wants us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly toward them, to protect them from harm as much as we can, and to do good even to our enemies.

I grew up in a church tradition that was not particularly fond of creeds, confessions, and catechisms. Such human documents, the reasoning went, added to Scripture and caused division, so we should just stick to the Bible alone. (Of course, we as Reformed Christians see things a little differently. We, too, have a very high place for Scripture—the highest norm for our faith and life—but we view the creeds, confessions, and catechisms as faithfully summarizing what is in Scripture, and therefore not divisive, but, rather, supportive of our high view of Scripture.) I confess that after reading the sixth commandment (“You shall not commit murder”) and then reading these three Q&As from the Heidelberg Catechism, I may have had a momentary nostalgia for the “Bible alone” view. After all, “You shall not commit murder,” frankly, should be pretty easy for most of us. I have rarely if ever been in a position where I was even close to considering murdering someone, and I would imagine that is true for most of you as well. But the catechism rightly looks at the whole of the commandment—not merely how it must be outwardly obeyed, but also the range of inward thoughts and emotions that shape our outward actions. I am not to “belittle, hate, insult…by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture”? Sometimes I’ve barely had my coffee in the morning before I’m tempted to most of these things. And I would imagine I’m not alone in that either, especially in this day of ubiquitous social media. It doesn’t take much to set us off and leave us with growing scorn for our fellow human beings.  From there we can feel the anger start to seep in and affect how we see and react to people. It does not take much reflection to see that rather than being one of the easiest commandments to obey, perhaps it’s the hardest! How do we avoid this? Let us fill our hearts with something else. Instead of continually checking Facebook, turn to the Psalms. Instead of letting cable news drive up your blood pressure, bake a loaf of bread for the neighbor. Instead of lobbing insults on Twitter, have someone over for a meal and try to understand a different point of view. Maybe they will reciprocate and give you the opportunity to explain yours.  But it is not hopeless for us, even when we do fail in keeping this commandment. Jesus’ death on the cross covers this sin too. After all, Jesus even offered forgiveness explicitly to those who were killed him (Luke 23:34). Later, when Peter preached in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, he accused them of killing the Savior: “you…put him to death by hailing him to the cross.” When they were “cut to the heart” and asked Peter what they should do, he replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). If you have murder in your heart—whether, as the catechism says, in thought, word, look or gesture, or even in deed—forgiveness is freely available. Trust in him—repent and believe! ~Pastor Matt