Reconciliation Is Our Responsibility
One of my favorite characters in the Marvel Superhero world is the Hulk. Even if you’ve never seen the movies, you’ve probably heard about him. The Hulk is this gigantic, powerful, strong green monster that comes out of a normal sized human being that is Doctor Bruce Banner when he gets angry. Essentially they are two different people, but we don’t need to get into all those details. The point here is that for Dr. Banner, there are moments when he gets really upset and his emotions take over and he turns into the Hulk. The Hulk then goes on this rampage, essentially destroying everything in it’s path.
In the movies, I’ve always loved the moment when they first depicted Dr. Banner turning into the Hulk. The first time the movie shows the transformation, it’s this slow process of Banner getting angrier and angrier and you begin to see his body forming, changing color, growing tremendously in size. But what’s always caught my attention about that scene is it very much seems like Banner is trying to fight off turning into the Hulk, as if he doesn’t want it, but essentially has no choice because his anger is taking over.
I think for so many of us, we deal with difficult relationships, we’ve had bad breakups, we’ve dealt with difficult people that causes us to grow upset. Maybe we think it’s not that big of deal. So what happens is often in those moments we harness those emotions rather than deal with them and what happens is a build up and possibly be explosion on maybe someone else or something else that didn’t even cause that anger to swell up! It’s like we want to try and stop it, we want to fight the emotions from being released but like the Hulk, it just erupts. Maybe we don’t actually throw those emotions on someone specially, maybe we just retreat to social media and express our emotions on that platform, which isn’t the greatest as well.
As I was prepping for this Sunday’s Sermon, one of the things that caught my attention in the passage was this:
“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” - Matthew 5:23-24
When it comes to the topic of anger, Jesus calls us to be URGENT. He calls us to deal with it quickly. Why? Because so often we don’t deal with it, even if its minor, and it piles up and all of a sudden explodes out. Kind of like the Hulk. It’s the moment that we remember, whenever it is, even if it’s during a worship service. God brings that moment of remembrance to us and calls us to act on it.
When it comes to broken relationships, when it comes to us being wronged, it makes sense for there to be an anger that stirs up inside of us. The culture says, “Make them come to you and apologize.” Jesus says, “Go to them and go quickly.”
Reconciliation is our responsibility. Jesus calls us to stand out and be different than the culture around us and this is a beautiful way to show that as Christians, we are different.