Raca to Raca!

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Raca.

It’s not a word that springs to many lips in the United Kingdom these days. Indeed, you probably have never said it in your life. Clearly, you will never be in danger of facing the Council.

But you know it’s not as simple as that, don’t you? What is this passage of Scripture? What is Jesus saying?

[PAUSE]

Let’s look.

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill: and whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgement. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire.

So, if you are angry with your brother without a cause you face judgement.

If you say “Raca” to your brother, you face the Council.

If you call your brother a fool, you face Hell itself!

To understand what Jesus is saying, we need to understand what Raca is. It’s an Aramaic word which means worthless or empty – something you’d spit on. To say “Raca” to someone is to show them contempt. We see that Our Lord is saying that to be angry without a cause means that we will be judged for it, but to show contempt will bring us to the judgement of a higher court. Isn’t calling someone a fool nothing but contempt?

Not quite. The word we understand as “fool” is actually a lot stronger. While “Raca” calls someone’s taste or opinions to account, to call someone a fool calls that whole person to account. You can rubbish someone’s opinions and that is Raca, but to rubbish the person, to demonise them, to strip away their humanity with a word of contempt, that is what Our Lord means here.

So the Lord says:

If you are angry with your brother without a cause you face judgement.

If you show a baseless contempt for your brother’s opinions or taste, you face the Council.

If you demonise your brother and treat him like the scum of the earth, you face Hell itself!

You can see that there is a very clear progression in how our baseless anger proceeds. When we are angry with someone without a cause, we can start to let it fester. As our anger festers, we start to hate what a person says, we hate the way they speak and the way they act until, in our anger, they cease to be human, they cease to be in our eyes the person that God made, they cease to become loveable. And that’s serious.

It also shows that not all sin has the same judgement. To be angry yet to stop that anger from festering has less that needs to be put right than actively hating someone so much.

[PAUSE]

Our Lord is clear. We are to love our neighbours at all times and to live in peace with them. Clearly disputes and arguments will arise, but each one of us needs to examine ourselves quickly to see if we are the ones at fault and then put it right before we present ourselves to God. When heated disagreement arises, we are not to look for the cause in the other person, but in ourselves first so that we can repent and make any repairs necessary.

All sin can be forgiven except the one that completely rejects God. We have to remember that this is true for each one of us. And we have to remember that it is true for everyone else. Everyone can be forgive: everyone who repents should be forgiven, and we need to be ready to forgive freely and generously, just as God is willing to forgive us freely and generously. That way we can say “Raca” to all Evil and cling to what is truly Good in our brothers and sisters.