MURDER – murder is to take away “life” –
that could be physically, emotionally, or spiritually –
Life is that force that flows throughout everything in existence and, therefore,
murder is the taking away of that flow of Life

In Matthew 5 – the “sermon on the mount”
Jesus expands on the meaning of laws the people were familiar with –
specific laws –
clear statements of “thou shall not” repeated as part of
a set of God-given laws in what we call the Old Testament

Jesus stated the law and then
Jesus did not deal with the aspect most people accepted
as what the law was saying,
physical destruction of another person,
but Jesus points to those deep, often dark, emotions
that are the underlying cause of the act of murder –
anger, resentment, jealousy, greed, revenge and more –
someone getting “crosswise” with someone else over something –

Jesus said to deal with those feelings
before I take that step that will destroy me
and punish the one I am focused on —
dealing with those emotions at the beginning
is the only way to handle the “debt” I feel
is rightfully mine to collect –

murder or harboring hard feelings will cause destruction
of more than the one I feel owes me,
it will destroy a place inside of me
where light and love reside and it will build that wall
that may never be torn down and
that wall holds me a prisoner,
as I stay behind a wall of my own making
clinging to that dark story of hurt and harm done to me
and blocking healing and the flow of Life to my own heart

Maybe I need to
-—pull out that story of a debt owed to me and
accept the truth that only I can hold or release that debt
—if possible, try to find a way to work it out with
the one who wronged me (not always possible)
—if I cannot work it out with my adversary, I will try to
remember the words “owe no man anything but love” and
KNOW we all owe a debt to others that we cannot ever pay,
no one is without fault in word or deed –
no perfect people in this world, not one (not even me)!

Jesus never mentions who was right or who was wrong or
if the “debt” was justifiable,
only that a broken relationship is based in negative emotions
and that, as salt and light (Matthew 5:20) and
in the context of the stated mission of Jesus (Luke 4:18),
healing of that brokenness is the focus of the command
“do not murder” for the “benefit” gained is a dark reward

– looking beyond the act of murder to the root cause(s) of that act
leads to a heart distracted from Truth, from Purpose, and
from Life for itself as it builds a dark wall to demand
the “other” pay the debt while feeding itself anger and
all that goes along with that anger like the old words:
it is like eating poison and expecting the other person to die —
feeding on those dark thoughts only harms me and
even that stirs up more of those dark thoughts in my heart/mind

Oh, I hear my wounded heart shouting –
“that is not fair!” – “that so-and-so did me wrong” –
“I cannot just go on like nothing happened!!!”

And that is why Jesus calls us to focus on
healing the brokenness, not on the right and wrong,
but on joining the “club of salt and light”* –
the club that recognizes the debt and accepts that
the “other” must be left to a higher “court”
while I draw salt and light into myself to heal the wounds and
stop the flow of the “poison” of anger and resentment that
will only succeed in robbing ME of my Life.

“Do not murder” may be most important when I realize
it is a command for me to stop robbing myself
of Life and Light and Love –
to stop my own murder (taking away my Life) by my own thoughts.

Just thinking . . . there are two worlds I can see.

One world is dark with just a very little light and
the other world seems to hold a tree, foggy and not clear.
I have a choice –
a world filled with darkness and murder or a living tree
drawing me to tap into the flow of Life held in its roots.

Dark thoughts – wounds – anger OR a living tree . . .
just thinking . . .
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* “club of salt and light” (more to come)