The Brother

At a glance

The chapter heading text (KJV)

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill… But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment… Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”

Matthew 5:21–26 KJV

Summary

Bonhoeffer reads Jesus' move from ‘do not kill’ to ‘do not even be angry’ not as an arbitrary tightening of the rule but as an exposure of what murder was always actually about: contempt for another person's standing before God. Once that root is named, ordinary anger, name-calling and simmering resentment toward a brother are shown to belong to the same family as the act the law explicitly forbade, because all of them treat another person as less than they are.

The chapter's centre of gravity, though, is not the diagnosis but the remedy Jesus prescribes: leave your gift at the altar and go be reconciled first. Bonhoeffer stresses how deliberately impractical this looks — interrupting an act of worship, mid-offering, to go find a brother — and reads that impracticality as the whole point. Worship offered while a relationship remains broken is not, in God's eyes, worship at all; reconciliation cannot be scheduled for later without the gift itself becoming worthless.

He extends this into the picture of the debtor hurrying to settle with an adversary ‘quickly, while thou art in the way with him,’ which he reads as a warning about the urgency of reconciliation rather than a legal parable about courts. The brother's claim on us is not one item on a spiritual to-do list to be handled at leisure; every day that reconciliation is deferred is a day lived, in effect, still under judgment.

Bonhoeffer closes by locating grace precisely at this point of obligation: the brother comes to us, he says, not in the guise of law demanding what we owe, but of grace, because reconciling with a brother is itself the way we find ourselves reconciled to God before the final judgment. Discipleship, once again, turns out not to be an isolated, individual transaction with God but something worked out concretely in the disciple community's relationships with one another.

Key points

• Jesus traces the sixth commandment back to its root — contempt for another person's worth — and finds ordinary anger and name-calling already implicated in it.
• The instruction to leave a gift at the altar and be reconciled first is deliberately impractical, and Bonhoeffer reads that impracticality as the whole point: unreconciled worship is not worship.
• Reconciliation with a brother is treated as urgent, not as an item to be scheduled at leisure.
• Bonhoeffer finds grace, not merely law, at this point: our brother's claim on us is itself the path back to being reconciled with God.
• Discipleship is worked out concretely in relationships within the community, not only in an individual's private standing with God.

Related Scripture

• 1 John 3:15
• Matthew 18:15
• Ephesians 4:26
• 1 Corinthians 11:27–29

For reflection and discussion

1. Is there a specific person toward whom you are currently holding contempt or unspoken anger that this chapter names as already serious, even without any outward act?
2. Bonhoeffer says unreconciled worship is not worship at all. Has that idea ever changed how you approached a service, communion, or prayer?
3. What would it cost you, practically, to treat reconciliation with someone as more urgent than it currently feels?