First, Be Reconciled: Jesus, the Alter, and the Shadow

“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you,

leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled to them;

then come and offer your gift.”

— Matthew 5:23–24

It’s one of Jesus’ most disruptive teachings:

Pause your worship. Leave the altar. Go make peace.

Why?

Because something deeper is at stake than ritual or religion.

Because God isn’t asking for performance.

He’s asking for wholeness.

When Worship Becomes Bypass

It’s easier to worship than to look within.

It’s easier to raise your hands than face what your hands have done.

It’s easier to light the incense than to admit there’s a raging fire burning in you that’s never been put out.

“If you are doing something to avoid pain, then pain is running your life.”

—Michael A Singer

This is the danger of what psychology now calls spiritual bypassing —

using spirituality to avoid emotional pain, unresolved wounds, or uncomfortable truth.

But Jesus doesn’t let us get away with that.

He calls us to wholeness, not just holiness.

To integration, not escapism.

Your Brother Has Something Against You

Yes, this is about conflict with others.

But what if it’s also about conflict within?

“Your brother has something against you…”

What if that brother is a part of you?

What if a younger part of you — a wounded part — still feels betrayed by the choices you’ve made to be accepted, to be successful, to be “good”?

What if your inner child, or your tired protector, is holding something against you?

Depth psychology teaches us what the Bible hinted at long before Freud:

We are not one single, unified self.

We are a community of parts.

“Every part of our personality that we do not love will become hostile to us.” 

—Robert Bly

Some conscious, some hidden.

Some reconciled, some exiled.

When Jesus says to leave the altar and reconcile — maybe He’s saying:

Don’t bring me songs when there’s still screaming in your basement.

Don’t crown me Lord when your inner world is still a battlefield.

Don’t try to worship what is whole while you’re at war with what is broken.

The False Altar

There is a false altar —

An altar built on spiritual effort, religious identity, and image management.

It feels holy.

But it’s hollow.

“Success in the spiritual realm had become just another hook for her false self.”

—Stephen Cope

It’s worship without honesty.

Praise without presence.

Sacrifice without surrender.

Jesus doesn’t want it.

“These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.”

— Matthew 15:8

What if your heart is shrouded in pain and darkness?

Far removed from the divine and yourself.

Because you’ve unconsciously disowned it.

But the thing is—

He doesn’t want your performance.

He wants your presence.

First, Go to the One Within

There are parts of you you’ve ignored.

Parts you’ve pushed away.

Parts that are still hurting.

“If you can’t see the monster in you, you’re blind. And if you’re blind, you’ll act out the monster without knowing it.”

—Jordan Peterson

And they’re not letting you move forward until they’re heard.

They won’t be silenced with theology.

They won’t be soothed with worship music.

They won’t be healed by Sunday morning.

They need you.

To listen.

To make space.

To go to them — not with judgment, but with love.

To say:

“I’m sorry I left you behind. I thought being spiritual meant pretending you weren’t real.”

“I’m sorry I tried to pray over you instead of hearing you.”

“I’m here now. What do you need to say?”

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

—Rumi

This is reconciliation.

This is the inner work.

This is the first step of true worship.

Then Come and Offer Your Gift

Jesus doesn’t say: “Never come back to the altar.”

He says: “Come back — but not yet.”

Because when you do the work of reconciliation, your gift changes.

You no longer bring songs to avoid your sorrow.

You bring your whole self —

your joy, your shadow, your questions, your surrender.

“Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”

—Rainer Maria, Letters to a Young Poet

That’s real worship.

Not a bypass.

But a bridge.

Reflection

• Is there a part of you that has something against you?
• Have you been trying to pray instead of process?
• What false altar might Jesus be asking you to walk away from — just for a moment — so you can return with a whole heart?

Remember:

The goal isn’t perfection.

It’s presence.