Scripture: Matthew 5:21-26; Ephesians 4:25-5:2.
One of the several turning points I have had in my relationship to Jesus Christ came when I realized–really realized–that Jesus got angry. I think when I realized this, Jesus became more human to me, and therefore more real. But it was not just that. I think when I realized that Jesus could be angry, he also became a more forceful figure to me, more complicated, more difficult, more troubling, more “present”, more…worthwhile.
I don’t know about you but the image of Jesus I grew up with did not include anger. I don’t know where I got that image. I don’t think I spent a lot of time with Jesus in my Unitarian Sunday School, but maybe we spent some time with him, and maybe I got some of my distorted image of Jesus from my church–which is where many people get their distorted image of Jesus.
Maybe it was not so much from church. Maybe it was just from “here and there”. Pictures of Jesus that made him seem kind and gentle. The way people talked about him. Maybe from movies, or songs, who knows. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that we all knew Jesus was a “good man” and “good” people in the culture I grew up in didn’t get mad, or didn’t show their anger. People were supposed to be polite. People were supposed to be nice.
Then too I have to admit that maybe I got this image of the kind, sweet Jesus from Jesus himself. You heard his words this morning. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’…but I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister you will be liable to judgment.” That’s pretty clear. We’re not supposed to be angry. It’s not good to be angry. And Jesus, being Jesus, wouldn’t say that unless he meant it. And being Jesus he wouldn’t say something he wasn’t prepared to put into practice. So here’s Jesus telling us–in the Sermon on the Mount, no less, his first big public statement, his keynote address for his entire ministry–here’s Jesus telling us not to get angry. We might assume that he would follow his own instructions.
Now of course there is that little incident that most people learn about somewhere along the way where Jesus throws the money changers out of the temple. But then after all that can be sort of the exception which proves the rule. That money changing must have been really bad because it made even Jesus angry.
Well, this was the sort of image I had of Jesus until one day, for no particular reason, I decided to read the gospel of Mark straight through at one sitting. What I found was that this guy was angry a lot, a whole lot. Sometimes the text said he was angry in plain words. There is an incident described in the third chapter of the gospel of Mark where Jesus is about to heal a man in the presence of some people who think that keeping the Sabbath is more important than healing. They clearly were hostile to Jesus, but then Jesus was hostile to them too. It says that Jesus looked around at them with anger.
In fact it turns out that Jesus was in conflict with all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons, and he didn’t hold back from saying so. At one point he even cursed a fig tree for not bearing any fruit. And then, too, there were the disciples, who were quite often clueless about being a disciple. They just didn’t seem to get it much of the time, and Jesus often got fed up. Sometimes I guess you could say he was more exasperated than angry, but then sometimes angry is more like it. Not just exasperated or frustrated or displeased or unhappy–angry.
So now, I have a more complicated picture of Jesus, and a more complicated view of what the Bible in general has to say about anger. Notwithstanding what Jesus says about anger in the Sermon on the Mount, it is not a simple question of recognizing anger as a sin and trying to get rid of it. I am also aware that I am speaking in front of a congregation that includes a number of therapists, who work with anger, or with various cousins of anger, such as depression, at a very intense level, and who can speak with more authority than I can as to the tremendously complicated place it has in people’s stories. Not to mention others of us who have dealt with anger as “therapees”, not to mention probably all of us who have had in some way to cope with the anger that seems to accompany our living. I do not have therapeutic expertise to bring. I have just a few thoughts that I hope are rooted in faith, or at least in faith questions.
Some good things about anger. For one thing it is a sign of caring. Or at least it can be. I don’t know about all kinds of anger and where it comes from or what it is a sign of. I do understand at least some kinds of anger to be signs of caring.
The anger of God, for instance. I know that the anger of God in the Bible can sometimes seem arbitrary and unfair, and frankly rather unflattering. But one thing it does say is that God cares about and is involved in the life of the world. In fact the anger of God grows out of the love of God. God has this beautiful vision of what human life should look like, and when human beings go around acting like there is no such vision, when they just seem not to care about what human life is supposed to be like, or what it could be like, then maybe God would get angry. If God were willing to wash her hands of us, then there would be no need for anger. Anger on God’s part is a sign of engagement.
Same thing with our anger toward God. People have been known to be angry at God. It would be a mistake to think that being angry at God is a sign of un-faith. It would be even more of a mistake, much more of a mistake, to see it as a sin. And yet the church has often done so, either said explicitly or implied that it is either wrong for a Christian to be angry at God or that it is an indication that one’s faith is wavering, or maybe even vanishing. We need to learn to accept God’s will, do God’s will, trust God, be grateful to God, give praise to God, love God. We’re not supposed to be angry at God. That’s something we’re supposed to get over as soon as we can, or cover up as best we can.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone say that we need to learn to be angry at God. But maybe, in a way, we do. It may be too much to say that being angry with God is a virtue, but maybe we do need to be able, without guilt or fear of punishment, to be angry at God. It is not a sign of unbelief. If a person truly does not believe in God or does not feel that God is real, there is no one there to be angry with. Again anger is a sign of engagement. A sign of caring.
It may be that the god we are angry at is in reality a false god. It may be that we make up things about God to be angry at that are not really a part of God, just like sometimes we make up or imagine things about other people that then make us angry, even though what is making us angry is not part of who that person really is. Nevertheless, the anger is a sign of engagement and may be part of finding our way toward who that other person really is, or who God really is. Being angry at God is a sign of a faith that is very much alive.
And so too when anger flares up between us human beings, it is usually a sign of caring. Maybe we get angry at a person we care about because he or she is seeming not to care about themselves as much as we care about them. Maybe the other person is seeming not to care about this relationship as much as I do, or at least is seeming not to share some of my hopes about it.
Or maybe the anger is because of some value we care about, and the person we get mad at seems to be threatening that value. It’s not so much that we care or don’t care about the person, but some value or vision we do care about is being threatened. In any case, our anger says something about who or what it is that we care about. It has to do with things or with people who are important to us.
The trouble is–and there are a number of troubles with anger–but one big one in my view is that anger generally is not very articulate. It may be a sign of caring but it usually doesn’t come across that way. Rather than defending something worth defending, it often seems to be attacking something, or someone. That’s why Jesus identified anger with murder. Angry words are indeed words that are meant to hurt. And people who are on the receiving end of anger know that they do hurt, and if we are struck hard enough or often enough from someone we love–say a parent or a lover–they can even have the power to destroy–destroy a relationship, happiness, health, a sense of self.
Paul said, “Be angry, but do not sin.” He knew that there is a difference between anger and sin. A person can be angry without sinning, but his statement also suggests that maybe there is a relationship, that anytime we really give ourselves to anger we are putting people at risk, both others who may be objects of our anger and ourselves, who can also be destroyed by our own anger.
So what are we to do? It usually does not help to hide, avoid, repress, or deny anger. But then merely expressing anger is usually not very helpful either. Anger usually comes over us as a kind of instinctive thing, an animal reaction almost. We do it, we strike out in anger, and then we have to try to figure out why. And that’s all right as long as we take the trouble to do that. As long as we are able to step back from our own anger and ask ourselves what it is saying to us. What is it teaching us? Even, what is God saying to us through this anger?
Sometimes we may learn good and positive things from our anger. We are reminded of what it is that truly is important to us, what it is that we are willing to fight for, go to battle for, if you will. Or we may be reminded of some particularly raw or vulnerable or sensitive place within us that is in need of healing. The anger will not do the healing, but it may point to the need that is within us.
Sometimes what we learn may not be so good or positive. We may realize, for instance, that what makes us angry is really not so very important. We may realize we are angered much more easily on behalf of ourselves than we are on behalf of others. As with anything else, learning is not necessarily a feel good activity. We may see things, looking at ourselves, that we would rather not see and wish were not there.
In that case we may seek God’s forgiveness. But we may also seek God’s strength to keep us at the task. It is a task we are called to–working on our anger. Not working to keep the lid on our anger, nor working on being able to express it, for neither one by itself is of any value. But working to make our anger articulate, working so that it says what we want it to say, working so that it says something positive rather than something negative, so that in anger we are standing up for something, not trying to strike someone down. Working so that our anger is not simply a standing up for ourselves but more and more becomes a standing up for others. All of this really is work. May God strengthen us for this work, for it is God who calls us to it Amen.
Jim Bundy
April 2, 2000