Scripture: Luke 18:1-8
I didn’t intend to do a standard sermon this morning, that is to occupy a 15-20 minute block of time in the middle of the service. When I heard that the Charlottesville Women’s Choir would be able to be with us in worship today, and that they would be up for singing several pieces at different times in the service, I began to think in a different direction.
I knew from hearing about the Women’s Choir, and from hearing one of their concerts, that they don’t just sing sort of a standard repertoire of choral music, that the music they bring has a purpose and a substance to it that, whatever they chose to sing, would carry its own message. And so, I thought, maybe my message today should come in the form of a conversation with whatever that message was the choir would bring to us. I was thinking of weaving my remarks around the choir’s music and shaping the service that way. Except for the fact that I know from experience that such things often take up a lot more time and energy than just doing the usual thing, it seemed like a good idea and I was more or less committed to it.
Until Thursday evening a week ago, when I went to a program I had seen advertised that had something to do—this is all I knew when I decided to go—something to do with the Lewis and Clark bi-centennial celebrations, but maybe a minority or dissenting voice on those celebrations that came from a Native American perspective. I went in a sort of non-committal way, interested in the subject (though not too clear about it), having vaguely heard of the speakers, wanting to meet people locally concerned about issues relating to native Americans, wanting to support what seemed like a worthwhile effort of providing a way for alternative voices to be heard, but ready to leave early without too much provocation and spend at least part of the evening at home.
The first speaker was a professor from UVa who had done a good deal of work on Indian schools and their place in government policy toward Native Americans throughout the nineteenth century. He presented material that was disturbing and not very flattering to the United States government, to the people who occupied the land as the nation moved west, to the people who made policy related to the nations of indigenous peoples, or to the people who carried it out. He presented plenty of evidence of horrible things done in the name of civilizing and/or Christianizing native peoples, horrible enough that by the end I couldn’t describe what was done as in any way having good intentions. It was a pretty grim story he told, but he told it in a very calm, matter-of-fact sort of way. He pretty much let the facts, and the pictures that were part of his presentation, speak for themselves.
The next speaker was way different. His name was Ward Churchill, a person I thought maybe I had encountered somewhere in my past, but couldn’t exactly place. He began by thanking the previous speaker and saying that he found everything he said to be very accurate, but that he had been too nice, way too nice, and he wasn’t going to be so nice. And he wasn’t. For two hours or more, he wasn’t nice. He didn’t care what time it was getting to be because he was busy building his case, which he did many times over, that what the United States government and the dominant culture had done to Native Americans could be considered nothing less than genocide. Ward Churchill had probably given this speech countless times, but it was not routine to him. He was angry. Not over the top angry, not out of control angry. Not screaming, ranting, or raving angry. But unmistakably angry. Angry enough that that’s what I was getting from him, and that’s what I remember, more than anything specific that he said, though what he specifically had to say was worth hearing.
I was sitting in the back row (so I could exit easily if I wanted to), sitting in the back row observing, thinking to myself that this is an angry man, and wondering what he does with all that anger, and being troubled somewhat by it. Is this the kind of thing that you turn on and off, get all stirred up and then go home and flick on the TV, check the e-mail, have a snack and go to bed? Is that what he does? Is that what he wants us to do? And if not that, what? As I say I was a little troubled by his anger.
Then, I began to be a little troubled by my lack of anger. There I was, in the back row no less, analyzing in a detached, dispassionate sort of way another person’s anger as he was presenting a story that ought to make anyone angry. I had been wondering how helpful his approach was. But it was more appropriate, I began to realize, for me to wonder how helpful my lack of anger was. Rather than Ward Churchill troubling me, I began to trouble me.
It is, of course, the question of privilege again. Whether we’re talking about white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, any kind of privilege part of the point of course is that those who are so privileged by their whiteness or maleness or straightness can afford to be dispassionate and analytical about the anger of others, can afford to be calm and matter-of-fact about the oppression of others, can afford to sit back and give a sad shake of the head and let it go at that, can afford even to ignore it altogether if they so choose. As a person who is privileged in all of those ways, I am subject to the spiritual hazards of privilege on a regular basis, and it was brought home to me again last Thursday, this time with the question of anger as a central issue. The questions didn’t disappear from my inner life over the next few days, and knowing that the same kinds of questions would be relevant to the concerns the Women’s Choir would bring us, I began to feel the need to preach a real sermon about anger, about our need for anger.
I am, of course, aware that anger is not normally viewed as one of the major virtues to be cultivated in the Christian life. It would usually be treated in sermons, for instance, I suspect, as something to be avoided if possible, or overcome by things that are virtues such as love or forgiveness or compassion, or at the very least as something to be recognized and accepted but only as a stage that we pass through as often happens in the grieving process. Therapeutically, I would guess, anger is most often treated, well as something to be treated, not generally a good thing, something to be recognized and admitted, but something that it would be good to be able to work through somehow with the final goal of being less angry or at least less likely to act on one’s anger.
It occurred to me though, hardly a profound thought, that anger is not all one thing, that there are many types of anger, that we probably should have lots of different words for anger, the way some native cultures in Alaska have many words for ice. There is anger that does physical or emotional harm to another person. There is anger that comes from being harmed. There is anger that is harmful to one’s self and that needs to be released for one’s own good. There is anger that is necessary for one’s own good. There is anger that is displaced and sprayed around on unsuspecting targets. There is anger that is turned inward. There is my anger that is because of an injury done to me, and my anger because of an injury done to someone else. There is anger of things too trivial to be angry about, anger that is unjustified, anger that is justified but counter-productive. There is telemarketer anger, computer pop-up message anger, rudeness anger, incompetence anger, talk show anger, road rage anger, and all sorts of anger I haven’t mentioned, not to mention the different combinations and sub-categories of the above. There are all kinds of anger, and it’s true that most of them we would be better off without. But not all.
I remembered, as I was thinking about this, a story I had heard about Tony Campolo, an author and speaker very popular with a wide range of Christian audiences. He was speaking, the story goes, to a rather proper Christian audience and was talking about the rather lackadaisical attitude of Christian churches generally toward the suffering in the world, and he’s reported to have said, “The problem is that Christians in this country generally don’t give a shit about the fact that millions of children are going to bed hungry tonight. The problem is that you are going to be angrier that I said shit than you are that millions of children are going to bed hungry.” He could have used lots of examples of course. We are not angry enough about what has been done and continues to be done to Native Americans and indigenous people all over the world. We are not angry enough about the way the Christian church has treated women, outside its fold and inside its fold, in the past and in the present. We are not angry enough about racism, not angry enough about the injustices inflicted on sexual minorities, not angry enough…
I do believe that anger in general is a problem for us, that too many people are too angry in our society right now. I believe we would benefit by having more real communication and less venting. I know anger in general is not good for a person’s physical health or emotional well-being. I have experienced the destructive effects of anger in my personal life. I have experienced it in churches. I know there are all sorts of good reasons in all sorts of situations to want to control anger, defuse anger, or get rid of it entirely. But today I’m wanting to say that there is a certain anger, a certain kind of anger that needs to be cultivated and not let go of and not soothed out of existence. There is some core, some kernel of anger that needs to be in us, that is in fact a pearl of great price, that gives an edge and an urgency to our living, and that both we and the world we live in would be poorer without.
There are lots of scriptures that relate to anger. Many of them tell us it’s not a good thing. Paul says that we shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger. Jesus compares it to murder. “You’ve heard it said that you shall not murder…I say to you to not be angry with a sister or brother.” On the other hand there are lots of instances where the people of God do get angry, prophets get really angry, Jesus gets angry, God gets angry, sometimes for good and understandable reasons, sometimes for reasons that aren’t so clear. I had a bunch of scriptures to choose from, but what I was most drawn to was a scripture that is not usually thought of as being about anger but rather about prayer.
It is, as you heard, a parable Jesus told about a woman who had a matter of justice she was trying to get heard by a judge who didn’t care. She keeps at it though until she finally gets the justice she’s looking for. This is interpreted in the scripture itself as a lesson about the need to be persistent in prayer. No problem. But what I’m thinking is that this fictional woman’s persistence had to be fueled by something like that kernel of anger I referred to a moment ago. In any case, any non-fictional persistence in the pursuit of justice I might have needs to be fueled by that kernel of anger that doesn’t allow me to quit a pursuit of justice with a shake of the head or a shrug of the shoulders and an , “Oh, well.”
One of our problems too is that we have such a tame view of what prayer is all about. We think of it as an expression of our desires for good things to happen for people, whoever they are—health, happiness, healing, comfort, peace, solutions to problems. And prayer is all those things, partly all those things for me. But it is also for me a place of struggle. Prayer, my own private prayer, is where it is determined what my heart and spirit will be fixed on, what I am going to be committed to. Prayer is where I gain whatever of courage or determination or persistence I may have. Prayer is where I try to give anger its proper place in my spiritual life.
People who are very busy and seem to find themselves having said yes to yet another group, meeting, or activity often talk about the need to learn to say no. There is another sense in which we need to learn to say no. There are things in our world that we need to say no to, not no, I don’t think that’s such a good idea, but no with an edge of anger to it, if you will, an anger that doesn’t go away and that doesn’t let us say no just timidly and once in a while, an anger that makes our no persistent. Prayer is where I learn what it is I am going to be able to say no to, where I resolve to say no, this is not o.k., that is not acceptable, not just the way things are, not something I can feel bad about for a few moments before I get back to what I really need to be doing, not something I can fail to be angry about.
Somewhere among the resources I collect from various places, I found a sentence—I don’t know where it’s taken from, but it says: “Hope has two lovely daughters: anger, so that what must not be, will not be, and courage, so that what can be will be.” In those regards, I have a long way to go, but I intend to keep working on it. Amen.
Jim Bundy
May 18, 2003