A Holy, Righteous Anger: A Sermon for Proper 14
Scripture has a wonderful way of speaking to us if we allow it to. As we work our way through our daily - or at least weekly –Bible reading, certain themes will emerge. During some seasons of the lectionary, themes like creation, covenant, or steadfast love might weave their way through our assigned readings. When I see a common theme on a given week, I will make a mental note, whether I preach on it or not. But when I see it re-emerge the very next week, and the week after, I begin to wonder if I should not only take note, but also take it as a sign from God that this is what God calling us to wrestle with as a church community.
Using this line of thinking, it appears that whether we feel like it or not, God is calling us to wrestle with anger.
The Apostle Paul addresses anger in our lesson for today - most likely because he has heard that the church in Ephesus was experiencing some sort of conflict. At least we can rest assured that our era of Christianity isn’t the first to get angry at one another. After all, whether we are in the 1st century or the 21st century, the church is made up of fallen, sinful human beings. We’re bound to make a mess of things every once in a while.
But perhaps because he knew that even his Lord and savior Jesus Christ was prone to anger from time to time, Paul doesn’t chastise the Ephesians for feeling angry. He actually encourages it. You see, it appears that some of the Ephesians were putting on a false front, and weren’t being honest about their anger. Maybe they believed that being angry was displeasing to God, so they tried to hide it. But Paul wasn’t buying it. He knew how they felt. And he wanted them to express it – to him and to one another - in an authentic, truthful way.
In last week’s lesson, Paul told the Ephesian Christians to speak the truth in love to one another. If the truth we speak is anger, as long as it is expressed in love, we are being faithful members of the body. It is not easy, but it is how we are called to live as one body with many members.
The warning that Paul issues to the Ephesians and to us is about what our anger can do to us, and where it can lead us if we are not careful. He says, “be angry, but do not sin.” He knew good and well that anger oftentimes manifests itself in unhealthy, sinful ways. Most of the time, anger is associated with violence, whether it is verbal or physical. Theologian Robert Roth said it well when he wrote, “Anger kills. Sometimes it is our physical or emotional undoing as we carry it around in our hearts and stomachs. Other times it fuels riots or wars. Uncontrolled or unmediated, anger kills.”
Understood that way, anger has certainly killed many communities, including many churches.
Paul goes on to say that when we let anger kill us so to speak, that is when we make room for the devil to move in. And that is when our anger leads us away from God and towards sin. And more times than not, that sin is violence of some sort.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. The sun doesn’t have to set on our anger. Our anger doesn’t have to be violent. We can “put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.” We can “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
Well, if you’re like me and you hear that from Paul, you’re thinking, “easier said than done.” After all, I find it very difficult to feel angry without feeling bitter or wrathful, or without succumbing to some sort of wrangling or slandering. To feel angry the way that Paul is asking me to feel angry is extremely difficult, and it takes a lot of hard work and discipline. In fact, feeling angry while also being kind might be the one of the hardest things for human beings to do.
But in spite of what many churches these days will try to tell us, being a Christian isn’t supposed to be easy. After all, as Paul reminds us, through our baptisms, we are called to “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and [to] live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Our calling is nothing short of imitating God - the very same God who “gave himself up for us.” This God, who we have come to know in Jesus Christ felt anger. But when he felt angry, it was a righteous anger grounded in love. He was oftentimes angry with his own disciples, who lived in itinerant community with him for three years. But he never alienated his disciples, and he never left them – not even Judas, who betrayed him or Peter who denied him.
St. Augustine said that “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” Jesus was indeed angry at the way things were during his three-year public ministry. He was demanding radical change in the religious system of which he was an active, faithful member. He wasn’t an outsider advocating for change. He was one of them. And his mission was one of hope – hope for the kingdom of heaven to be realized here on earth. Hope for his Father’s will to be done on earth and it is in heaven. But in the words of Augustine, that mission gave birth to two daughters – anger and courage. Anger and the way things were, and the courage to see that they did not remain as they were.
And as imitators of God, we are called to do them same. As followers of Christ, we are called to be a hopeful people. We are called to believe that things can and will be better for all of God’s creation. We are called to believe that there can be peace on earth and good will to all people. We are called to believe that as human beings, we can be reconciled with God and with one another, no matter how different we may be. We are called to believe that God has provided us with enough abundance that everybody can have enough – enough love, mercy, justice, food, shelter, natural resources, education, ansafety. The world tells us that this is nonsense, and that we are foolish to believe this. And to that, Paul says, “We are fools indeed! We are fools for Christ.”
And as fools for Christ, when we see that what we believe can and should be true hasn’t yet come to fruition, we are called to remain hopeful, which will give birth to anger and courage. But the anger we are called to isn’t a violent, destructive anger. It is a courageous, loving, honest anger that builds up instead of tearing down.
As a church community, we are made up of flawed, sinful human beings, and we are bound to get angry with one another, just as we are bound to get angry with how things are in the world around us. If we never felt angry at one another or at what we see on the evening news, then I’d worry that nobody cared. But as imitators of God, we are called to a standard that is radically different from what the world calls us to. We are called to ground our anger in love, not violence. We are called to genuine, authentic, healthy anger that pulls us closer to one another and closer to God. A difficult calling indeed. But we are not alone as we attempt navigate this countercultural way of being in the world. After all, we are all members of one body – that very same body that gave himself up on a cross for us; and that very same body that rose again from the dead three days. Anger filled with bitterness, wrath, and malice couldn’t kill Christ’s body then. As imitators of Christ, let’s make sure that it doesn’t kill us now.