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How
does one open a sermon that is a word scramble? Scramble being
my state of mind in relation to the topic, perhaps influenced
by the incongruity of working on the sermon while basking in
the tranquility of Stratford from a balcony overlooking Lake
Avon. I’m not presumptuous enough to say I intend to
unscramble the scripture around the issue of God’s wrath and
anger, but rather range over it. There you have
it, the word unscrambled: anger – range. The subtitle of the
sermon could either be “A & W is not a Root Beer”
or “The Anger Management Tour” (which shockingly is
the official name for the Eminem, Papa Roach, Ludacris,
Xecutioners and Xzbit national tour). Talk about irony!
Setting up our paradoxical relationship to anger: ours,
others’ and God’s. The rappers’ tour begins in Buffalo
and ends in Auburn Hills. So my tour shall begin in the Old
Testament and end in the New Testament.
This
sermon had its genesis at a recent Arbon Dennis Men’s Group
weekly gathering. Some of the best ideas surface at 6:30 AM.
We were reading and discussing the chapter on “Anger” in
Kathleen Norris’ wonderful book, Amazing Grace: A
Vocabulary of Faith. She opens her meditation on anger as
follows: “There is God’s anger, as depicted in the
scriptures, so notorious that it has become a comic staple.
One of the Ghostbusters, in relating to the mayor of New York
the general upheaval in that city caused by evil spirits,
describes it as plagues, earthquakes, real Old Testament
stuff.”
In
the discussion which followed, Dr. Ritter commented that
clergy can’t be angry! That while anger is one of the seven
deadly sins, for clergy it is the deadliest (although lust
fast appears to be gaining ground in certain circles). Why is
this so? Thomas Fuller wrote in the 17th century:
“Anger is one of the sinews of the soul.” It is
part and parcel of who we are.
Therefore,
in reflecting on anger, the following concerns come to mind.
What is it? What is its source? How is it manifest? When is
anger healthy? Can anger be healthy? What is the difference
between anger and righteous indignation? What is the
appropriate management of anger?
We
live in a world seemingly surrounded by anger. The therapists
have countless remedies, all saying that anger is a natural
emotion that needs a constructive outlet. The desert fathers,
however, prescribe prayer for the deadliest of passions. Yet
we are surrounded by Mike Tyson, Jihads, suicide bombers, road
rage, rap lyrics, abuse of spouses and children by loved ones,
parents and priests. The list seems to be getting longer!
What
is your anger story? Mine’s not pretty. Slow to anger but
like a volcano when it erupts. Once, over 25 years ago, I was
so angry at a minor childish infraction that I stomped on a
balloon and broke my foot, cursing the balloon and the child
who left it in my path. Was the child at fault? No. Was the
child a target for my anger? Yes. All inappropriate behaviors.
What was the origin of my anger? This is an example of what
the therapists call displaced anger. I prefer to call it
misplaced anger, not unlike the old saw of the breadwinner
coming home after a bad day at the office and kicking the dog.
Not one of my proudest moments, but at least the damage was
done to me and not a third party. What’s your anger
mismanagement story?
Dr.
Ritter’s comment that clergy can’t afford to display anger
is dead on. Early in my ministry in a place far away, I made
the mistake of venting my anger with a parishioner, not for
what they had done but because of how I perceived my son being
treated. Justified? Perhaps. A good choice? No. I paid dearly.
Hopefully I’ve learned something in the meantime. Kathleen
Norris reports that the desert monks considered anger to be
one of the most dangerous of human passions. The daily
newspaper headlines affirm that understanding.
If
anger is part of our emotional bank, why then are we afraid of
anger in ourselves, others and especially God?
Is anger a necessary part of the human and divine
condition?
Listen
to the word of God from Genesis 6:5ff: “The Lord saw that
the wickedness of humankind was great on the earth, and that
every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only
evil continually. And the Lord was sorry he that he had made
humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So
the Lord said: ‘I will blot out from the earth the human
beings I have created.’” You know the story as the
prologue to Noah and the Flood.
The
prophets are always good sources for expressions of God’s
anger. Listen to Isaiah 1:14-17: “Your new moons and your
appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden
to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your
hands I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many
prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood. Wash
yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your
doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do
good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.”
Or
Hosea 9:15: “Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal: there I
came to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deed I
will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all
their officials are rebels.”
Now
listen to the prophet Nahum, whose name ironically means
“the comforter.” Nahum 1:2ff: “A jealous and avenging
God is the Lord, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord
takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his
enemies. The Lord is slow to anger but great in power, and the
Lord will by no means clear the guilty.” Had enough already?
This passage is seldom if ever read in church. Ever heard a
sermon on Nahum and the destruction of Nineveh? Talk about an
angry God!
These
are the kind of passages that have disturbed many in my
Disciple class as we have just finished the Old Testament. The
God depicted above and in stories like Sodom and Gomorrah and
others horrifies us. Why are we angry that God is angry? Is it
fear? Fear of our own guilt? That God’s anger might turn on
us? The innocent? In the Old Testament, God holds the covenant
people (the whole people of Israel) accountable, which perhaps
offends our individualistic notions. Yet haven’t we all
experienced punishment of the group, such as a team, for the
infractions of a few? Remember those laps or push-ups because
someone else was dogging it? These passages run counter to
Jesus meek and mild. Where’s the God of forgiveness, we
might ask?
Let
us turn to the New Testament. Jesus never gets mad, right?
Listen to these passages from Matthew 23:13 ff: “Woe to you
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites because you shut out the
kingdom of heaven against mankind… Woe to you…for you have
neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy
and faith…” Seven times, no less, Jesus inveighs against
the Pharisees and Scribes in strong and no uncertain language.
He calls them to task for their legalisms and narrow
perspective, in effect saying they miss the picture of God’s
steadfast love and mercy. Righteous indignation, if you ask
me.
Paul
reports in Romans 1:18: “For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those
who by their wickedness suppress truth,” and Romans 2:5:
“But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up
wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous
judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according each
one’s deed.” Not what I want to hear. But at least it
seems to shift judgment out to the end of time. Quite frankly,
there is no easy way of reconciling the wrath of the lamb in
Revelation 6:17 (“For the great day of their wrath has come
and who is able to stand”) with “Father forgive them, for
they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24). It remains an
unresolved tension in the New Testament and the entire
Christian tradition.
Living
with that tension is the challenge. Much like a loving parent
who must punish and hold accountable a child out of love, this
tension is best portrayed in the book of Jonah 3:10-4:4.
Listen:
When
God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways,
God changed his mind about the calamities that he had said he
would bring upon them (the Ninevites); and he did not do it.
(Nahum refers) But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he
became angry. He prayed to the lord and said: “O Lord! Is
not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That
is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that
you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from
punishing. And now O Lord, please take my life from me, for it
is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said,
“Is it right for you to be angry?”
Isn’t
that where we are? Isn’t that the question for the ages? Is
that why the Prodigal Son story disturbs us, in that justice
does not seem done, especially to the faithful brother?
Don’t we want to see the Taliban and Al Qaeda punished like
Nineveh and not spared, regardless of the innocent lives lost
along the way? You fill in your blanks. My anger is at Enron
who has besmirched the good name of commerce for greed.
Don’t spare them, I say!! God abandons his anger and Jonah
becomes angry in return. Feelings of vengeance and retribution
are both symptoms of anger.
Theologians
and preachers through the centuries have tackled God’s
anger. Some proclaim it as the “good news” in the hell,
fire and brimstone sermons that drove you from your church.
Some deny the notion of God’s wrath. Not so easy, I say. The
words are clear, but as in all scripture, one extreme is
usually balanced by another, such that we live in the tension.
For Karl Barth, the wrath of God is “nothing other than the
redemptive fire of his love.” The Anglican divine and poet
George Herbert has written: “Throw away thy wrath O my God,
take the gentle path…then let wrath remove; love will do the
deed.” In Dame Julian of Norwich’s words: “There is no
wrath in God, just ourselves.”
The
issue is not so much can God be angry, but what do the
scriptures tell us about the source of God’s anger? Listen
again to Isaiah: “Seek justice; rescue the oppressed, defend
the orphan, plead for the widow.” There you have it. God is
angry at injustice. That is what all the prophets go on and on
about. Those who suppress the truth, Paul tells us in Romans.
Lack of penitence, we are advised. In a word, God abhors
wickedness for violating the covenant by turning to false
idols and treating the poor unjustly!! What then gets our
anger up?
Healthy
anger, it seems to me, came in the form of Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr.’s non-violent resistance. Teddy Roosevelt
wrote indignantly against lynching, observing that twelve-
year-old boys who had been observed participating
“would be brutalized for life.” Slavery was brought
down by the righteous anger of the abolitionists. William
Jennings Bryan’s famous speech to the National Democratic
Convention in 1896 is an example of righteous indignation:
“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this
crown of thorn. Thou shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of
gold.” What are you angry about, or should I say passionate
about? In our congregation, a good example of righteous
indignation is a certain choir member who has a passion about
the gospel imperative to care for the hungry.
Kathleen
Norris sums it up well when she writes: “God’s anger, as
evidenced in the prophets and in some of the more prophetic
sayings of Jesus, is an impetus to love, a command to set
things right.” What is it you want to set right in your own
life, in your family, in the world?
What
then is the good news? God’s anger is also taken up on the
cross. So that God’s love might triumph? Listen again to
Paul in Romans 5:9: “Much more surely then, now that we have
been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from
the wrath of God!!!”
What
is the antidote to anger? Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ
said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the
greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You
shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew
22:37-40). Say no more. As Shakespeare wrote: “All’s well
that ends well.” It is called the Resurrection. We may
dislike God’s anger, but we can not dismiss the source of
God’s anger. Here endeth our anger management scramble.
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