Dear friends,

The anger of Jesus in the lectionary verses of today makes us beg the question:  what is the sincere Christian to do about anger?  A few years ago a disturbed man, and –ironically- a member of a nearby Presbyterian church, stormed into a one room schoolhouse in Amish country, held the children hostage and then killed a number of them.  He too was one of the victims.  You could not find a more principled anti-war, anti-violence group of Christians in America than the Amish and hardly a group of human beings more innocent than Amish children.  It made the act even more senseless and heinous.  What happened after, although it is not as well known, is even more unnerving.  A group of Amish went to the house of the murderer’s family and told the family they had forgiven the murderer and them.  Then a group of Amish, including direct relatives of some of the slain children attended the murderer’s memorial service.  Could we have done that? Probably not.  Where was the anger?  Was it there or was in the hidden deep inside the community or deep inside the hearts of this reclusive group of Christians?  Was there anger at the murderer, was there anger at the easy accessibility of highly lethal weapons, was there anger at the indifference of the community that allowed the killer to go out of control, was there anger at the God to Whom they were so devoted.  As someone trained in counseling, I would be deeply concerned that there was some giant carpet these feelings have been swept under.

Friends, what happened to the meek Jesus? Jesus gets angry. He lets it rip. He does what counselors and pastors tell couples not to do:  he turns tables over and throws hard earned money on the floor of the temple grounds.  Last week Jesus was angry at Peter and called him Satan.  In other parts of the Gospels Jesus was angry and the Pharisees and Sadducees.  What do we do with that?  It does beg the question: when and how is anger appropriate, theologically speaking.

We have already examined the ways in which we get angry and the problems with that.  Obviously there is a role for anger, for otherwise it would not be such an emotion we fall into readily.  With a twenty four hour news cycle, our emotions are easily manipulated by the reporters on our favorite news channels.  We go back and forth between fear and anger. Actually so much anger comes out of fear.  This explains the tendency of many devout Christians to advocate war with any dictator anywhere.  It is anger that comes largely out of fear.  Realistically we should be a lot more afraid of the madmen that storm into school houses that of the madmen that terrorize far off populations.  But madmen they both are nonetheless and terrorize they both do.  We are like dogs I presume.  Behind our growl we are shaking.  But anger that comes out of fear is hard to justify.  We do not see Jesus get angry out of fear.  Then there is anger that comes with the desire for control.  We do not like people running our lives, or becoming an obstacle to our lives. “Get out of the way,” we snap on the road, “don’t cramp my style.  This is my lane.”  This kind of anger we do not see Jesus show either.  Next is anger at the way we see people abuse the system.  They seem to behave as if the rules don’t apply to them.  These are corrupt politicians and petty criminals and people that cheat in their relationships and in their finances.  This is what the Ten Commandments refer to: rules for not cheating on people, rules for not having other gods or making a god out of material things, rules about killing or wanting to take what others have.  This Jesus does not dispute. He understands there are laws and there are boundaries.  But He gets angry at the way the religious scholars use these rules to try to stop Jesus ministry.  So where does Jesus’ anger come from and what can we learn from it?

Friends, Jesus’ anger is justified because it is rooted in the love of God the Creator.  He gets angry when people stand in the way of God’s purpose.  He gets angry when a place of worship because a place of profit.  He gets angry when God’s mission of love is thwarted.  Yes, there is a need for anger, as long as we express it in ways that no not violate the dignity of others.  There should be anger when we know that children are still enslaved and we do nothing to stop it. There should be anger when we know we are changing the climate on this gem we call earth and we do almost nothing to stop it. There should be anger at the proliferation of arms in this country and the existence of nuclear arms.  There should be anger when people violate our dignity for petty things, for after all, we are God’s beloved creation too.  So let us try, friends, to move from the anger that comes out of fear and the anger that comes from the desire to control to righteous anger about the violation of the dignity of people and the integrity of all of God’s creation.  May God help us with that.  Amen