Examining Anger
Gospel Reflection Luke 13:10-17
For Drew and Jessica who loves him
It was Christmas Day, either 2015 or 2016, one or the other. There was one service that morning and then our family would get in the car and drive to Michigan to be with family. There were no longer direct flights from Richmond to Grand Rapids like there were when we lived in Orlando, but neither was it a 20-hour car ride. We’d get there by midnight unless weather (obviously). But we were having some problems. It started because I insisted we leave from church, right after the service. This meant a packed car; we *mostly* were ready, but not all of us agreed on the time to leave and those who disagreed were vocal about it. There was some grousing about the presents given, and some of us thought that because I was a mom, I should be making the coffee that morning. I tell it like this. I felt the red hot rage enter my body. I swore that morning at my college+ aged children and I dumped on them. I remember saying something about how I shouldn’t be making the coffee — fair point. But I also remember saying that I’d gotten nothing I wanted in years for either my birthday or Christmas for many seasons. I also remember my dog looking at me as if she didn’t know me.
My anger wasn’t the righteous anger that Jesus expressed to the leader of the synagogue, irate over the small-minded interpretation of the law, furious that they couldn’t see the kindom of God unfolding in front of their very eyes, as Jesse, provoked by the “needless” correction and the injustice, let his rage fly.
Neither was my anger like the indignant leader of the synagogue because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. And that might not have been the only reason that the leader was indignant. That woman healed was most likely either a beggar — unable to work — or she lived, unmarried with her parents, where she bore the “shame” of being evil or sinful, as people with disabilities were thought to be in the time of Jesus.
So why was she chosen? Why not someone more worthy? At least a person of importance, one of “them.” Do you think that indignant leader would have been furious if Jesus had healed his wife or his mother? Or his sister? Or his friend’s wife? It might have also been her immediate response, to praise God, distracting everyone again from his authority yet again, that also infuriated him. And then the crowd was getting into it! We hear our indignant leader speaking to the crowd, “Quiet Down now! There are rules to be followed that Jesus isn’t following. Do you even remember the Ten Commandments? Six out of seven days, someone can heal. There’s a lot of days for that! Keep it down in there. You can’t do that, Jesus. You just can’t heal just anywhere.”
Anger is at the center, when it should have been healing.
But before we knock anger, let’s take a minute.
What makes you angry? For me, it’s
When people are mean to my children.
When people are mean in general.
When Asher says “no” to me (I’m getting over this one).
When people say “single parenting” when they’re only doing it for a weekend.
When people say “father X, Father Y, Father M, and Molly” without a title.
There are some things that should make us angry. We can name them — they parallel our baptismal vows
Spiritual forces of wickedness rebel against God.
Evil powers of this world that corrupt and destroy us.
When hate reigns instead of love, especially those who are voiceless or bent over.
When humanity is forgotten.
When injustice and violence reign.
When the dignity of all humans is not respected.
Or to put it into the clarity of the here and now: Gaza City and the famine. Children being deported. When others doubt the humanity of people I love. Climate change. Greed. Enslavery. The loss of the rain forest. Inequality. The continuous exploitation of one another. Genocide.
And it’s not only us who experience anger. It’s also God. God is a God of passion, like us. God did not create us to be unfeeling. God created us to be part of this beautiful and profound world, where our actions matter, where the things we do have consequences, where we change things a little at a time by loving our God and our neighbor, by calling out the wrongs one at a time, by living our own small space of the truth that God has placed in our hearts and in our bodies with conviction and passion. God has created us with passion, and when our passion is crossed, we get angry. .
And anger isn’t a sin. It only says in the scripture “in your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26) and “be slow to become angry” (James 1:19).
I should have thought it on that Christmas Day when I was cussing at my children.
Yet anger tells us that something isn’t right. Is it injustice? Is it the lack of dignity? Is it violence? Is it ego? Is it our expectations? We must ask these questions. Secondly, anger reminds us that we should be paying better attention, that we don’t live in a world of just ourselves, but a human community. We belong to one another; we live in webs of connections with our small communities and with the whole world. Thirdly, anger is one way of recognizing aberrant behavior that our social interactions can’t abide. When Philip punched Cole in the 3rd grade classroom, he had to write an apology and had to read it to Cole. Cole had to apologize to Philip because he’d ignored Philip’s words when he asked him to stop. This is the sort of action that keeps the fabric of our world together. And anger also reminds us that we care. Jesus would not have gone off if it didn’t matter, if it wasn’t so obvious that the irate leader was wrong, systemically wrong. If that leader had rejoiced in the loosing, the loosing of the bondage of Satan, the freeing — the Greek word here is not the one usually used for healing, it’s the one meaning released, pardoned, or free (and also the one used for “divorce”), Jesus would not have responded. Because for that woman, healing was freedom and restoration and crowd knew it. That’s why they cheered when the irate leader was put down. They knew that that belonged to her, and she belonged to them, that her healing was closer to them than the leader and his dogmatic rules that kept her less than she was called to be.
This past week, one of the giants of the Evangelical world died. James Dobson did much to shape the Christian narrative of the 90’s through now, with his many books, his institute Focus on the Family, his insistence on physical discipline of children, his leadership in the religious right, and his condemnation of abortion and same sex marriage as “wickedness” Dobson is a controversial and political figure, one who harmed so many, those whose family structures didn’t fit his box, women, children, and especially our LGBTQ+ siblings. I’d even argue that Dobson’s perspectives also harmed the men who followed his prescriptions. But let me tell you one thing — Dobson thought that parents should “break the will” of their children. Just for a minute hold that. “Break their will.” Maybe Dobson meant well, yet this was one of his things — he wanted parents to “break the will,” to feel like the only thing they could do was obey. Do you hear this? “Breaking the will” means that anger is no more, only hopelessness, only despair, only depression. This is why a whole generation of people are denouncing Dobson and his theology. Dobson was opposite of Jesus and the releasing, the pardoning, and the freeing.
Yet, always and already our own anger must be examined. When we feel that rage, we’ve got to look deeper. We’ve got to spend time with ourselves and that very thing that sets it off. Some of us might need to spend a whole bunch of time with our anger especially if it’s one of our signatures, or so common that it tastes to us like water. It can take time, but anger is one sign we need to attend the inner life. It’s also important to attend to our anger if we have none. This might be a sign that you need fan adjustment, that you’ve spent too much time putting all under the rug. Get some therapy. Anger is one of our very human emotions and very normal.
Believe me, I did a postmortem on my anger after that Christmas Day, looking carefully at what had caused my bust up. Giving myself the benefit of the eyes of love, there was a lot going on. Three intense and long services the day and late night before, organizing and planning everything, trying to make a Christmas Day trip across the country, living in a post-divorce world where holidays seem like heartbreak distilled to name some. But at that moment, when red hot rage poured out of me, I couldn't name any of those reasons. None of that belonged on my children’s backs. I apologized, like I should have. But there is still a kernel of anger there, anger that things weren’t the way I expected them to be. I’m working through this one. It might take a generation, but I’m chipping away at it with the help of my therapist..
So when you feel the rage, you’ve got to be able to know which one it is. Is it a rage, like that leader of the synagogue, one that leads to oppression, or one that is leading you or someone else to releasing, pardoning, or freeing? Is it one that needs a long walk by yourself, or one that burns until you speak it? Is it one that you need help with? It is one that you need to fan a little, to keep your energy faced in the right direction, towards those who need your voice?
Our times demand this work. I’ll be praying for you. Please pray for me.