· Jonah 3:10-4:11
· Psalm 145:1-8 (8)
· Philippians 1:21-30
· Matthew 20:1-16
Anger and the Bible. That's a vast topic.
To prepare today's sermon, I got the concordance and started to read every instance of the word "anger". What I found was very different from what we hear out of the mouths of good church-going Christians. We tell each other that "anger is a deadly sin". "Resentment is the worst sin you can commit." "The Bible warns us constantly about anger."
That's not true. I just read 271 instances of "anger" and that's just not what the Bible says.
In today's reading we see Jonah, sulking outside the city, waiting for God to destroy it. Does God smite Jonah for being angry? Does God smite Jonah for being resentful? Does God even "warn" Jonah about his anger? No. God says "yo, Jonah, is it right for you to be angry?" God does not rebuke Jonah, he tries to start a dialogue.
Why do we make such a big deal of anger, when God himself doesn't? Sometime in the twenty years since I finished high school, we began to tell ourselves that challenging somebody's ego is a horrible sin. I blame Oprah, but who knows really where it came from? Somehow we have convinced ourselves that the world owes it to us to validate us, encourage us, tell us we're a beautiful and unique snowflake, and never, ever challenge our ego. So we're now a civilization of brittle egos. We can't tell a kindergartner he's wrong. We can't tell an employee he's wrong. We can't tell a friend he's wrong. Our egos can't handle that.
But anger is our body or our mind's way of telling us something is wrong. If we express anger, we're implying that someone, probably in our immediate vicinity, is wrong. And that would challenge his or her ego, therefore we must not express anger. And if we can't express anger, it's best if we don't feel it, so we tell each other it's a horrible, horrible, deadly, unforgiveable sin. Even though God himself said no such thing.
We might claim that we're being Christ-like when we avoid anger; or more often, we suggest to others that they should be more Christ-like and stop being mad at us. After all, Paul did warn us against anger. Galatians 5:19-21 "Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Also in Colossians 3:8, "but now you must get rid of all such things – anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth." And again in Ephesians 4:31-32 "Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving to one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you."
But that's Paul talking, and it's misleading. We know, and he knew, that we're saved by faith alone. God did not make these lists of sins; Paul did, to call congregations to harmonious, Christ-like community life. God did not say "thou shalt not be angry". Not on the stone tablets, not even to Jonah. He said "is it right for you to be angry?"
Sometimes it is right for us to be angry. Without anger there would be no labour rights, no abolition of slavery, no universal suffrage, no social justice, no advocacy. Without anger, there is no end to abuse, because anger is our way of knowing we are abused. God did not call us to be milquetoasts and suffer blandly and mindlessly every wrong that is done us. Yes, Christ told us to turn the other cheek, but he did not say to be pointless victims. We turn the other cheek to stop the escalation of violence; as did Gandhi, as did Martin Luther King Jr., as did others who won non-violently against those who wronged them. They turned the other cheek to violence, but they did not stop struggling. They did not stop pointing out the abuses. They did not stop acknowledging the righteous anger of the abused. They fought, non-violently, and they won.
Most of us will never achieve such great things through our anger, but still it is right sometimes for us to be angry. And this implies that sometimes, someone else is right to be angry at us. So when our brother is angry at us, instead of telling him that "the Bible says for you to stop being angry", we should look at ourselves, honestly, without freaking out over our challenged ego, and ask ourselves, "did I indeed wrong my brother? Is it right for him to be angry with me?"
God did not get his ego all bent out of shape because of Jonah's anger. He accepted Jonah's anger and started a dialogue about it. And he used a psychological trait called "theory of mind": our ability to understand that what goes on in our brother's head is different from what goes on in ours. Without theory of mind, we cannot understand each other's actions or feelings, and we cannot have compassion. Therefore, if we cannot accept our brother's anger and understand his point of view, we are not Christ-like. We are twisting the words, not even of Christ himself, but of Paul, to claim that Christ sides with us against our angry brother, whom we may very well have wronged.
God uses his theory of mind to understand why Jonah is angry, and calls on Jonah's theory of mind to understand why he, God, spared Nineveh. This dialogue, this ability to understand each other's point of view, is the key to getting along. Repressing our anger, or misusing the word of God to avoid answering to our brother's anger, only leaves wrongs unresolved and builds resentment.
Theory of mind is a physical process of the brain, and like all our physical processes, it can be exercised or allowed to atrophy. So instead of allowing brittle egos to forbid conflict resolution, let us practice dialogue and theory of mind, and so be truly Christ-like in overcoming anger.
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