Sermon Tone Analysis

10 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5 Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,

but a body you have prepared for me;

6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings

you have taken no pleasure.

7 Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’

(in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”

8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.”

He abolishes the first in order to establish the second.

10 And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Introduction: Broken Controllers

A friend of mine were talking a while back about how angry we would sometimes get as kids when we were losing at a video game.

He told me that he once got so angry playing Mario Kart that he slammed the controller on the ground, and broke the joystick.

Not completely, but just enough so that he couldn’t make a right turn.

Doing some quick thinking, he continued right on playing his game, just knowing that any time he wanted to go right, he had to turn left three times in a row.

Some how he still won a couple of races.

It might sound odd both in a series on the five things I most need you to know, and on world communion Sunday, to focus on anger.

But trust me, I think this topic has somewhere to take us.

But first…you have to imagine with me.

Thought Experiment: The Caveman

I got this from Rob Bell, but imagine you’re a caveman (or woman)

Just outside the cave, you come to discover an apple try coming out of the ground.

You observe it for a little while, and eventually discover that this apple tree from time to time, in particular seasons, will give you something that you can eat.

Your ability to survive or not depends greatly on this apple tree right outside your cave.

But...

What comes from the ground seems to rely on something you can’t control.

At least as a cave person, you can’t really control what happens to this plant, or the things that it most needs to survive.

Rain

Some days it rains way too much, and the plant gets washed away.

Some days it rains way too little, and the plant withers up and dies.

And you can’t control how much rain comes from the sky, it just happens.

Sun

If the weather is too hot, then again the plant with wither and die.

If your cave is in ancient Western PA, then your plant may never actually SEE the sun.

Other creatures

Also if your cave is in ancient Western PA, then there’s a better than zero percent chance that a deer is going to come along in the middle of the night and eat all of your apples before you have a chance.

Or maybe the tree gets infected with worms.

Or maybe there is some other thing that is totally out of your control.

The thing you can’t control...

And so in your caveman brain, you start to wonder if maybe there’s something, or someone, who controls all the things you can’t control.

Maybe this thing you can’t control is bigger, more powerful than you.

Maybe you start to call this thing you can’t control God.

You want that thing that you can’t control to be happy with you.

When everything is right, when the apple tree produces lots of extra fruit for you and your cave family to eat, then clearly the thing you can’t control is happy with you.

This must be because you did something right, you made the gods happy.

And so to say thank you, you engage in a sacrifice.

Maybe you offer up a portion of your fruit for that week as a way to say thank you to the thing you can’t control.

You loose a little bit of what you’ve harvested, but at least the thing you can’t control is happy, so maybe next year there will be more.

But if that thing you can’t control is angry with you...

When the bad things happen, like too much rain or deer eating your apples, you assume that the thing you can’t control is angry with you.

Clearly somewhere along the way you did something that upset this God, and so God is punishing you.

What do you do?

You sacrifice more.

You want to get back on this thing you can’t control’s good graces, and so instead of just a thank you offering, you start offering a “please don’t get mad at me” sacrifice.

Now you’re loosing more and more of your crop.

Worse yet, suppose that this sacrifice actually fixes things, and the thing you can’t control becomes happy.

You can’t take away from that sacrifice now, right?

That might make it worse again!

And this is where the world got the idea of an Angry God.

Everything you do should be to make God happy.

People who worship an angry God aren’t motivated by joy.

They’re motivated by fear.

They don’t want God to be angry.

They don’t want God to be upset.

They don’t want to have to face God’s wrath.

Don’t you dare step out of line.

People who worship an angry God go out of their way to make rules and then live inside them.

If I only have a list of ten things not to do, I know I’ll be ok.

If I just manage to stay in this lane, God won’t mess with me.

And oh by the way, I don’t want you stepping outside the bounds of my rules and regulations either, so I’m going to make signs and hold protest rallies to make sure everyone plays by my version of my Angry God’s rules.

Christian Karma

Even Christians today tend to believe in some version of an angry God, and it’s kind of remarkable what they come up with.

If I do good things, if I’m a force for good in the world, then surely the Angry God won’t be so angry, and good things will come my way.

If I am suffering, if I am facing difficulty, then it must be because of something I did way back that has upset God, and maybe if I repent enough things will get back to how they should be.

It’s essentially a version of Christian Karma, which the Bible actually does nothing at all to support, does it?

Here’s what I’ve come to discover these days:

Followers of an Angry God tend to be Angry people

Anger is our culture’s current favorite emotion, isn’t it?

I used to play a game where I would turn on the TV, and see how long it took before someone was advertising something to me.

It usually wasn’t long at all.

We can play the same game sadly, but instead ask how long it takes before you come across someone who’s angry about something.

If you turn your TV to the news, you’re not even going to last a second.

But it’s bigger than news too, isn’t it?

Anger is a drug our culture is extremely addicted to right now.

It’s easy to be angry, and no one is going to call you out on it right now.

I think in part because we’ve confused garden variety anger with passion and justice, no one will ever bother you for being angry.

In fact, they’ll probably celebrate it!

They’ll admire you for being so passionate about something, about sticking to your beliefs, about trying to solve a problem.

Meanwhile, there are two problems there:

The first is that anger all by itself doesn’t really actually solve any problems.

We know this on some kind of deep level, and yet we all seem to think that if we’re angry about something, some injustice in the world, then clearly we participated in its solution.

But the second, and biggest problem with all of this anger, is that it just isn’t the way God works at all.

Once and For All

I went to IUP and studied comparative religions, which means I got a sample size class in just about all the world’s major religions.

And it turns out, most of the religions of the world kind of have this angry God mentality about them.

All the other religions of the world say that things work this way.

Sacrifice for your God

Don’t Step Out of Line

Follow the Rules