Rightly Ordered Desires

The New Revised Standard Version Concerning Anger

Concerning Anger

(Lk 12:57–59)

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

Concerning Adultery

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

Concerning Divorce

(Mt 19:9; Mk 10:11–12; Lk 16:18)

31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Concerning Oaths

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

Story

I sat at a table outside the Black Drop Coffeehouse on Champion St. and seethed with anger. My vision was tightened, giving me a familiarity the term “blind rage.” I sat there with my mentor and listed all the ways my new boss was limiting my gifts, destroying my hard work, ignoring my potential. I was so angry. That person was a fool. My heart was swollen with contempt.

My mentor listened. They didn’t agree with me, but didn’t deny my feelings. They let my anger speak.

And then, they offered me a possibility: was it possible that I had healing to do, as well? That perhaps I was upset about things that we actually connected to a deeper hurt? Was this perhaps a matter of my heart, just as much as it was a matter of this other person’s mistakes?

Uncomfortable Ethics

These teachings and prohibitions are likely to make us all squirm a bit. We like Jesus when he’s talking about loving our neighbor or taking care of the poor — these teachings make us feel good because we can, most of the time at least, do this. I can love my neighbor (I can be kind to the person I spend my days with), sure.

But now we’ve moved into saltier territory. And Jesus clearly knows this.

Each of the four sections of today’s text begins with Jesus saying, “you have heard it said…but I say to you...” He’s making sure every teaching is qualified with original, accepted cultural truths, but then each time the ante is upped. He’s making it, conceivably, even harder to abide by the expectations God’s reign.

Can’t he just go back to inviting the children to come sit with him? Or to making a big feast out of a few fish and loaves of bread? We like that guy better, don’t we?

But don’t we know it — if we’re going to love our neighbor, we are also going to have to address these deeper matters. Because sometimes, you want to harm your neighbor. Sometimes you want to undress your neighbor in lust. Sometimes you want to kick your neighbor to the curb. Sometimes you want to lie to your neighbor. So what do we do with all of that?

You may be saying, “no I don’t, I don’t ever act like that or feel like that.” Well…good for you. And…you’re lying to yourself. Open your eyes. We all do. Not because we’re wicked, but because its hard not to feel contempt or lust or malice at times when you live in community with other complicated, messy people.

We feel anger. The fire of lust burns. We sever our relationships, marriages or friendships. We say one thing and do another. Be honest, we do these things. Our hearts are in need of healing. There is a hunger in us for something better. The seeds of these struggles are pain, fear, loneliness, past hurts, and unfulfilled hopes.

We feel Anger

Raca/“you fool” = Contempt

Adultery

“for it is not the fruit of adultery that he commands us to cast out, but its seed.”

Divorce

Casting aside a beloved, disenfranchising and making vulnerable

Oaths

Purity of heart speaks a confident “yes” — a disordered heart cannot.

Matters of the Heart

At the core of this text is the meat of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Deep within all of Jesus’ wisdom is a call to do the work within ourselves to find wholeness. These are matters of the heart.

I’ve titled this sermon “Rightly Ordered Desires” because these matters of the heart speak to both the disarray that our internal world can be like, and the hope and possibility that God might make us new and reorder all that we desire and long for in our hearts in a way that leads to greater flourishing and wholeness.

Perhaps you still think, “well, I certainly don’t have the desire to kill anyone...” Ok, sure, that’s great. But what we’re talking about here is more subtle than that. It’s the anger that wells up in you and leads you into places of pain and fear. The question we have to ask is, “where does that pain come from? What am I trying to protect in myself by being angry at this person?”

A heart made whole in the way of Jesus is not immune to anger. Anger arises. But a heart made whole finds a way to turn that anger into something productive, generating change. Think of how Jesus instructs us on anger — “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Think of it this way: the disordered desire of anger put us at odds with your neighbor. But a rightly ordered desire that anger awakens leads us to go and be face to face with the one who we need to reconcile with. It leads us to find peace and resolution, rather than stay in the sickness of Anger. It is a matter of changing our heart, being aware of all the pain in us, and finding a way through to reconciliation.

Take the example of lust and adultery as well. Jesus drives this one in deep, saying its not just the act of adultery, but the thoughts of lust that are disordered desires in us. Hear this, the desire has great potential to be redeemed, to be good, but as it is, in the undressing of the attractive person across the room or the longing to be close to the one who is prohibited from us…this is disordered. So what does rightly ordered desire look like here: Well, perhaps it looks like connecting with that inner longing in ourselves to be intimate and to be known. To be loved. To have connection with another person. And then to find places where that connection can happen that are loving and mutually beneficially. The act of lust is an act of power, of claiming. The act of love is an act of mutual submission and partnership.

Perhaps the rightly ordered desire of love can be fulfilled not through sexual gratification, but through finding the intimacy of a close friendship and family connection. Perhaps it is allowing yourself to be vulnerable to a friend here at church, allowing yourself to be known. Because the longing behind the lust or the adultery, it’s not about sexual gratification at its core — its about connection, about healing, about being truly known by another. Its about being our truest, most whole self and allowing another to know and appreciate and bless that self. It’s about our hearts.

In God’s reign, we are offered space for our hearts to be reordered, healed, restored, to a place of wholeness.

The wholeness of the inner person comes from the difficult work of healing those inner desires, finding what we are made for, not living into distorted and harmful outcomes of disordered longings that can often fester into anger or deceit or condemnation. Its about discovering an internal consistency, a groundedness in who we are and who are made to be in Christ’s love.

And that part is the kicker of this: Jesus lists all of these ways that he’s upping the ante around healthy desires. But the prohibition always includes a promise: God does this work of renovating our hearts. We cannot just say, “ok, I’d like to change my pain that leads me to lust and deceive and harm others.” We need love to heal us, the love of God, the love of others, the love of Christ dwelling among us in the church that can bring us back to who we are.

Need to reorder our hearts in this kingdom

So yes, be wary of anger, adultery, deceit, contempt. And more than that, be invited into a greater flourishing by discovering the healing and reordering these desires of our hearts to where they are truly meant to be, tuned to sing God’s praise.

Wholeness of the Inner person

For today

Doing the work to heal and order desires in ways that lead to wholeness and flourishing

I feel great sadness as I consider how so many of us feel this pain, this disordering of our hearts, this internal inconsistency. We see it all around. It is what drives our communities to anger and fear. We see it in the rampant racism and class divisions in our country: anger and fear. We hear it in the divisive words of politicians: seeking to condemn their enemies rather than find compromise and mutuality that leads to progress. We see it when we blame someone else for our problems or we sever ties rather than reconciling in love.

This is what we are made for, not these distorted and harmful outcomes of desires which have been unaddressed and fester into anger, adultery, divorce, and lies.

I do not mean to sound idyllic, like this should be easy work to be at peace and love our neighbors. Love is absolutely hard work. But look at the ways anger and malice and contempt make it harder? What if we could let go? What if we could release that anger and seek to be restored?

Internal consistency

Jesus talks about hell quite a bit through this passage. Is it not hell to live with festering anger?

Being a part of the reign of God means stepping into this greater wholeness, not settling for disordered hearts and the outcomes of that pain.

Is it not hell to heap the coals of condemnation on the ones we hate?

In the way of God’s reign, instead, we are invited to wholeness. To be reordered. To submit to the way of love and find peace.

So, St. James: will we? This must happen with us. It must happen in and among the ones who you share the pews and this life together with here. Will we allow ourselves to be reordered unto this way of wholeness? Will we turn toward each other instead of condemning each other? Will we seek each other’s flourishing?

We must feel this challenge, this uncomfortable truth. For if we cannot, all is lost. But if we can let Christ rule in us, remake us, form us to love each other…then we step into the way of life, heaven, and the glorious reign of God!

The Story and Healing continue...

In the years that followed that intense unloading of anger at The Black Drop Coffeehouse, I had to engage a lot of healing in myself. I prayed a lot for forgiveness, for myself and for the one that I perceived had wronged me.

I still feel the tinge of anger at times when I think of this person, the subtle invitation to contempt. But the healing has begun. My heart is being changed, reformed, reordered. I know it can happen, because it is in me.

May it be so in all of us. Amen.