Anger

Questions

What is sin?

Kata ‘a: Sin; chaos creature that consumes and destroys

Pesha: Betrayal; turning your back on someone; breaking relationships

Avon: Iniquity; twisting and contorting of being because of addiction, bitterness, hurt

Why/when is anger acceptable?

What causes anger?

Not just the actions, but the inner results

What are responses to anger? Which are “acceptable” and which are not?

PASSAGES

Galatians 5:16–24 CSB

I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

James 1:19–20 CSB

My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.

Psalm 37:8–9 CSB

Refrain from anger and give up your rage; do not be agitated—it can only bring harm. For evildoers will be destroyed, but those who put their hope in the Lord will inherit the land.

ANGER IS MURDER

Matthew 5:21–22 CSB

“You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister, will be subject to the court. Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.

The prophets used to say, “YHWH says” this or that—a prophet would never attribute the holy words of his God to anyone other than God, and yet, here’s Jesus, and he doesn’t attribute this to God, it’s himself. This is one of those subversive, secret moments where Jesus reveals his true identity. He and his Father are one, he is Yahweh, and Yahweh is one. Second, it’s important that we hear this and understand that Jesus is not changing or denying or ending that which God had said previously. Where do we find “Do not murder” earlier in the Bible? Yeah, the Ten Commandments. Number six. Obviously, Jesus is not coming in here and saying murder is good now, just don’t get angry. Again, this is about wholeness. It’s about the condition of the inner man that informs and inspires the expression of the outer man.

Jesus says, the anger you have within you makes you just as liable as any murder. But wait, how is that possible? Are you saying that ending someone’s life is on par with merely being angry? If I get mad, I get judged? What’s that about?

I’ll say two things about this response. First, there’s something within us that comes to our defense whenever we hear passages like this in the Bible, because we are emotional creatures, and offense and hurt happen. And I will readily admit that. However, rarely, if ever, do I see an anger that leads to wholeness and peace, and rarely can I say I am justified in my anger. And you might say, wait, didn’t Jesus get angry? He cursed that plant one time, and he went and turned over the money changing tables in the temple. If Jesus can righteously rage, why can’t I? And I would tell you that when you have everything together like Jesus does, maybe you can. But if we are truly honest with ourselves, the things we justify as righteous in our minds, after bitterness and frustration swirl about and fester and spread through our souls, are not quite on the same level as the things Jesus got angry about. This is why Paul says to the Ephesians, if you do get angry, or bitter, or wrathful, let it be removed from you as quickly as possible, because you give Satan an opportunity when you don’t. Anger and hatred and bitterness are the territory of the adversary, because their primary effect on community is destruction.

And that’s the second thing. Jesus is not just talking about a human emotion. He’s talking about an attitude of contempt for another human being. Jesus connects this triad of examples.

The first is about the emotional capacity for anger toward a brother or sister;

the second, Jesus says when you insult a brother or sister, there is a penalty to be paid (literally, when you call them raca, which is Aramaic for “empty-head”—Jesus teaches us how to curse someone out in a different language here!)

and the third is when you declare someone to be a fool, to be stupid or unintelligent, you are doomed to destruction. What he is talking about is more than feeling. It’s taking feelings of frustration or offense or hurt allowing those feelings to put you in the place of righteous judge over another, to turn the offense over and over again, and to break apart communities in the name of indignation.

When we feel contempt for another, we play out these little movies in our heads wherein we are the heroes and they are the villains, and in doing so, we remove their humanity and dignity and reduce them to creatures unworthy of life. That is what Jesus is getting at. When I was a kid, I used to watch these superhero cartoons. And the superheroes were muscular and glowing and had all the best powers, and they represented light and truth and goodness and justice. And the villains were dark and scrawny and malicious, and every intention that had was bad, and they had these cackling, maniacal laughs, and you knew from the start that these guys were just bad news. How different is that from the story we tell ourselves when we get angry at another person?

The longer that movie plays in your head, the great the offense grows, the more justified you feel in ripping out the image of God from a person. That person you are angry at? That person you desire to publicly shame and guilt? That person is a made in the image of God. The same Holy Spirit draws that person to repentance and humility and right relationship, the same Jesus died for that person’s rebellion and sin, the same Father loves that person unconditionally. And so our anger commits a grave injustice, for even as we tear another down—as we “murder” their humanity—we build ourselves up, venerate our actions and our intentions, and we become the perfect in our own eyes. This is external righteousness, and it betrays the true condition of our hearts—we are not so good as we think we are.

This kind of contemptuous dehumanization precedes every terrible atrocity. For example, the Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen, or subhumans. In his exploration of the Holocaust, David Livingstone Smith concluded the Nazis "didn't mean [Jews] were like subhumans. They meant they were literally subhumans." Once Jews were excluded from the moral category of being human, any behavior toward them became acceptable.

You do not have the God-given right to stand before the cross of Christ, who suffered and died on account of your sin, and receive grace for yourself, and then reject it for others. We are all so inferior to God that we are equal to one another, and it is only our sinful desire to build ourselves up that allows us to feel contempt for another. Jesus is warning you here to stop, and check the condition of your heart. Are you justified in your anger—I mean truly, biblically, honestly—or do you have murder on your mind? If you do, then Jesus is calling for a change of heart. He’s calling you to repentance, a 180 degree turn in the opposite direction. What’s the opposite of murdering someone in your heart, reducing human dignity and honor and life? Restoration. Reconciliation. Elevating human dignity and honor and life.

RECONCILIATION IS LIFE

Matthew 5:23–26 CSB

So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Reach a settlement quickly with your adversary while you’re on the way with him to the court, or your adversary will hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out of there until you have paid the last penny.

Reconciliation in the kingdom community is so important that it has priority over our worship. And Jesus says here that the initiative to resolution comes with the one who realizes this broken relationship, whether they are at fault or not. And Jesus gives this crazy scenario. He says, if you are at the altar at the temple in Jerusalem, ready to give your annual sacrifice, and you realize that there is unresolved conflict with someone, leave it and go back to Galilee—an eighty-mile journey. That’s several days of walking! Jesus does this a few times in the Sermon on the Mount—he gives these exaggerated illustration to drive home the point (wait until we get to the log in the eye bit). But here’s what Jesus is saying: as long as there is anger and contempt and broken relationship in the church between members, our worship is compromised. You cannot separate relationship with others from your relationship with God.

There’s this passage in one of John’s letters that says, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus found the break in relationship, and it was us. And what does he do? He makes it right. He takes the judgment of our sin. He pays every last penny for us. What does John say right after this? “Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11) Perhaps the greatest act of worship for God that we can enact today is to love our brothers and sisters and humble ourselves before them.

And this is not just between those of us in the church! Jesus says go to your adversary, your enemy, the one with whom there is no love lost between you, and “reach a settlement quickly.” That’s an idiom in the Greek; it literally says, “go and be well-thought of with one another.” Allow grace and space for your enemy to become your friend. I tell you what, this takes some humility on your part. This takes some dying to the self.

Jesus ends by saying the time is short to make things right. You never know how long you’ll have. And you can keep pushing it off or pretending everything’s fine, and Satan will love that. But in the end, are you willing to pay the price it costs for a relationship that doesn’t end well? I remember hearing about an acquaintance I had in high school who died in a motorcycle accident. He was 24, maybe 25 years old. And he and I were not good friends. He insulted me a lot and made fun of me, and it took a lot of it, but in all truth, I didn’t think very much of him. But time went and we forgot about each other, and then I heard that he had died. And my heart hurt over it. Not because he was my friend, but because there was a relationship that was broken by animosity and contempt, and I just left it alone. It was easier just to reduce him in my eyes to less than human. And when his humanity was displayed in his death, I regretted the opportunity to reconcile that. I missed the change to bring healing and peace to our lives. To be wholly holy as my Father is wholly holy.

There are relationships even now, even in this church, that need to be healed before true worship can be restored. Until that happens, it may feel like we just go through the motions, leaving our sacrifices at the altar. God doesn’t want our feeble offerings. He wants hearts that receive his love and then go and love one another. To go make things right, to live rightly in his kingdom. When that day comes, and our church finds that peace, God’s going to do some great things in this church. But we need to be whole. Let’s pursue it together.