Be Angry, But Do Not Sin!
Ephesians 4:26 - 32
Matthew 5:21 - 24
John 2:13 - 22
One of the most difficult things about our faith is coming to terms with Jesus' humanity. We acknowledge as a fundamental of our faith that Jesus is fully human and fully divine; and generally speaking, we don't have any difficulty coming to grips with Jesus' divinity. That's easy; as long as Jesus doesn't identify too closely with us, we can keep Him at arms length saying that we can't be like Jesus; Jesus was God's Son, Jesus was sent to be the perfect example - we can't possibly be as Jesus was.
But Jesus humanity? That's another story. And that's the interesting thing about our faith - it is of fundamental importance that we do believe Jesus was fully human - which involves all human capabilities and emotions - the ones seemingly negative, like anger, feelings of abandonment, as well as the ones so admired like tenderness, love and compassion. The latter emotions are no problem for us, but when we encounter instances of Jesus being angry, lonely, feeling forsaken, feeling grief, and experiencing great suffering, . . . well, sometimes our Biblical interpretation does more fancy footwork than Rudolf Nureyev.
This morning's Scriptures - not from the lectionary but of my own choosing - help us to explore a very natural, human emotion, and also one not usually associated with Jesus. But it is through Jesus' experience and teachings on anger that we can come to see anger as a fully human response; natural and normal, free-flowing. I have chosen two examples of Jesus' anger; one His own anger at the money changers in the temple, the other His teaching on anger as found in the Sermon on the Mount. I have also chosen as my text the very appropriate words of Paul. This is a favorite passage of mine, one to which I return with great regularity and pleasure. It is simple, powerful, and always fresh and engaging. You can find it in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, verse 26, where Paul writes: "Be angry, but do not sin."
Notice the imperative tense that Paul uses, "Be angry!" It's a strange usage of tense, how can you force anger? We could as well ask, how can you command love? Yet love is also commanded: "Thou shalt love the Lord your God . . . and your neighbor as yourself." Maybe the Biblical writers use the imperative as an extra impetus to do the hardest things in the world to do, and some Christians certainly find it even harder to be angry than to love. So let's look at Jesus' own example.
I don't believe there is any better example of healthy anger than Jesus' cleansing of the Temple. There are actually four accounts of this story, one in each of the gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke place it in the context of Jesus' Passion during Holy Week. Today's version found in John's Gospel is not placed at the end of Jesus ministry, but at the beginning. However, all four accounts place it in the context of the Jewish observance of Passover.
We are, I think, quite familiar with the story. When Jesus enters the Temple, or temple court, upon seeing the money-changers and their wares, He overturns the tables and scatters them in a fit of angry rage.
With our 2,000 year perspective on this story, we can understand why Jesus would be so furious, using the House of Prayer for all people as a common marketplace. However, at that time, selling things at the temple was a common practice and the religious community had grown accustomed to selling in the marketplace. It had evolved over generations. In short, to them, "we always do it this way." So - at least from the perspective of the day - for Jesus to come in and upset the vendors and the pushcarts in a fit of rage was totally offensive and without justification. Since the religious leaders were the authority and in charge of what happened in the marketplace they needed to know not only why He did it, but, more importantly, with what authority He did it. After all, they, and not Jesus, were the accepted authorities on temple matters property and religious. They asked Him, "What sign can You show us to justify what You have done?"
And Jesus, as He so often did, put a new perspective on the issue. Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up."
I can almost hear the murmuring. "Umm, Jesus - do you know your answer had nothing to do with our question? We asked you about where Your authority came from; and you responded by telling us about how good a carpenter you were. And, by the way, we don't care how good a builder You used to be, You can't be good enough to rebuild this temple in only three days!""
But Jesus was so quick with his answer that they shifted gears as well. The religious authorities could not believe their ears. It had, after all, taken 46 years to build the temple, how could Jesus raise it up in only three days should it be destroyed? How absurd!?!
But the new perspective was that Jesus was speaking of the temple of His own body. Hear again verses 20 and 21: "The Jews then said, 'This temple has been under construction for 46 years, and You will raise it up in 3 days?' But [Jesus] was speaking of the temple of His body." - this is where the real cleansing takes place so that we can worship God. Destroy it and in 3 days it will be raised up. Has a ring of Easter to it, doesn't it??
So we see in the angry rage of Jesus overturning the money-changers' tables the cleansing of the temple so it might be fit for the worship of God. It was the cleansing act of Jesus' anger freeing the temple for worship. But which temple - the building, the body, or both?
In the Sermon on the Mount there is another passage about anger that Jesus offers to us. "You have heard it was said, 'You shall not kill; and whoever commits murder will be brought to judgment.' But now I tell you: anyone who is angry with another will be subject to judgment." At least that's how we have come to know the passage. And it would seem to contradict the anger Jesus' revealed in the temple cleansing. I also suspect that this passage has also effectively prevented a lot of people from venting anger, fearing that they be the subject of that harsh judgment. After all, anger is supposed to be one of those negative emotions, it is not nice, it shows lack of control - and as Christians aren't we supposed to be "nice" and in control?
Well, you can't imagine the grace and insight I felt when I learned that a more correct translation is found in the New English Bible as it says, "anyone who nurses anger with another . . ." There is, I think, an enormous difference between being angry with someone and nursing anger. When I nurse anger it becomes all consuming, it feeds on itself and makes me a prisoner to that emotion. Then I am judged by my own imprisonment and trapped by my own anger.
On the other hand, being angry and expressing it, as quickly and as abruptly as Jesus did at the temple is cleansing. The anger no longer builds up; it is released, purging us of its potential poison, allowing us to be free and once again at one with God's creation.
As Aristotle once said, "Anybody can become angry - that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and is not easy."
The Apostle Paul also had a good handle on all of this. I choose his words as the text of the sermon this morning. "Be angry, but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger." (Ephesians 4:26) Paul understood the health of expressing anger - how such an expression can cleanse, can clean, and can heal.
He prefaced the Ephesians' passage by saying, "Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts. . . ." That old nature that is corrupt sounds to me a lot like what Jesus referred to as "nursing anger" or some sort of slush fund of anger collected and accumulated through many years of being "nice". And so Paul continues in the New English Bible translation, "Stop lying to each other, tell the truth, for we are parts of each other and when we tell lies we are hurting ourselves. If you are angry, don't sin by nursing your grudge. Don't let the sun go down with you still angry - get over it quickly." (Ephesians 4:25f, NEB)
Notice that Paul carefully doesn't tell us to hide our anger or mask it, or to lie to another person by saying nice things when you are really angry. Paul is encouraging people to be honest and open with each other - and certainly the honest and open expression of anger is the best way to get over anger quickly, rather than holding a grudge or allowing anger to build up. Perhaps you've witnessed anger build within a person like pressure in a volcano. Someday it erupts - all over the place without proper regard as to whom it hits landing on the innocent as well as the proper targets of such anger.
Paul then goes on to talk about the proper relationship of Christian love. He tells us to stop being mean, harsh-tempered and angry. But there is a difference now, for in this part of the passage, Paul is talking about personality characteristics, the ways by which people live out their entire lives. Paul says in verse 31, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, . . ." Here Paul is referring to persons who are constantly angry because of their accumulated slush fund of anger.
"Be angry, but do not sin." We are talking here of a lover's quarrel, not a grudge fight, whether the quarrel be with our family, our friends, our church, our society, or our nation. Such healthy anger is because we care, not hate - and there is a huge difference between anger coming from hatred and anger coming from caring. All anger that stems from hatred is destructive. St. Augustine wrote, "Imagine the vanity of thinking that your enemy can do you more harm than your enmity." Jesus' anger at the temple was not petty, it was not vindictive, and most of all it was not unfocused. Jesus was angry because He cared.
Unfocused anger is destructive. Christ never found the whole world unfriendly, nor turned His wrath against all of Israel, not even all its leaders. Neither did Jesus nurse His anger. No matter against what or whom it was directed; it burst like a thunderstorm and was quickly spent. The full verse, "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil."
It seems that anger has had a bad rap in Christian circles - and no wonder. In our society usually anger is unfocused and the result of a long, well-nourished grudge - it is "nursed" anger. It takes the form of road rage, "going postal" and other forms of pent-up unreleased negative emotions. Such unfocused anger has fostered a whole new kind of therapy called anger management. And that's because seldom do we see healthy anger with a clean, clear expression.
And even if anger doesn't build that much, what can be at stake is our relationship with each other and whether or not these relationships can develop deeply or whether they will remain superficial. Will our dealings only mask how we truly feel because for years we were told that anger was a sin and something that Christians didn't express; or will we risk in our relationships to our friends and our loved ones enough caring to be angry - and in the process cleanse our souls, our temples, to be free to love, to accept one another in spite of our differences?
Jesus did a lot more than drive the money-changers out of the temple with His anger. He cleansed the temple, making Himself ready for the proper worship of God. And He might just have helped us cleanse our own temple.
Can we risk and be bold enough to be as human as the One Who was also divine?
Can we be angry because we care, and not mask our anger until it turns to hatred?
Can we "be angry and not sin?"