What Would Jesus Say About Anger?

  Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

There was a minister one time who was perturbed at the lack of attendance of some of his parishioners in the worship services.  So one day he handed his secretary a list of ten people who were absent most often and he asked her to write a letter concerning their absence.  Well within a few days the minister received a letter from a prominent church member who apologized profusely for having been absent; he enclosed a large check to cover contributions that he would have made; and he promised to be there the following Sunday and further to be there every Sunday thereafter unless providentially hindered.  Then he gave the usual sort of greeting at the end but then added this P.S.  He said, “Please tell your secretary, there is only one ‘t’ in ‘dirty’ and no ‘c’ in ‘skunk’.”  You can imagine…O.K.  That’s cute, I know. 

Everybody gets angry, every person, maybe at least once a day.  Everybody gets angry.  That’s why the scripture that we’re going to read today, and talk about today, might be a little confusing; because Jesus talks about anger and he seems to say that it’s wrong to be angry at all.  But that’s not what he’s saying.  He’s talking about anger in a particular way and he’s also addressing a particular situation which we will talk about.  So I’ll draw your attention to the reading of God’s word from Matthew 5:21-26, part of the Sermon on the Mount, as we continue the series of sermons I’m preaching called What Would Jesus Say About…..and today it is about Anger.  Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.  Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin.  But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

            Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you; leave your gift there in front of the altar.  First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

            “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court.  Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.  I tell you the truth; you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

Please pray with me:

Father this subject touches us all.  So we pray Lord that as we talk about it and hear about it that you would speak to us what you would have us do and be, particularly about some of the anger in our heart.  We give you the glory Lord and ask your blessing.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Well first and foremost Jesus is not saying it’s wrong to be angry all the time.  What he is saying is that anger is dangerous.  A few years ago I had the task of burning some leaves in my yard.  They were a little bit wet, you know, and I decided I needed a little help.  So I got a fairly good sized can of gas and I poured it all over the leaves, you know, and let it kind of soak in.  Then I lit a match and ‘BOOOOM’.  The leaves went up in the air and I went backwards about three feet.  I was amazed at the power of this, and luckily I wasn’t hurt, and the fire ball that ensued.  I learned a big lesson that day:  don’t play with gasoline.  But gasoline, though it is very dangerous and can be very destructive and even used for evil purposes or purposes which are just horrible, I mean in Viet Nam they used napalm, which is a mixture of chemicals and gasoline, to burn all kinds of things, mostly people.  But gasoline is also one of those things that has been one of the chief instruments of our society.  It has been one of the things that has, it’s almost like antibiotics, without gasoline, where would we be?  Well anger in an amalgamous way is also very good sometimes.  Sometimes we won’t do anything unless we are mad enough to do it.  Like some good things, like doing justice, getting mad about something so we’ll do something about it.  How many good organizations have been started because somebody got mad and did something.  Or even when something is happening to us and we need to get out of the way.  We have that shot of adrenaline from the anger that we have.  Even in sports, you know, I was watching some of the endless coverage of the Super Bowl on ESPN and they were interviewing somebody with the Chicago Bears, in this case, and right behind them was a sign that said “Play Angry!”  I remember, I played football and I played a lot better when I was mad.  Now sometimes the coaches would say, “Carlson, you need to get mad!” and I would kind of think “I hardly know this guy, why should I be mad at him?”  But then the guy would hit me on the head with his fist or something and then it wasn’t that hard.

But of course anger is incredibly destructive, particularly with relationships.  I read recently about a study that someone had done with eighty people who had been divorced 10 years earlier, and it was interesting how almost every one of them could tell you in detail what was wrong with their ex.  After ten years.  You know I found in my experience in church that many times if not most times people leave a church because they got mad at something.  Now lots of exceptions to that, but they were either mad at me, or some pastor, someone said they got slighted by somebody; they didn’t like the music; they didn’t like to youth program; there was something they got mad at.  Sometimes people get mad at God because of some injustice, a loved one dies when they prayed for them; and then they don’t come back to church because of anger.  And we can think of a thousand ways in which anger is so destructive and that’s what Jesus is telling us.  Jesus is telling us that anger can be very destructive.

He is also telling us that anger, or I should back up and say, that he is telling us that what starts or expresses itself on the outside always starts on the inside. And anger is that way as well.  Psychologists tell us that anger is an emotion which comes about from a chemical reaction, you know; I know that sounds kind of impersonal, but it really is true.  When you have a threat of any kind, it may be a small one, it may be a big one, there is kind of a chemical reaction that brings emotion which we call anger sometimes; and it could be anything, you know, when somebody drives down the road recklessly and almost hits you, you know, you go… It kind of reminds me of a story about a man who was driving along on a beautiful sunny day, and there is a woman who came around the curve in his lane; and she rolled down her window as she passed by and said “Pig! Pig!”  And he got really mad.  He yelled out “Sow! Sow!”  And he felt really good about himself but then as he went around the corner, he ran over a pig.  So.  Anger does start on the inside.  It has an outward stimulus of course, but it starts here.  Jesus is saying that.  Now there is a kind theology going on here.  It was a theology which said “If I keep all the rules outwardly, I’m good with God.  If I, say, don’t murder someone, I’ve done it, I’m good.”  Later Jesus will talk about adultery, next week.  He’ll talk about some other things as well.  Jesus says “You heard that it was said that if you don’t commit murder,” in other words he’s quoting the law, and he’s not criticizing the law.  He’s criticizing their understanding of the law, which limited it to outward acts.  And he’s saying “You heard that it was taught that if you don’t commit murder you’re O.K.  You’re good with God.”  Un-huh-huh.  I’m telling you it’s what’s on the inside that counts, because everything that comes out starts here.  God is after the inside not just the outside.  You know we may look at those folks and say “How could they be so stupid?   Everybody knows it starts on the inside.”  But we do the same thing.  You know the old stereotype of people who go to church and don’t.  You know, it’s like “Well I don’t drink or smoke or mow my grass on Sunday; I must be O.K.”  I know I’m being a little facetious, but we all look at other people and say, “You’re doing such and such; I must be better than you.  I’m a better person” and in some ways maybe we are.  And I want to be very clear here, it really is better to think about something than actually doing it.  It’s better to think about killing someone than actually doing it.  At a human level it really is true, if you want to grade sins, that the doing is worse than the thinking,  But Jesus is drawing to our attention that problems begin here, it is not just about an outward sort of deal.  It begins on the inside and Jesus wants us to think about that.  He wants us to think about how we deal with what’s on the inside.

I want to take just a side road and just draw your attention to what’s going on in this passage.  You know the Sermon on the Mount is very interesting because Jesus starts out by talking in the second person.  He says “You will be blessed.”  You will be blessed.  But then he makes a shift to the first person.  He doesn’t go to the third person; he goes to the first person.  That’s significant because, can you think of somebody else who went up on a mountain and talked and came down?  If you’ve seen Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments, you know what I’m talking about, it’s Moses.  Moses went up on the mountain and got the law and came down and said “Thus saith the Lord.”  The Lord said this.  Jesus doesn’t do that.  He says “I say this.”  Jesus went up on the mountain but Matthew is making a point here.  He’s saying somebody greater than Moses is here.  Jesus is saying “I am a little higher here than even Moses.   You’ve heard that it was said but I say to you.”  Don’t just think about the outside; think about the inside as well.

How do we deal with anger?  Well there are lots of things we can say.  But I think that we start, perhaps, with outward behavior.  I’m not contradicting myself.  You know, in our society we talk a lot about behavior modification and that sort of thing, and you know when we get mad sometimes the feelings do overwhelm us and maybe the only thing we can do is walk out.  Maybe all we can do is count to ten.  Maybe we can work on not saying all those unapproved words that come out, you know.  That’s good to do, but we can’t stop there.  We can’t stop there because it’s kind of like putting a band-aid on cancer, it doesn’t quite work.  We need to move further and I think this is where some of what Jesus has to say can help us.  See, he says something about name calling.  You know, again, it’s not that Jesus is saying that we can’t say someone might be foolish.  Jesus himself does that.  If we look at the Proverbs almost every other verse says something like “the foolish man does this and the wise man does that.”  But these things are kind of an indicator.  Our words, how we use them, is an indicator of what is coming out from here.  Jesus says “Out of the mouth the heart speaks.”  If the way we describe others is full of contempt, is full of viciousness, is full of distain, there is something going on here.  You know, we see this kind of thing in politics all the time.  People try to paint the other side; and it’s amazing, we tend to think its worse now but it’s really been going on forever.  We see that kind of thing.  We do the same thing.  “How stupid is that?  What an idiot!”  All kinds of ways that we talk about people and others.  What we say and how we say it is an indicator of what’s going on in here.  We should pay attention to that because Jesus says this kind of thing shows that it’s not good in your heart.

Then we can move on to the inside.  We can ask a question of ourselves too.  What good does it do us when we get angry?  What good does it do in our own fellowship with other people?  Jesus gives the example of your adversary, your enemy.  Now we are going to talk a little more about this when we get to the place of turning the other cheek, or loving our enemies; but I’m going to hold off on that.  But I think Jesus is saying “You know if somebody’s got something out there that’s against you, go settle it with them.  Make peace.  Be a witness.”  But it’s also what good does it do in here?  You know our anger, if we hold on to it, that’s why the bible says “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger” because it can be good but it can turn bad really fast.  If we hold onto it all it does is eat us inside.  I remember at one of my churches many years ago, I made one of the matriarchs of the church really mad at me.  One of my elders kept coming to say “You must go see Miss Edna.”  And I did.  I went to see Edna I don’t know how many times.  Finally after two or three years I said to her one day, I said “What did I do?  What did I say that made you so mad at me?”  And she gave me in detail, in detail, the conversation I had when I first got to that church.  I didn’t remember it.  I think she misinterpreted me, of course, maybe I’m making excuses.  But I felt sorry for her; she’s been mulling this over for a long time, nursing it.  That’s what resentment is, ‘chewing the cud’ is the word, chewing on things and chewing on them for years sometimes.  Sometimes we sort of paint our own picture, or we run home movies in our head, about what a person did to us, or what a situation did or some kind of thing.  We’ll talk about this in maybe a few weeks, in talking about vengeance and revenge and turning the other cheek and all that kind of thing.  We often dream about getting somebody back.  I’ll make a confession to you.  Whenever I do that, I always win.  I always win the argument; and, being a male sometimes where you get kind of belligerent, you know, and I remember about having a fight with someone, I always win.  Of course if I got in a real fight I’d probably get the heck beat out of me.  You know, it doesn’t matter, it’s not very good.  It’s chewing on something we need to get rid of. 

I think the bottom line of helping ourselves deal with anger is another issue called forgiveness, learning how to forgive someone.  You know what forgiveness is?  Forgiveness is doing away with, or putting aside, the justice that we think we deserve.  You know every one of us thinks that whoever did something to us, should pay.  Every one of us, when something happens, we think they need to pay somehow.  So we dream of them paying, or we’re just mad at them because they aren’t paying or they’re not even recognizing they did something to us, or whatever it happens to be.  I’m not saying that person isn’t wrong.  Some of the things people do to us and we’re mad at them about they deserve to be punished.  Some things are horrible things.  I’m not saying that forgiveness means at times allowing someone back into your life, and I’m thinking particularly of someone who’s guilty of abuse, of a child.  I mean, you might forgive that person in a sense but you wouldn’t want them back, unless they really went through a lot of counseling, back near the child.  We’re not talking about that.  We’re talking about this setting aside the feeling that we have that this person needs to pay somehow, because in the end God says “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”  And our judgment about that isn’t always right anyway.  Forgiveness means setting aside the justice that maybe somebody deserves; and I put it in those terms because that’s what God has done for us.  We deserve the punishment.  We deserve God’s wrath.  The bible says were objects of God’s wrath, in our sinful state; objects of God’s anger.  And the anger that God has against sin was poured out on the cross on Jesus, on the cross.  That’s the theology of it and He forgives us.  He sets aside the judgment that we deserve, the justice; and He says “I take you in; you’re mine; you’re my children.  I’m setting aside this.”  The bible says over and over again “Forgive others as He has forgiven you.”   I think that’s why it’s put in the context of worship, when He says “When you come to worship to the altar and you there remember that someone has something against you, or vice versa, leave worship.  Go and be reconciled”, because, forgive us our debts as we forgive the debts of others.  Forgive our sins as we forgive the sins of others.  It’s hard to come to God in worship when something is hanging over you.  Now I know that this is hard.  Sometimes there are people out there who we haven’t seen in twenty years; there are people out there that you know if you went to them and asked forgiveness they would say “Forgive you?  You’ve got to be kidding.”  But as much as it is up to us, we should reconcile.

I would close with this.  I would say that as you come to the supper which is a symbol of God’s love for us and Jesus’ broken body and shed blood for our sins, maybe there’s someone out there, there might be many, but think of one.  Someone that God might bring to your mind that you need to reconcile with.  Ask God for help in how to do that.  That person might be gone on to be with the Lord or something.  But dealing with it in your own heart, somehow, we all have resentments; we all have anger; we all have things we held on to.  Let’s just say at least in one little piece of it, with one particular person, Lord help me let it go.  Help me let it go, because you have for me.

Let’s pray together. 

Lord God we do ask forgiveness for holding on.  We pray for power because it is only in your power that we can do it, that we might let it go and be healed, and be renewed and refreshed and encouraged; and one little bit of the things that we hold on to might be gone.  We give you this time Lord and we pray for your presence and your power in it.  Amen