Anger-a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable )to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother[c] will be liable )to judgment; whoever insults] his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:21-24 ESV
This section of Scripture comes from Jesus teaching from the section of Scripture known as The Sermon on the Mount. This section is found in Matthew 5-7 and has two distinct things that I find cool. The first one is that this sermon is very applicable. Jesus is explaining how one lives out their faith on a day-to-day basis and covers all the essential topics, such as anger, divorce, lust and many other things. Jesus uses the phrase “you have heard it was said,” to refute the understanding of the day of the common practices. Instead, Jesus explains how where are treasure is buried is important, or the meaning of taking oaths and how our word is important. The second cool thing I found is that this sermon was not for the masses, but it was a teaching moment for His disciples. Jesus had become a big deal and people were following Him around to see what He was going to do and say next. In essence, Jesus was giving an in-person TED Talk to His disciples and the crowd was just eves dropping and finding out what His message is?
Anger can be a ticking time bomb, especially for those of us who like to cram it down and not admit to it, and then it comes out and bad times or takes forms in unhealthy addictions. I will be up front, I think there is Godly anger and things should make us mad like human sex slaves, domestic violence, child abuse and a host of other things, but this is not where I am going. I am going down the trail that anger can be self-destructive and ruin our relationships with God and others. I think there is a reason why Jesus made the connection between anger and murder and here is some observations on this.
My first observation is that we think our anger some how will change other people’s actions, intentions or speech. If we get angry enough and we throw things and shout really loud, people will change. In the last year, in Minnesota, we have had two police officers charged in the deaths of unarmed Black men. Following these deaths, there have been protest, marches along with looting and destruction. Both sides have drawn a line in the sand and are yelling at the other side to change their ways and there is a lot of words of anger and pain thrown at both sides by both sides. I think the crux of this anger comes down to two major points. One, is that both sides feel that they are not being heard, which only intensifies the yelling and hatred. This anger tries and change intentions of ones actions, speech and how one sees the world. We are trying to murder their intentions so they can be change to think and look like us. How often are we angry with other people’s intentions and biases and we forget to check our own?
My second observation is that we often fail to see that other people have value and are created in the image of God. How often does our anger belittle people or treat them as second class citizens? Our anger often gives us a sense of arrogance and that we are better than another person or group of people. We think our way is better and we try and beat other people into seeing things are way or that people somehow are to serve us. This anger often leads to us belittle them, taking every chance to destroy or kill their self-worth, honor and character. We tend to manipulate the message to make them look like the bad person and that we are always right and our intentions are always pure, or at least purer than other peoples.
My third observation is that anger tends to leads to alienation. How often does our anger cause us to either shut down and be non-responsive. Instead of attacking, we pull back and we break off all relationship with that person. We don’t discuss what is the matter. We would rather kill the relationship take care of the problem. Is there that one family member that when the two of you are together it gets rather quiet and the temperature in the room drops about twenty degrees. Someone has let the hate and anger build up so much, that whatever was the issue is, has gotten bigger and often out of out of control to the point that the original story is no where to be found and we have manipulated our hate and anger based on lies, and half truths that we told ourselves or have listened to. If we let it fester, it will only get worse, and the truth gets more watered down until it vanishes.
How often in our anger do we have conversations and we forget to invite the other person we are angry with into the conversation. It could be a running conversation in our head or we are venting to someone else about our said anger towards a particular person or group of people. Here is something that I have noticed in my own life when I do this in my head, my victory is always great and that the other person does not stand a chance and my justifications are always right and theirs are always wrong. When we vent to another person, we tend to do it to people who see things are way, or we try and manipulate them into seeing things our way. So when we do this, it often leads to two results. The first one is that our anger is some surface level feeling that is covering up something deeper, such as guilt, shame or even remorse. The second one is that we are killing any chance of fixing what the issues that are leading to anger because we will not confront the issues or anger in a healthy way
My fourth observation is that how often to we try and pay God off. We can not be in right relationship with God and hate our brothers and sisters. God commands that if we are going to be in right relationship with Him, we have to take care of our anger and hate issues with the people we interact with on a daily basis. When we have offended someone, or mistreated them, it is our responsibility to go and seek forgiveness and start the reconciliation process. I think we need to seek peace, peace and understanding in our relationship with others. In essence we need to listen to understand and not listening to respond. When we listen to respond, we are about portraying a certain message or look and it is often not the message that is needed or wanted. Seeking reconciliation takes courage, guts and it wont happen overnight.
I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but I hope so. I will leave you all with some closing thoughts. The first one, there is a difference between Godly anger and human anger and we need to know the difference. The second one is that God is the only one that can change hearts and attitudes no matter how much of a keyboard warrior we are. We have our responsibility in the process, but God is the lead person that can make it happen. My final thought is this and it is a paraphrase of a quote from the movie by Denzel Washington’s character in Remembering the Titans which is
We might not all like each other, but we will respect each other
If I could change this quote up a bit, I would change out the word respect with love. Like and love are two different things, and God calls us to love each other with His love and the only way that is possible is through His grace and a changed heart. If we were left to love on our own, our love becomes conditional or contractual and that is not love, it is obligation. The difference is that love is doing something because we want to and obligation is a sense of have to or being forced to.
Questions to Ponder
How much of our anger issues come from a lack of trust?
Is there a particular person you need to have a personal conversation with instead of carrying
One on in your head with them?
Why do we make hate more tolerable than murder?
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