Righteous Anger

 

1/16/22

John 2:13-25

Psalm 127:1-2

 

               Today we hear the story of Jesus chasing the money changers from the temple.  It is the strongest example we have of Jesus becoming angry and acting out of that anger.  And while we know and we understand that his anger was righteous anger, I am certain the people who were using the temple as a market did not feel the same way.  They saw his anger as an action of his claiming authority that he then failed (in their minds) to prove that he had a right to.  They in turn became angry, and I am certain that they, in turn, felt that their anger was righteous.  So how can we tell the difference?  How do we know when our anger is truly righteous or not?

               Anger is, almost always, a secondary emotion.  What that means is that it is a mask, or a cover, for a deeper primary emotion such as sadness or fear.  We may feel that sadness or fear are unacceptable, or “weak” so we move into anger as a result.  Sadness or weakness may hurt more, so that is another reason we move into anger.  When we look at the anger of the crowds in response to Jesus’ anger, we can see that their primary emotions were probably fear: fear of change, fear of being hurt as he was driving them out, fear of losing the income that their marketing in the temple was providing, fear of change.  They may also have been feeling guilt: which is also a primary emotion: guilt that he was calling them on their behavior, guilt that he was pointing out that what they were doing was wrong in God’s eyes, guilt that they hadn’t figured that out, addressed it, changed it themselves.  Their anger was not righteous anger for many reasons, but first of all because it was a cover up of these deeper feelings.

               So again, what is righteous anger?  Righteous Anger, according to many, involves three things: 1.  It reacts against actual wrongs: mistreatment, insult or malice of another.  Injustice towards others.  2.  Righteous anger focuses on God and on God’s concerns for the world.  It is not for one’s self: it is not about an offense towards you or something that personally offends you.  3.  Righteous anger is always self-controlled.  It does not retaliate or lose its temper.  It expresses itself in ways that are creative, that have purpose, and that change things for the better.  It is not destructive, abusive, withdrawing, passive-aggressive, or harming of anyone else.  It is not revenge, punishment or retaliation. 

Jesus’ anger was not for himself.  He was angry because their behavior did not honor God.  He didn’t care about the loss he, personally, would experience, in telling them to stop acting this way in the temple.  He did not focus on what it was costing him to point out their mistakes, their mis-steps.  His anger was righteous because it was inspired first and foremost by unjust behavior, and it was an expression of his care for God and God’s people.   The unjust behavior he was confronting was consistent, was long-standing, and again, did not affect him directly.  These are all signs of what makes anger righteous anger.  And his actions were about bringing positive change to the temple: no longer using it as a market but once again as a place of worship.  And even though it came out as angry, it was still controlled.  He did not injure people or animals in the process of chasing them out.   

I think as people we have a hard time with all of this.  We jump to anger easily in our culture, squashing down sadness, guilt or fear because we see these as weak or they are uncomfortable.  We jump to anger easily as a way to avoid self-reflection, too.  If we are angry, the problem is out there, and does not require us to look at ourselves to do the work within.  Even when we are angry on behalf of another person, our behavior often is retaliatory, punishing, revengeful, and an inability to hear any side other than the one we have chosen to hear is dangerous and damaging to relationships, to communities, and to the people who suffer our rage. 

But we are called to have compassion.  And that compassion has to start with compassion towards ourselves.  What are we afraid of?  What are we grieving?  Change is hard for all of us, and often the thing we fear is simply a change, a change we did not want, a change we did not anticipate.  The more our hearts are broken by something that has happened, is happening or will happen, the more we avoid those feelings of hurt and pain and opt for anger instead.

Parker J. Palmer wrote in  A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life, “There are at least two ways to understand what it means to have our hearts broken. One is to imagine the heart broken into shards and scattered about-a feeling most of us know, and a fate we would like to avoid. The other is to imagine the heart broken open into new capacity-a process that is not without pain but one that many of us would welcome. As I stand in the tragic gap between reality and possibility, this small, tight fist of a thing called my heart can break open into greater capacity to hold more of my own and the world's suffering and joy, despair and hope.”

But the challenge, of course, of coming into that place of openness is that it hurts.  And we don’t like to hurt.  Bryan Stevenson said that fear and anger, however, are the essential components of injustice.  They are the essential components of injustice.  We therefore have to be aware of the roots of our anger, the deep roots within ourselves of any anger.  And we have to be committed to dealing with it directly, creatively, and kindly.  Anger can become a habit.  And it is a dangerous habit to practice.  As Mitch Albom said in, “the Five People you Meet in Heaven” (p141)  “Learn this from me.  Holding anger is a poison.  It eats you from the inside.  We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us.  But hatred is a curved blade.  And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”

Bishop Michael Curry took on the work of supporting LGBTQ clergy within the Episcopal denomination.  This did not go over well, and he experienced a lot of anger that came his way, anger that people believed was “righteous” because they believed they were speaking for God.  Again, they were not.  They were acting out their own fear of that which they did not understand.  And they were acting out their own sadness over the loss of control over a group of people.  He was attacked repeatedly, but he recognized that his own anger, his own righteous anger, would not be righteous if he was acting out of revenge, out of a desire to harm or punish those who had harmed and punished him.  He wrote, “My only challenge was learning how to receive anger and not give it back in return.  I needed to do something very difficult: to stand and kneel at the same time.  I needed to sand in my conviction, laying out what I believed and why.  And when the response was anger, I needed to learn to kneel before it.  Believe me, standing in self-righteousness is so much easier.  But when you’re facing someone else who feels as strongly in their conviction as you do, anger is totally unproductive.  Actually it’s counterproductive.  You’ve got to create space for the other person.  This is the dance of nonviolent change.  You develop the spiritual discipline of receiving and then letting go, receiving and letting go, receiving then letting go.  This isn’t easy and it’s even harder if the anger is coming at you from people you love and cherish, rather than strangers.  I found it helpful to remember a few things.  First, I wasn’t God.  No one is God.  And therefore, I was not the ultimate decider of who was right.  I could only do what I believed to be right as best I could discern it.  Second, this wasn’t about me, ultimately.  They weren’t angry at me, but at what I represented. … If you know your own purpose, you can stay out of the emotional fray your beliefs may stir up in others.  If I reacted in anger, I would add even more destructive anxiety to the situation.  I knew enough about human nature to know that a sense of safety, not anxiety, is what puts people in a space to open their hearts to change.  Third, I started intentionally praying for (those) who were speaking against me. I didn’t pray for them to change their minds.  I prayed for them as children of God.”

Anger is a feeling, and as such it is not “bad” in itself.  It is there to tell us there is work to be done.  However, usually that work to be done is internal and we have the job of remembering that to be so.  Anger is not bad.  But we must be very careful what we do with it.  And we need to be very aware that most of the time, our anger is not righteous anger.  Remember, righteous anger is addressing an injustice, it is not about you, and it never is acted out in retaliatory or damaging ways.  If we can remember this, it can help us to deal with it in healthier ways.

I think in the end, it helps to remember that all things pass.  We can endure the struggles and pain of today because this, too, will pass.  We can face our demons, look inside, confront that which is hard for us to face, lean away from anger as a secondary emotion and into our sadness, guilt, fear, for what it is.  We can do this knowing that it will not last, and that doing the inner work will move us through the pain more quickly and more fully than the anger block that we set up can ever.  It will do that because the anger is a lie.  It is hiding the real feelings underneath.  And until we get to those real feelings, we cannot heal them.

        I found this poem about change that I wanted to share with you:

Ø  On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness by Arthur Guiterman (forwarded by Gordon)

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls

Of mastodons, are billiard balls

 

The sword of Charlemagne the Just

Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust

 

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,

Was feared by all, is now a rug.

 

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,

And I don’t feel so well myself.

 

All of these will pass.  But God’s love will remain.  We can rest in that truth.

So, is there a time for righteous anger?  Yes.  Jesus showed us that there was.  But I think we need to be very, very careful about when our anger is, indeed righteous and when it is “self-righteous” instead.  Does that mean we won’t get angry as a secondary emotion?  We will.  We are all human and we will.  But being able to step back, to own what is ours versus what is not, that is a start.  We are called into community, and community also means that we have to be very careful about how that anger is expressed.  Again, retaliation, abuse, passive aggressive actions and withdrawing should not be options for those committed to relationship, to community and to following God’s call for us.  Will we mess up?  Of course.  But that call to self-reflection will be there to help us once more. 

        Our feelings, even anger, are gifts because they call us to pay attention to what is really going on.  They call us to self-reflection, they call us into conversation, hopefully, with God.  The decisions to act out our feelings: these should take more time.  But even when we act out of our anger, the good news is always that God gives us another chance, more opportunities to learn, to grow and to choose differently the next time.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.