The Creative Gift of Anger

I’ve been thinking a lot about anger lately. A couple of Sundays ago, I preached a sermon on the theme of anger. And for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been teaching a class on Sunday mornings that lays out a theological framework for anger. It rebukes the notion that anger is a sin—which we have the medieval church to thank for with its list of Seven Deadly Sins, anger being one of them—and instead embraces anger as a part of who we are as human beings made in God’s image. This integral part of our being—this “gift of anger” we might call it—is for us to navigate faithfully by looking at instances in the Bible where God and Jesus are angered. If we are instructed to be angry, but to not sin in our anger, as Paul writes in Ephesians 4:26, then, as disciples of Christ, a faithful discipline for us would be to examine what causes anger to rise up within us and assess whether that is righteous anger or toxic. Like the sermon suggested two Sundays back, instead of asking, “What would Jesus do?,” we might ask, “What makes Jesus angry?”

This is how we reconstruct the narratives that stoke our human emotions. Where Saul was once angered by followers of Jesus threatening the religious statutes he held dear to the point of being deputized to hunt down Christians and perhaps even kill them, Jesus knocked him off that high horse of human certainty and invited him to reconstruct his narrative. Now, with the new name of Paul, he would no longer be angered by alleged threats to the status quo, but he would instead be angered by anything that hindered liberation and salvation in Christ Jesus, and that threatened access to the love of God made known in Jesus of Nazareth. Following this example, we are called to reconstruct our narratives away from feeling angered by things that threaten our creature comforts and toward things that threaten the dignity and wellbeing of our neighbors, each of whom—like us—are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.

In short, anger is a part of who we are. How we use it can either be destructive or creative. How we express our anger can be hostile or compassionate. And if God is love—if we understand the Creator in whose image we are made to be love—then our anger must be used toward compassionate ends. As C.S. Lewis writes, “Anger is the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it.”

So, anger can be a good thing. It can be constructive. Just look at every social movement in modern history that has cried out for justice and sought human rights. Anger was their spark.

Fine. But I don’t like being angry. I don’t like getting angry because I don’t like losing control. When the back of my neck gets hot, it’s my body warning me—like God warned Cain when he got angry with his brother Abel—that sin is waiting at the door ready to strike! But anger is not a sin. It’s a piece of me. I don’t like it, but maybe God needs me to use it for constructive purposes. Maybe when I feel the back of my neck getting hot, it’s an invitation to ask myself, “Is this righteous anger? And, if it is, what would God have me do with it? How might Jesus be inviting me to channel my anger into compassionate words that could challenge the way things are, into deeds that could break cycles of violence, into prayers that stop asking for personal safety and security and that start crying out for everyone’s wellbeing and liberation from harm?”

So, as I keep thinking about anger this week, and as I look at the state of the world and find myself getting angry, and as I look in the mirror and get upset with myself for things I’ve done and things I’ve left undone, I turn to Jesus in the garden and take direction from his most desperate prayer: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”

O God of Love, if it is possible remove this anger from me, yet not because I want that, but only because you do. If this anger rising up in my spirit is a gift that might be used to transform this world to look more like your kingdom, to transform situations and circumstances to be less harmful and more loving for my neighbors in need, to transform my life into more of a reflection of your goodness and grace, then—by your grace—help me to listen to what that anger is telling me so that I would not be afraid to embrace it and use it. Your will be done. Amen.