Faith and Anger

The following was prepared as a presentation to Tallahassee Interfaith Clergy. All scripture references are NRSV.

I remember a while back watching news reports about the "town hall" meetings on health care. As the chances for good health care reform began to crumble under the assault of hate and fear-mongering I began to realize that I was angrier than I had been since the issue was the war in Vietnam. My anger, I think, was based on my ideals, which in turn are, I believe, at least partially based on my faith commitments. But is the anger itself an expression of faith, or does it run counter to the faith that I claim?

You need to know that I was in college in the 1960s. In those days I learned that becoming enraged at injustice was a good thing. Expressing rage, perhaps, was itself "doing something" about injustice. There was even an event in those days called "Days of Rage".

I need to explain up-front that in Myers-Briggs terms I am and INFP, an Introverted Idealist. This personality preference works its way out in a high idealism that doesn't always benefit from sufficient reality checks - remember the Introverted part. Often the end result is a frustrated Idealist - and an angry one.

A scriptural story that comes to mind is a Moses story from Exodus:

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, "Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?" He answered, "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "Surely the thing is known." When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. (Exodus 2:11-15)

Moses was saved out of Egyptian slavery for a reason. Exodus is clear that God has a purpose for him. As a child he even ends up in the royal court. But, seeing the very oppression he is to save his people from, he acts out of his immediate anger and ends up having to leave Egypt entirely. He finds himself in Midian, sitting by a well. A lot of good he is to his people or to God's purposes now! This, I think, is what I fear about the exercise of my own anger, or even the exercise of my own passion for what is important to me.

Certainly my exercise of my anger is destructive, and not faithful, if I hurt someone. But there seem to be stories of hurtful anger in scripture. Consider:

[Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!" When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. (2 Kings 2:22-23)

I don't think I want to emulate Elisha in this story. Are there other possibilities for the faithful exercise of righteous indignation?

Doubtless you will want to quote to me one of the gospel stories of Jesus cleansing the Temple. Let me save you the trouble and read all four versions:

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." (John 2:13-17)

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." (Mark 11:15-17)

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a den of robbers." (Matthew 21:12-13)

Then [Jesus] entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of robbers." (Luke 19:45-46)

A few notes on these four stories:

• In all but Luke's version, which is by far the shortest, the point of the story is beyond the action that Jesus takes, so that his action becomes something of a sign-act rather than an isolated exercise of righteous wrath.
• In each of the stories Jesus drives out those who were selling things in the Temple. In all but Luke he drives out also those who were exchanging money. In John's telling he uses a whip of cord to do it. Jesus also overturns money tables, seats, and so forth. All of these are rather personal acts of violence.
• In John's telling Jesus justifies his actions by accusing the marketers of making God's house into a marketplace. In the synoptic tradition Jesus cites scripture affirming that the Temple should be a house of prayer (in Mark, a house of prayer for all the nations); and then asserts that the sellers have made it a den of robbers, implying that there is some form of dishonesty in their trade.
• In each gospel cited, except for Luke, there is more to the story. And in each case the "more" is different, so that the core tradition seems to be contained in the briefer passages I have cited. However it is true that here, as in many other instances, the evangelists have used a story from the tradition to make their own point. In none does the primary point seem to be the angry action of Jesus.

Nonetheless the angry action is there, and this tends to verify that the stories are rooted in an actual historical event. This Christian is hesitant to question the actions of Jesus, actions which all four of the evangelists take pains to justify. But can I take this tradition as a warrant for my own actions of righteous indignation? The line that sticks with me as I think about my own self is: "Zeal for your house will consume me." My own anger can eat me up.

It's also true that, because of who we think Jesus is, we Christians don't assume that everything he does is something that we should do. There are some unique things he does because of who we believe he is. And the evangelists themselves tend to tell such stories in order to assert that Jesus is someone special, or at least someone with special authority. Christians as Christians don't have the authority to go about cleaning up other people's places of worship.

There are instance where God is said to be angry, enough to wreak havoc on God's own people. Lately I've begun reading the book of the prophet Ezekiel as a part of my daily time. Consider this passage:

Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. The LORD called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his side; and said to him, "Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it." To the others he said in my hearing, "Pass through the city after him, and kill; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. Cut down old men, young men and young women, little children and women, but touch no one who has the mark. And begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were in front of the house. Then he said to them, "Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go!" So they went out and killed in the city. While they were killing, and I was left alone, I fell prostrate on my face and cried out, "Ah Lord GOD! will you destroy all who remain of Israel as you pour out your wrath upon Jerusalem?" He said to me, "The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The LORD has forsaken the land, and the LORD does not see.' As for me, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity, but I will bring down their deeds upon their heads." (Ezekiel 9:3-10)

It is far too easy to take such a passage as a warrant for committing very awful, very godless acts indeed. But how do we know what is warranted, and what is not?

The first thing I would want to assert is that it is necessary to know one's scriptures - whatever they are for one's faith tradition - in their entirety, in their fullness. Everything I have cited from the Bible has a larger context within the entire Bible. The same would be true of the sacred writings of other traditions. One cannot tear a single page, or a single story, from scripture and use it faithfully as a warrant for something one has decided to do. Context is everything.

In my branch of the Christian tradition there is great personal freedom. But this freedom becomes lawlessness unless it is tempered both by humility and by accountability. Reckless American individual autonomy aside, this faith tradition calls us to be responsible to and for other persons. In this tradition I cannot, as an Introverted Idealist, go about exercising my righteous indignation without humility - considering that I might possibly be mistaken, and that I do not have the mind of God - or without accountability - considering the opinions of others and the tradition itself about my proposed actions. I am not an independent moral agent, who nonetheless is free to wreak havoc in God's name. Some guidance for Christians comes from the letter to the Ephesians:

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil… Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (4:25-27,29-32)

There is also the assertion in my branch of the Christian tradition that God loves all humankind absolutely and without condition; that God's burden is to redeem and restore creation and all that is in it. Folks in my tradition are not among those who propound a "Left Behind" theology in which the "elect" are set aside while the rest are beaten to a pulp by an angry God. If anger is to serve the faith in my tradition, it must be a constructive force, not a destructive one. It must be tempered and channeled into an energy that works toward the good of people and toward the good of creation. I would almost say it needs to be the righteous indignation of the eighth-century prophets; but I cannot imagine myself saying the things Ezekiel said to anyone I've ever met.

My tradition and its theology certainly has questions to answer from those who belong to other faith groups or hold other theologies. If God loves everyone absolutely and unconditionally, if God is not angry, then how can there be justice for the downtrodden and the oppressed? If God loves us no matter what, doesn't lawlessness logically follow? The earliest Christian tradition was unabashedly pacifist. But if we're to be sermon-on-the-mount enemy-loving pacifists who do not return evil for evil will not evil have its way unchecked?

I remember being taught that common anger is a warning sign, much like a flashing light at a railroad crossing. When we find ourselves angry, we need to look for the thing that has set us off and address it in constructive ways, lest our unfocused or unacknowledged anger lead us to destructive behavior. My own faith tradition, despite all that I have said about it, is not passivist. John Wesley taught that we are to participate in the world with godly action as a way of sustaining the relationship that God has made with us through God's grace.

According to Wesley we can't create a right relationship with God; only God can do that for us. But having experienced the relationship by the grace of God, our task is to maintain it, with God's continuing help. In that context it would seem that my idealism and my high sense of justice and my righteous indignation need to be channeled in service to the God I choose to serve. That will take practice. Methodists call such practice "discipline".