How To Be Good And Mad

This morning I want to talk about finding freedom from anger, or to be precise, from destructive anger, not all anger. And our sermon text for this morning lays out a very simple outline of some really important guidance for us about anger. It is Ephesians 4:25-27. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil.

So I want to make 3 main points today from our text.

• Verse 26 says, “Be angry”. There is a time for anger. The Apostle Paul isn’t telling us to be angry a lot. This isn’t like love, where the more loving you can be the better. Anger can really get you in trouble, but there is a time for it.

• When you are angry, don’t sin. And every one of us could talk about moments when we got angry or someone else did and it went really bad. For that I’m going to think about acute anger, particular situations that come and go.

• And be sure not to let the sun go down on your anger. I hear in that a warning against chronic anger, letting it fester and burn in your heart. That gets really destructive.

Now anger is something that good Christian people generally don’t like. In most churches and many families we are taught that to be mad is bad. And being good and being mad just don’t go together. To be good and mad feels like an oxymoron, two words that just don’t fit together, like hot ice or jumbo shrimp, a dull shine, an easy childbirth, kosher ham, or airline cuisine.

Churches have often been places that were just plain against anger. We look out at the conflicts and boiling emotions of the world outside and we say, let’s just be calm and love each other here, just chill out, be calm, whatever happens, it will be all right.

We have even brought that ideology into the church in the form of a theology that says that God just radically accepts everybody, and everything, no matter what. We like the stories of Jesus meek and mild, hugging children and feeding hungry people. Doesn’t that sound nice?

Is it possible to be good and mad? Paul says to be mad, but not to sin. It must be possible.

Actually, the Bible talks about God being angry a lot. In the Old Testament God was angry when the Egyptians enslaved and abused the Israelites. And anyone who can look at slavery without getting at least a little mad has something wrong with them. And that isn’t just ancient history or American pre-civil war history. Today millions of women are trapped as sex slaves, workers are trapped in sweat shops as slaves, children are kidnapped into guerilla armies and forced to serve as slaves. Be sure that makes God mad, and it should make us mad, too.

One day Jesus went into the temple to celebrate the Passover. One of the really neat things about the temple is that it had a special place for people who hadn’t grown up Jewish, who hadn’t converted yet, but who were honestly seeking, could come and pray. That was really important to Jesus. He died so that disciples could be made in every nation. And when he got there, the court of the Gentiles, the place for those who were still seekers, was all clogged up with moneychangers and sheep sellers, making such a commotion that there was no way anybody could pray there. And Jesus got mad. And he chased them out.

And even in our enlightened age, I’m sure God is angry. God is angry that billions of dollars are going down the drain every year in military spending while children are dying of starvation.

God is angry that so many people are content to live very comfortable lives for themselves and won’t go beyond token charitable contributions to help others who are in desperate need.

God is angry that we just keep polluting the air and wasting the natural resources he put into this beautiful earth, at all the animal species that are endangered because we can’t see beyond getting the most products for ourselves by the cheapest method available. God is angry.

I believe God is angry that churches so often dink around worrying about so many petty things while there are still many millions of people on this earth who have never heard that there is a savior who died for them and wants to make their lives new.

If we care about this world, we will be angry when things destroy it. If we refuse to allow ourselves to be stirred by anger, then we become without passion, apathetic. And those who refuse to allow themselves to be angry become the passive sheep who allow the wolves of the world to tear through the flock. There are times when God calls us to be mad.