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Many of you were living the Washington area on Thursday, April 4th, 1968. I don’t need to really set the stage for it, because you lived it.
It was about 7:30 in the evening when Walter Cronkite broke the news. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis for speech, had been resting on the balcony of hotel, when an angry young man decided he had enough of that uppity pastor. Hiding out of sight, Earl Ray took his gun, and shot him.
Within hours, an angry Stokely Carmichael demanded that all business in DC should close out of respect. Shortly thereafter, even more angry young men decided that businesses not already closed should be closed permanently with fire. Chaos and pandemonium ensued as fires were set. Soon, most of the inner city was engulfed in flames. At one point, the flames reached within two blocks of the White House.
With the hindsight of nearly forty years, we can understand the passions on both sides. The injustices, the indignities that came to a head. But it doesn’t bring back 100 city blocks or repay nearly $27 million worth of property damage. It doesn’t bring back the 12 killed; it doesn’t heal all 1100 injuries. And the 6000 incarcerated that day are still shackled with the record of their pasts.
This morning, I want to suggest to you that Anger – like the anger that killed Rev. King, like the anger that burned D.C., is not a black and white issue. Racially, whites are as angry blacks. But even more directly, as much as we know that Anger is a sin, scripturally, it’s not that easy. It’s not black and white. Anger has both a good side and a dark one.
We easily recognize anger as sin – its even one of the Seven “Deadly Sins”. And yet, as we’ve already read, God himself gets angry. How can that be?
Understand that at its root, anger is a mechanism for detecting injustice. Anger is a natural response when you know what’s right, but see wrong. It’s a good holy passion. We are wired to want to see justice done and injustice stopped. It’s a natural passion.
But passions are hard to control, and injustices are all around us. Too often, we see that injustice is happening to us. But how we deal with the holy passion of anger is what dictates whether we see anger as a purifying fire, or a consuming one.
In Jonah’s case, he was angry, and God was angry. Both were angry at what they knew to be wrong.
Jonah, you’ll remember, had been sent to preach to Nineveh. It was a bad town that had much to repent of. Now, Jonah didn’t want to go.
Jonah knew that Nineveh had to pay for its badness, and he was looking forward to seeing the price. But God had other plans. Eventually, Jonah got where he was going and delivered the message. “Thirty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” Short and to the point like a preacher should be – even if Jonah might have been a bit too giddy at delivering it.
Well, the people repented. And that’s when Jonah got angry. God had decided not to blow them out of the water. And so, Jonah and God decided to have some words.
“I knew it!” Jonah cried out. “You are a merciful God, you are slow to anger, but you abound in faithfulness and mercy!” I knew you’d forgive them. How dare you?
But God has a question back – one that I think is directed to us as much as to Jonah. “Is it right for you to be angry?”
Well, is it right for us to hate injustice? Yes. But is it right to be angry? Well, again, it depends on how you handle it. Remember God may be slow to anger – but he got angry. Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t escape. Noah’s world felt his anger, and one of these days, our whole planet is going to feel it again.
The key difference I want to point out between Jonah, and God, is why they got angry and how they got angry. Jonah was angry because of the injustice against whom? Himself. God gets angry for better reasons.
When I get angry, I tend to have it out and be done with it. And then, I just end up paying for it. Slowly gives me time to pause and reflect on the validity of my anger. Slow is good.
So, from our text this morning, I’d like to suggest just one thing to you this morning. When it comes to anger, you must be slow. Be Angry! But be slow about it.
And because slowness is what I want you to hear, I’m even going to succumb to the temptation of being cutesy, and ask you to remember SLOW as an acrostic.
S – Stay your Speed
When hear the “S” think speed. And, specifically, think “slow.” I know you’ve heard it before – When you get angry, count to ten! That’s the gospel according to Mama to be sure, but I’ll allow it, because she is quoting from Biblical source. As we read earlier, Good sense makes one slow to anger. It’s to his glory to overlook an offense.
The speed with which we execute our anger is the key to executing it rightly. When Paul tells us, “Be angry and do not sin!” he’s actually remembering Psalm 4. Be angry and do not sin. Ponder in your own heart on your beds and be silent. In other words, be angry, but don’t sin. You can manage that if you’ll just slow down.
Now, let me raise an objection here. You’ve probably heard the old chant, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Well, they’re right. But guess what – Justice sped up is a kangaroo court. Justice will come at its own pace. And you know why? Because God himself will brings justice. Just because the punishment doesn’t immediately follow the crime, people think that it isn’t coming. [Ps 37.7]
And that’s in Scripture too. It is the natural cry of the heart to wonder, How many Psalms cry out “How long, O Lord!?” But understand this, my brothers and sisters. A day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years a day. I don’t want to wait on God. I want God to act now. But that would be to overlook his nature.
When Jonah prayed, he used a formula that appears over and over again in the OT. We read it multiple times in the RR – God is slow to anger but abounding in mercy. He’s much quicker to be merciful than to be angry. Trust me, time will show you that’s a good. But don’t confuse slowness with inaction. As Nahum 1:3 says, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power – The Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
The question is, will we wait for the Lord, or do it on our own. We need to speak up – but we can wait on the Lord to give us the words. It’s actually good to wait on him. Absent his divine power, our words are meaningless. It reminds me of that old proverb – Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
LO – Locate the Injustice, Locate the Scripture
So, Anything that slows you down is ok. If counting to 10 doesn’t work for you, can I maybe suggest another reasonable idea? This is the ‘LO” in slow – namely, Locate. Locate your anger, locate the injustice, and locate the scripture that speaks to the injustice you see. As they say, if you don’t know the context, it’s just a pretext.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech, delivered from the Lincoln Memorial, contains these words:
“We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
It is perhaps not surprising that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would pull from Scripture to punctuate his speech. He’s alluding to Amos 5:24, in which the Lord himself is rejecting Israel because of the injustice in that was rife in the land. Israel was rejected precisely because it was ignoring God in its day to day dealings. That’s injustice. Its worldly manifestations are just that.
Take the time to ask yourself the simple questions: “Who is really being hurt?” Too often, the answer is “me.” I am very quick to see the injustice that I suffer. But tell me, is that where Jesus’ focus was? If we’re supposed to be zealous for the Lord, doesn’t it make sense we should see exactly how he’s really the one being offended?
Taking the time to understand the scripture what the scripture says means that we’ll know how to respond in a God-like way. We may not like it – because it isn’t our way. But as you and I and Isaiah 58:8 all know – Our ways aren’t God’s ways, but God’s ways are higher than our ways.
And that’s the problem – When we say it’s our way or the highway, the Higher way is actually the right answer.
My anger, frankly, isn’t that important. I’ll probably blow up, make a fool of myself, maybe regret it later on, but that will be that. If I’m particularly bad about the anger, it might stew inside of me, making me bitter and bad to be around – but frankly my anger will still have little consequence beyond me.
But God is a different story. He’ll outlive me, he’ll out-love me, and you can be sure if he’s angry, things will change. It’s his anger that’s worth looking at.
W – Wait on the Lord
And that brings me to W – Wait on the Lord. Why? Because he will outlive me, and because he will out love me too. Remember we talked about the name of the Lord? His “slow to anger” is always balanced by his “abounding in mercy.”
God is rich in mercy. That can be a cause for complaint, or a cause for rejoicing. When I’m the perpetrator of the injustice, and as a sinner, I will be, I look for his mercy. I’d like to see that mercy from God’s people sometimes too.
When he abounds in mercy to my enemies, it makes me angry. It makes me just like Jonah. God, I knew you’d let them go. But you know what? The Ninvehites may have spoken the exact same words – but without the attitude.
Conclusion
Daniel Payne got angry. It wasn’t 1955, but rather closer to 1835, when he was asked to get up out of his seat on the train. He was 70 years old, a distinguished bishop and professor at Gettysburg College, but he was black.
Sixty years earlier, he had been there as Absalom Jones, an ordained Methodist preacher at St. George’s in Philadelphia – also a black man – began to lead a prayer. A white deacon who saw this got angry, interrupting the prayer and telling them, “You can’t pray here! If you don’t stop, I’ll have you thrown out!” Jones protested, asking that they could finish the prayer, but the deacon kept shouting. Finally, unable to continue, Jones said, “We will finish, and then trouble you no more.” And, he was true to his word. That day, he left the Methodist church and began a new one in old blacksmith shop – now Mother Bethel Church –the first African Methodist Episcopalian Church that gave birth to all the others.
Daniel Payne reflected on that as the conductor demanded he move. He said, “You’re going to have to throw me off before I’ll dishonor men like that.” The train stopped, Payne got off, and began walking down the tracks with his bags.
At the sight of this seventy year old man struggling to move along the tracks, the conductor relented and tried to put him back on the train. But Payne refused.
120 years later, at an AME church, Rosa Parks’ same action had exposed the need for a boycott. Looking for someone to lead it, they asked a young black Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the rest, as you know, is history.
So, when you get angry, do something - Sit there! Be SLOW about it, but don’t stop! Search the Scriptures and expose the injustice for what is – either an offense against you, which can be forgiven, or an offense against God that should be handed over to him.
It’s way more than angry – it’s leaving it up to one who always makes things even. By no means will he clear the guilty. Thank God for his mercy.
Would you pray with me? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Oh, troops were mobilized, important people evacuated, and the flames put out, but the rage that reached its full fire that day have ignited passions ever since. The effects of that fire are all around us, even today. Oh, most – but not all – of the buildings have been rebuilt, but the economy has never recovered.
The anger, the sense of injustice – it’s not a coincidence that the two are so messily intermingled. Anger has its origins in injustice. When we see a wrong, we are angry. The passion itself may be noble. But its expression is so easily misdirected that it is no wonder that it would appear on a list of Seven Deadly Sins.
In Jonah’s case, you’ll see he was pretty reluctant to go to Nineveh – precisely because he knew the Scripture – precisely because he already knew that God was as likely to forgive as not. He was all up for the “Thirty Days and Nineveh will be destroyed” – but deep in his heart, he knew all the Scripture. He knew that God would be slow, just like we said.
I think it is totally appropriate to get angry at someone who is showing un-grace. It’s totally appropriate to be angry at sin. But before we enter the Tempe, hot with righteous indignation, doesn’t it make sense to know that in fact God has said, “My Temple shall be a house of prayer,” and that God himself has already declared it “a den of thieves.”
Did you notice in our text, that Jonah had some words about God, even as he spoke to God? In vs 2, notice what he said: “For I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
Let me read you some other Scriptures:
Ex. 34:6 “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness
Numbers 14.18 The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty
Ps 145:8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Ps 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness
Nah 1:3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty
Do you see a trend here?
God himself is slow to anger. He will by no means clear the guilty, but he will take his time doing it.
Prov 14:29 Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.
Prov 15:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.
Prov 16:32 Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Prov 19:11 Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
And if you need to hear it from the New Testament? Well, there’s always James 1:19. Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger
Rom 12:20
if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads
Now that we live in the age of email, there are even programs you can buy that will set up a ten counter before you can actually hit ‘Send.’ That’s probably a good thing for me. I know I’ve regretted sending certain emails. And, unlike the classic comedy routines of yesterday, once it’s sent, you can’t try to break into the post office and retrieve it.
Indeed, I wish there was a ‘Send’ button on my mouth sometimes. Just waiting before saying the stupid thing is a discipline that can be hard to enforce. I was raised on ‘Jeopardy’ – you know – he who answers first wins. But life is not a game show. I keep trying to internalize the old proverb, ‘It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.’
Anger is, in fact, a great way to locate sin. So is scripture. Between the two, you can locate the source of your anger – see the root. It may, and in fact I hope, it will be evidence of your very own maturity in Christ. So, when you’re angry, looking for something to do, why not take the time to look up the footnote? I know every time I take the time to do the research and check, I not only find something interesting – I tend to learn too.
Ain’t nothing like a real-world situation to drive the lesson home.
Well, if the good side of anger really is a reaction to injustice, then I think its worth taking the time to know what God says about it already, don’t you? It’s reasonable, and even noble, to get angry at good things. Why not take the time to see exactly what God says about. You may be surprised.
Blessed are you when men shall persecute you, slander you, and do all evil against you for my name’s sake. For so treated they the prophets who were before you! [Matt 5:11]
Do I give cause for anger? Sure. I’m human. Do you give cause for anger? Well, assuming you’re not Jesus, I’m sure you’ve caused your share of headache too. When I’m able to let my anger slow, it comforts me to know that I am judged by the same measure with which I judge others. But when I let my anger fester, well, that’s another story.
Our God is slow to anger, and he abounds in steadfast love and mercy. They’re good traits to balance out the excesses of anger. It’s amazing how God works that way, no?
But, for this morning’s purposes, I want to suggest one thing more. God gets angry in a different way than Jonah does. God gets angry Slowly. And that’s important.
A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.
Pr 15:18;
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Sunday, February 11th, 2007
Enter to Worship
Prelude Betty Patterson
Meditation Psalm 94:1 – 12
Invocation Michael Hollinger
*Hymn CH#372
“Our God Reigns”
W elcome & Announcements
Morning Prayer [See Insert]
*Hymn
In My Life, Lord CH#186
*Responsive Lesson [See Right]
*Hymn #510
“Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory”
Offertory Mrs. Patterson
*Doxology
*Scripture Jonah 4:1-2, 4
Sermon
“Anger: More than just Black & White”
Invitation Hymn #405
“We are Called to be God’s People”
*Benediction
*Congregational Response CH#186
In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified, Be Glorified
In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified, Be Glorified today.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
Responsive Lesson
Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.
Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.
Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret over the one who prospers in his wicked way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you shall heap burning coals on his head.”
Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. The Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’
The Lord is gracious and merciful; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
You, O Lord, are a God who is merciful and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Jas 1:19; Ps 4:4; Pr 14:29; Ps 37:7; Ro 12:20; Am 5:24;
Nah 1:3; Pr 19:11; Ex 34:6; Nu 14:18; Ps 145:8; Ps 86:15
Title: Anger – More than Black and White
Text: Jonah 4:1-2, 4
MP:
Outline:
Intro: Many of you were living the Washington area on Thursday, April 4th, 1968. I don’t need to really set the stage for it, because you lived it. …
Understand that at its root, anger is a mechanism for detecting injustice. Anger is a natural response when you know what’s right, but see wrong. It’s a good holy passion. We are wired to want to see justice done and injustice stopped. It’s a natural passion.
- Jonah
Being SLOW
S = Speed
a. Paul – “Be angry and do not sin – Psalm 4.4 ponder on your bed
b. Justice delayed is justice denied
c. Formula of slow to anger but abounding in mercy
LO = Locate
d. MLK – “I have a dream”
e. Who is being hurt? Me or God?
Taking the time to understand the scripture what the scripture says means that we’ll know how to respond in a God-like way. We may not like it – because it isn’t our way. But as you and I and Isaiah 58:8 all know – Our ways aren’t God’s ways, but God’s ways are higher than our ways. And that’s the problem – When we say it’s our way or the highway, the Higher way is actually the right answer.
W = Wait on the Lord
And that brings me to W – Wait on the Lord. Why? Because he will outlive me, and because he will out love me too. Remember we talked about the name of the Lord? His “slow to anger” is always balanced by his “abounding in mercy.”
…
When he abounds in mercy to my enemies, it makes me angry. It makes me just like Jonah. God, I knew you’d let them go. But you know what? The Ninvehites may have spoken the exact same words – but without the attitude.
Daniel Payne & Absalom Jones -> Rosa Parks & MLK
