Have you ever caught yourself looking at your reflection in a shop window? I have to confess that I sometimes do. Or maybe you're not that vain, or not as self-conscious. Maybe you're one of those blissfully secure people who (once you get your clothes on) never give your appearance another thought. But I'll wager there's not one person in this congregation who doesn't take at least one good look at him or herself in the mirror every day. Maybe it's your hair, or your buttons, or your nose, or your tie. Maybe you don't care much. But you look. You have some idea of what other people see when they look at you. And some people spend half their lives, it seems, and most of their discretionary income, polishing up their exteriors. From jewelry to jogging shorts, Americans spend enough on personal appearance to equip a small army. Maybe a large one.
Have you ever thought how pleasant it would be if people spent half as much time and effort polishing up their interiors?
What do you suppose life would be like if we, like God, cared more about being good than looking good?
What would happen, if instead of seeing your face when you glanced at a shop window, you saw your heart?
It's a moot point, anyway, because we don't have anything that can do that, do we. There isn't any such thing, is there, as a mirror that can reflect our inner selves back at us. Or is there?
We saw last week that one of the functions of the law is, as the Apostle Paul says, to make us “conscious of sin." [Rom 3:20] You may ask, “How does that
happen?” Let's suppose I say to you, as I just did, "You shall not murder." If
you're like me you'll say, "Sure, no problem. I've never killed anyone. God's
talking to someone else, not me." That law hasn't shown me anything about
myself. That law has not reflected my soul back at me, for me to confront, and
recognize as my own.
The ten commandments, narrowly interpreted, are mostly keep-able, at least as far as anyone else can tell. Nobody but God knows if you love him with all your heart. Nobody but God knows if you're really coveting. Some times you can even convince yourself that you've got 'em all nailed down. Most of us can say -and mean it - that we haven't committed adultery. Most of us can say - and mean it - that we haven't stolen. Most of us can say - and mean it - that we haven't sworn falsely. Most of us can say - and mean it - that we do not worship idols. Most of us can say - and mean it - that we have not committed murder. But not many of us could look Jesus in the eye and listen unmoved if he were to say to us,
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not
murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I
tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to
judgment." [Mt 5:21-22]
Just in case we're tempted to try to weasel out of the implications of this incredible expansion of the commandment, 1 Jn 3: 15 puts it even more strongly: "Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer."
The last message from this series was about what Jesus meant when he said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." With these words about murder, and the following passage equating lust with adultery, Jesus gives us concrete examples of what he meant by the fulfillment of the law. The law is completed when God's character is stamped on a person's heart as well as on his or her behavior. The law will be fulfilled when our internal characters are so conformed to the image of Christ that the law is no longer necessary because there is no longer any temptation. But the law cannot be fulfilled under human power.
God chose to give Moses these ten commandments for a reason. They aren’t arbitrary or frivolous or unconnected to reality. Why didn't he command us not to jump off cliffs, or not to try to breathe underwater, or not to starve ourselves?
Because most of us are not tempted in these areas.
God only puts fences up on the dangerous curves.
Each of those rules is a sign saying, "This is where the danger is", like those old maps with the sea-monsters on the edges warning, “Here be dragons.” The ten commandments, in conjunction with Jesus’ commentary on them, tell us something very important about being human. They show us in no uncertain terms just what kind of critters we actually are, when left to our own devices. The two together give us a complete picture, telling us that we are all naturally murderers, adulterers, liars, idolaters, and thieves. Maybe not all at once, or all the time, but on the whole, that is what human beings are like. And Jesus showed us that even when you and I keep all the rules on the outside, we're still the same on the inside, no matter how well we've been trained. That is why you and I need the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can write the law on our hearts, the way God promised the prophet Jeremiah.
It would be a terrible thing if every flash of irritation we felt were like a lightning bolt that could actually strike down the person who upset us. I don't really have much of an anger problem, but I get really burned at drivers who, when two lanes shrink to one, don't merge until the absolute last minute, to try to get ahead of everybody else. What's your flash point? Imagine what it would be like if every time you flared the other person just - disappeared.
King Henry II of England, back in around 1200, had a lot of power. He put an end to a long and bloody civil war, and ruled both England and a large chunk of France for many years. He was so famous that a movie was made about him, about 25 yrs ago, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. He was a pretty good king. But what made King Henry most famous was the fact that his power turned a flash of anger into an actual murder. He and a man who had once been his dearest friend, Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, were locked in a life-and-death power struggle between church and state. And in a moment of great frustration, so it is said, the King cried out, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest!" and four of his more ambitious and unscrupulous henchmen rode out that night to Canterbury and murdered Thomas in front of the high altar of the cathedral. By way of penance King Henry walked, barefoot and in sackcloth, the more than 50 miles from London to Canterbury.
What did God care about, the will or the deed? I think Henry's soul would have mattered just as much to God if those four men had never gotten on their horses.
The rough spots on our souls matter to God whether we have the power to act on them or not. The value God places on your internal life, and on mine,does not depend on our place in society. And that is what Jesus is talking about. He's talking abut the state of our souls. Jesus is not talking about war, or about capital punishment, or even about random street crime. He's talking about interpersonal relationships. He's talking about how we interact with the people in our lives. He's asking us to consider whether the impulses of our hearts create life - or death.
Anger is the impulse to strike out - either with words or with actions - at whatever threatens us, or threatens something we value. Anger is an impulse to destruction. Anger is in stark contrast to the commandment to love, which brings life.
So what do I mean?
Am I saying that good Christians never get angry?
No. I'm not saying that. There is such a thing as righteous anger. Righteous anger burns against wickedness and defends God's people and God's truth. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and saw the people of Israel worshiping the golden calf, "his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain." [Ex 32: 19] When King Saul was trying to kill David, has son Jonathan "got up from the table in fierce anger; ...he did not eat, because ...[of] his father's shameful treatment of David." [1 Sam 20:34] Furthermore, Jesus get angry. When the Pharisees criticized him for healing on the Sabbath, he got angry. When the money-lenders were defiling the temple, he got angry. But do you notice something interesting?
When Moses get angry, he broke the tablets God had given him. Did it do any good? No. He just had to go back up the mountain and get another set.
When Jonathan got angry, there was nothing he could do. All he could do was leave the table. Going hungry didn't change things at all.
2 Chronicles reports how the Northern Kingdom Israelites got angry at their Judean cousins, and went to war against them. God allowed it; he was angry with Judah himself because they had been worshiping idols and even sacrificing their firstborn children. But the Israelites didn’t know when to stop, slaughtering their defeated enemies by the thousands. The prophet Oded had to call them off: “you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven. Now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. But what have you except sins against YHWH your God? Now hear me, and send back the captives whom you have taken from your kindred, for the fierce wrath of YHWH is upon you." [2 Chr 28:9-11]
But when Jesus got angry, what happened?
In the first instance, he healed someone; in the second, he drove away the men who were profaning has father's house.
The apostle James wrote that "man's anger does not bring about the righteousness of God." [Js 1:20]
Think back to our recent military actions, the Gulf war and Kosovo and the current one. Think how proud our military are of the precision bombing our forces can do. That is something entirely new in warfare. Up until Desert Storm, bombing had been pretty indiscriminate. Gunners could only aim in a general sort of way, and there was a lot more of what we now call collateral damage - that is, killing innocent people by accident. Sometimes armies even killed their own people. It's called friendly fire. But you get just as dead when you're killed by your own side.
One of the problems with human anger, yours and mine, is that even when we're right to be angry, we're lousy shots. You know who gets hurt the most? Bystanders. People on our own side. Ourselves. And the very person or thing we are defending. "Human anger does not bring about the righteousness of God." That is why God says, "Vengeance is mine... I will repay." [Rom
12:19] God is saying, "Don't play with matches. you'll burn down the house." God
is the only one whose anger never hits the wrong target. God is the only one who can do precision bombing; let him do it. And besides - he might have something else in mind.
Do you remember when Jesus was going up to Jerusalem and sent messengers on ahead to a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people did not welcome him... the disciples James and John ...asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" but Jesus turned and rebuked them...[Lk 9:52-55] God had a different agenda, one the disciples couldn't begin to guess at. They didn't know that Jesus wanted to save the Samaritans, not to condemn them. You see, no matter how much we like to think our interests and God's coincide, they usually don't. The kind of anger we justify to ourselves is the most dangerous kind. If you think your anger is righteous, think again. The first thing to do when your temper flares is to doubt your anger. Question your motives. Question whether it's really God's interests or your own ego or status that's being threatened. Question if you will honor Jesus Christ with your actions.
And remember that it's not only others who get hurt. You get burned, too. The Apostle Paul says, "...Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold."[Eph 4:26-7] Because even if you don't act on it, anger held close is like a slow match. It burns holes in your soul. When you cherish your anger, when you hug it to yourself, stoking it with additional fuel, feeding it by repeating to yourself the injustice that made you angry, you are destroying your own self.
I know a woman whom I'll call Nora whose father regularly beat and verbally abused her until she left home. The week before her wedding he wrote her a letter which began, "You filthy slut..." and went on like that for two pages. He wrote the letter over 25 yrs ago. Nora keeps it in her jewel box and rereads it once a year on his birthday, so that she'll never forget. I think it's interesting that she keeps it where she does; she cherishes her anger as if it were something precious. And her anger did protect her when she was being abused. It helped her survive. It is right to be angry at anyone who treats his or her child that way. Of all sins, it is the one I find hardest to forgive. But who has she hurt? He doesn't even know. And Nora is tied to the past and crippled in the present. Holding on to anger - even when it's in a righteous cause - gives the devil more than a foothold. It gives him a home.
So here we are, once again, caught between the all too familiar rock and a hard place.
So what do we do with anger? Sit on it and hope it goes away? That causes depression and ulcers and high blood pressure, and besides, it's fundamentally dishonest. Dishonesty is NEVER the answer.
So what DO we do?
Anger turned outward hits the wrong target.
Anger turned inward destroys your own soul.
The answer is to turn the anger inside out.
Remember that I said that anger - the impulse to destroy - is the opposite of love, which is the life-giving power of God.
First of all, take your anger to God in prayer. Go ahead: use the words of the Psalms, the angry Psalms, the ones that beg God for revenge. I believe that God put them there to show us how to deal safely with our anger. He can handle it.
"May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents... May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous." [Ps 69:22-28]
Those are the very words that David prayed when he was a fugitive, hunted across the length and breadth of the country by the very man he had served,
followed, and defended. I believe that it was this complete honesty with God in prayer that enabled David to refrain from turning has own hand against Saul. Twice the Lord brought Saul with in the reach of David's sword; twice his followers urged him to use it. But David refused, saying,
"As surely as YHWH lives... YHWH himself will strike him; either his time will
come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. But YHWH forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord's anointed. [1 Sam 26: 10- 1 1]
And to Saul himself David said,
"May YHWH judge between you and me. and may YHWH avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you. As the old saying goes, 'From evildoers come evil deeds,' so my hand will not touch you. [ 1 Sam 24:12-13.]
So when you find yourself reacting with anger to people and situations in your life, take it to God, just the way David did. Get it out in the open for God to see. There's nothing there He hasn't seen before. Write it out, if you need to: all the wrong, all the hurt, all the injustice. Don’t short-cut this step, either, just because it’s painful; you must drain out all of the poison if you want to start clean. But than ask for the grace to go on to the second step. Ask the Holy Spirit to take all that destructive energy and transform it into constructive energy. Go to work at creating something worthwhile.
If you can, if your anger is directed toward an individual who is within your reach, the first thing to do is to begin praying for that person. Out of that prayer God will begin to grow in you the ability to follow Jesus's commandment to love your enemies. Life is God's specialty. Let him act through you to bring a wounded relationship back to life.
Even if the situation is older and more deep-rooted, like my friend Nora's, healing can begin by letting the Holy Spirit turn the anger inside out. Do you know what I believe would help Nora to heal? If she began working to serve children - like herself - who have no one to protect them. In helping them, she would be returning good in place of the evil that was done to her. From the offering of one little girl who was beaten and rejected could come protection for dozens like her. And another example. I have a friend named Luke who was sexually assaulted by a friend of his parents' when he was six. Can you guess what Luke does for a living? He's a social worker. His specialty is counseling and rehabilitation of convicted sexual offenders. Luke has offered his own wounds to God to use as an instrument of healing. This, my friends, is the example of Jesus Christ.
Let me challenge each of you to take a moment, right now, to ask the Holy Spirit to direct your attention to one particular person or situation which is making you angry, especially one in which you believe you are in the right. Ask for the grace to let go of the anger, and to turn to the next step, which is building something new on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
