Year A • The Sixth Sunday After Epiphany
Deuteronomy 30:15–20
• Psalm 119:1–8 • 1 Corinthians 3:1–9 • Matthew 5:21–37
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and as a PDF by clicking here.
The Sermon
Let
the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be
[always] acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
my Strength and my Redeemer.
— Psalm
19:14.
We Live in An
Angry World And I am Something of an Expert
How many of you watch the
news or read the newspaper? How many of you drive in traffic, stand in long
lines at the checkout, or follow Twitter? Watch what people do; listen to how
they talk to their children; read what they post on Facebook. If you do any of
these things, for any length of time, you would be hard-pressed to draw any
other conclusion than that our world is filled with angry people, with fearful,
frustrated, angry people.
We live in an angry world, and I consider myself
to be something of an expert. After all, I am a father of four, and I spend my
days with middle schoolers as a substitute teacher in the public school system.
Need I say more?
I deal with anger on a daily basis, my own anger,
that is. There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel anger. But that’s
not the half of it. I find that I use anger; I rely upon it. I find that I have
come to trust anger in an effort to control my world. By way of illustration,
let me tell you a little story.
7th Hour
I am a building substitute for Pleasant Valley Middle
School. So every day I go to Pleasant Valley, and they plug me into whatever
classroom I am needed. I teach all grades and all subjects; sometimes more than
one in a given day. Before Christmas, I was assigned
to sub-teach a 7th Grade Social Studies class. It was a Friday, and the
day had gone fairly well until 7th hour, the last hour of the day. For the life
of me, I couldn’t get these kids to pay attention or stay on task. I got
increasingly frustrated, because I am there to teach, not to babysit. There was
lots of talking, lots of moving around, lots of distractions; all the things I
hate. One girl comes in ten minutes late from the nurse. As soon as she enters
the room, she begins chatting with a couple of students. She does this as she
finds her seat and as if I were not in the middle of teaching a lesson. I am not impressed, and my
agitation and anger rises. I tell her to sit down and be quiet; and she is
offended.
This sort of
thing continues, and I finally announce that if there is any more
talking or disruptions, I will keep people after class. I then spend the rest
of the hour with those who are working. When the bell rings, I dismiss
two-thirds of the class, and I keep the rest. They are shocked, and express
outrage at being treated this way. I am equally shocked and outraged, telling
them that they need to pick up any paper on the floor and straighten the desks
before they go. At this point, there is more shock, more outrage, and a bit of
swearing (not by me).
One girl
says that it isn’t her mess, and so she isn’t picking anything up. Another girl calls her mother and says that
she will be late because her teacher is being retarded. A boy insists that he has to get to basketball practice, but he
refuses to do any work. The first girl
says, “Mister, you may not have anywhere to go, but I’ve got somewhere to be.”
A few students do what I ask, and I let them go. But in the end, I march four
very angry students to the office, and then I head home very shaken.
Did I act appropriately,… as a teacher,… as an
employee of USD 259? I think I did; and the administration thinks I did. Yet,
two months later, I am still bothered by the incident. There was so much anger
over something that was fairly routine. Where did it all come from? What could
I have done that might have helped myself and my students?
Our Anger
Doesn’t Produce God’s Righteousness
I don’t enjoy getting angry or expressing anger. I hate
the way it makes me feel. Moreover, most of the time, my anger doesn’t
actually achieve what I intend. Yet, I find myself turning to it again and
again. Is this not the very definition of insanity, according to Einstein, “doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Anger just
doesn’t seem to work very well, and I am reminded of what James—the brother of
our Lord—had to say on the subject of anger.
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness (James 1:19–20, nrsv).
Let me read that again:
Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness (James 1:19–20, nrsv).
Well, I wish somebody would have told me that a
long time ago; it would’ve saved me a whole lot of trouble. Oh, I’ve heard that
stuff about being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. But that
last bit, that last bit is what really gets me. Our anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Really? Is that
really true? Are you telling me, James, that
yelling at my kids—with flared nostrils and eyes aflame—isn’t producing the
faith, hope, and love that God is looking for? …that all of my threats are for
naught?
Let’s say that James is right, that human anger
does not produce God’s righteousness. What do we do? Well, the answer seems
fairly obvious? Don’t get angry. Don’t ever get angry. After all, isn’t that
what Jesus teaches us. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not
murder,’ but I say to you, don’t even get angry?” Well, how do we do that? How do we not get angry?
Well, before we try to tackle that question, it
should be noted that Jesus never actually says, “Don’t get angry.” What I just
quoted a second ago is not what Jesus teaches; it is, however, what we have
been taught to hear when we read or listen to the
Sermon on the Mount. But, Jesus never says not to become angry. In fact, we
have stories of Jesus expressing his anger. But
that does not get us off the hook. We’ve still got a lot of work to do where
anger is concerned.
We Are
Possessed by Anger
Back in 2006, in his State of the Union Address, President
George Bush declared, “America is addicted to oil.” That’s true. But the fact
is, America is addicted to lots of things: sugar,
high fructose corn syrup, processed foods, caffeine, Starbucks, partisan
politics, Downton Abby… You name it; we’re addicted to it. And somewhere up
there, up near the top of the list is anger. And do you know what you get when
you add a D to ANGER? You get DANGER. Listen to this quote I ran across this
past week:
Anger is dangerous because it is addictive. When we
feel angry, we feel a sense of power, and that can grip us. Angry people often
feed on their own anger and get angrier and more aggressive in their behaviour.
This sense of power is often false. Anger gives a person the illusion of being ‘right’. When we are angry, we feel self-righteous about it, we feel we are right to express our anger as anger, and humiliate other people. That in-turn only creates more anger.[1]
As a society, we are addicted to anger; in fact, we are possessed by anger, and it is from this
demon that Jesus seeks to deliver us
in today’s gospel reading from the Sermon on the Mount.
Transforming
Initiatives
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes what life
looks like in the kingdom of God and how we can participate in it.
Unfortunately, Christians have been taught to read the Sermon on the Mount as a
series of high ideals and impossible demands. So instead of feeling empowered,
we simply feel guilty and judged. But the “Sermon on the Mount is not about
human striving toward high ideals but about God’s transforming initiatives to
deliver us from the vicious cycles in which we get stuck.”[2]
So, Jesus is not teaching us how to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps;
rather, he is showing us how to actively and obediently participate in God’s
gracious deliverance. Recall the Exodus. Only
the power of God could free the Israelites from their Egyptian
taskmasters, yet the people still had to make the journey. Only the power of
God could have parted the waters of the Red Sea, but the people still had to
participate by putting one foot in front of the other. That’s what Jesus is
doing in the Sermon on the Mount.
In today’s reading, Jesus covers a variety of
topics. He talks about anger, lust, divorce, and swearing oaths. Next week he
will talk about non-retaliation and loving our enemies. If you read these
carefully, you will notice that they follow the same pattern, they all exhibit
the same three-part structure.
First, they each begin with Jesus saying, “You
have heard that it was said….” Here he introduces the traditional Jewish
teaching on a given subject. Second, Jesus follows this traditional teaching with
a diagnosis of the human condition, one that describes a cycle of sin that
enslaves human beings. This part begins, “But I say to you….” And this is where
we must be very careful. So on the topic of anger, Jesus says,
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient
times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to
judgment.’ But I say to you that if
you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if
you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you
say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”
Those are strong words, but notice what Jesus does not say.
He does not say, “Don’t get angry.” In fact, he doesn’t tell us to do anything.
He is not prescribing any course of action yet. Why? Because at this point, he
is simply describing the vicious cycle of anger, resentment, and hatred that
can kill relationships and people. You see,
when we harbor anger for another human being, we are disconnected from
them. So often, that disconnection is maintained and reinforced through
insults, name calling, and labeling, either aloud or internally in our
thoughts. Insulting another person, calling them a idiot, keeps us in our
anger. It stokes our anger, it serves to justify our anger in our own minds,
and therefore disconnection grows and so does our anger. It truly is a vicious
cycle.
So how do we break free from these vicious cycles,
according to Jesus? Well, it’s not a simple matter of just not doing these
things. The solution comes in the climactic third part of Jesus’ teaching.
Listen.
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if
you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your
gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or
sister, and then come and offer your gift.
Here Jesus offers us, not a general principle, but
concrete actions designed to set us free from the anger and resentment we find
ourselves trapped in. Anger is about disconnection, so Jesus prescribes a course of action that seeks to establish or
re-establish connection with another human being. Thus, the solution to our
problem with anger is not, “Don’t be angry. Don’t insult people.,” but “Be reconciled.”
Because it is only in establishing and maintaining connection with others that
we have the resources to work through and resolve our anger.[3]
So again, Jesus’ solution to our being possessed
by anger is not prohibitions: Don’t do this; or, Don’t do that. The solution is
to engage in what ethicist Glen Stassen calls, transforming initiatives:
specific, concrete, positive actions that are designed to deliver us from the
vicious cycles and internal programs that so often dictate our actions and
reactions. Transforming initiatives are how we participate in God’s grace, in
God’s way of deliverance. Let me illustrate the practice and power of transforming
initiatives with one final story.
Thaddaeus and
Me
When Thaddaeus was five or six years old, he was outside,
and I was doing something in the house. Suddenly, Thaddaeus burst through the
front door, slammed it shut behind him, and said to me, “You should be
outside.” Well, I grew up in a home where children didn’t talk to their parents
that way. I became incensed immediately, and
I was just about to go down that old familiar road of, “You shouldn’t talk to
me that way,” when something inside told me to just stop and think. I did, and
it occurred to me that I had just come in from outside. So I said to Thaddaeus,
“Were you scared because you suddenly realized you were alone?” His whole
demeanor changed. His anger disappeared; he nodded yes; and then he came into
my arms. I apologized, and said I was sorry for
coming inside without telling him because I know he doesn’t like to be
outside alone.
I like to tell
this story because, for me, it is a perfect illustration of how a
transforming initiative has the power to
transform anger into compassion and connection. When I stopped and
listened, not to what Thaddaeus was saying, but to what lay behind his words,
my anger disappeared and was replaced by a wellspring of compassion. In turn, this
compassion freed me from my need to insist on my own way, and it allowed me to
connect with Thaddaeus at a deeper level, at the level of his feeling of fear
and his need for safety. In other words, when I was quick to listen and slow to
speak, I found that I was slow to anger. And more to the point, I was granted
the grace to perform a transforming initiative that resulted in our
reconciliation.
Had I responded out of my original anger, I know
that Thaddaeus and I would have carried on shouting at each other, each
insisting that the other person listen. And had I simply told myself not to be
angry, that would not have worked either because I would not have had the
awareness to recognize what was going on for Thaddaeus. What I needed was a specific,
concrete, positive action designed to connect with him; I needed a transforming
initiative.
In the end, one small initiative on my part
transformed my anger and Thaddaeus’. In one simple act, we were both set free
from the vicious cycle of anger, and we received the gift of reconciliation.
That’s what I would like to leave you this morning, a vision for transforming
our anger into compassion and reconciliation, a course of action that has the
power to break the internal programs of anger and resentment that so often
dictate our actions and reactions.
So, as ambassadors of Christ, as ambassadors of
reconciliation, let’s get out there and transform our world. Let’s begin by
transforming our relationships and our daily interactions with others one
transforming initiative at a time.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Vandana Kohli, “World Anger Day: What’s
Driving Our Rage?,”
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/world-anger-day-whats-driving-our-rage/286174-2.html.
[2] Glen H. Stassen, Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace
(Louisville, Ky.: Westminster, 1992), 37. “The Sermon on the Mount describes
specific ways we can participate in the new initiatives God is taking. They are
not harsh demands but methods of practical participation in God’s gracious
deliverance” (38).
[3] Notice who Jesus directs his words to.
Not to the one who is angry, but to the one who is the object of someone else’s
anger. “If you remember that your brother or sister has something against you,
leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your
brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”
Delivered on Sunday, February 16th, a.d. 2014
at St. John's Episcopal Church (Wichita, Kansas)
The Scriptures
