Is Anger a Sin? A Sermon on Ephesians 4:25-5:2 by Rich Holmes Delivered on August 12, 2018 at Northminster Presbyterian Church

Transcription

1 Is Anger a Sin? A Sermon on Ephesians 4:25-5:2 by Rich Holmes Delivered on August 12, 2018 at Northminster Presbyterian Church In my lifetime, I have seen all kinds of depictions of Christ. I have seen Christ with a full beard and long hair, and I have seen a short haired and clean shaven Christ. I have seen Christ with white skin and blue eyes, I have seen Christ pictured as a black person from sub-saharan Africa, and I have even seen an Asian Christ. Perhaps the most interesting and moving depiction of Christ I ve ever seen is one which hangs in my study. The artist is Sandra Jelinek and if you look at it from afar it is a picture of Christ praying, but when you get close enough you realize the image is formed out of all the words from the gospel of John. But as different as all the images of Christ I ve seen are, there is something that they all have in common. In every one of the images I ve seen, Christ always appears to be calm, serene, even happy. There is not one that I can remember where Christ is ever wearing a frown or looking angry. But if you read the scriptures, you see a very different side of our Lord. One time when the disciples tried to stop the little children from coming to him, the gospel of Mark says that Jesus became indignant. Another time the gospel of Mark tells us, Jesus was in the temple during the Sabbath and the Pharisees were there looking to judge Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. Jesus tried to ask the Pharisees a question, but they would not answer, and the gospel tells us that Jesus then became angry. And surely you know the story about how the money changers were using the Jerusalem temple as a place of business, when the gospel of John says Jesus ran them out of the temple with a whip and overturned their tables. The title of my sermon today is a question. Is anger a sin? Well, of course it can be. Our Catholic brothers and sisters in fact, list wrath as one of the seven deadly sins. But anger is also 1

2 an emotion that, like all emotions, comes from God. And so to suggest that we should never have certain emotions is to deny that we are made in God s image. What then should Christians do when it comes to anger? Well, to me, this passage from Ephesians tells us three things about anger that we should pay attention to. First, as we look at this passage, we do not find it saying not to be angry, but what we are told is not to let the sun go down on our anger. I have heard some couples whose marriage lasted for decades and decades say that one of the secrets to a successful marriage is that they never went to bed angry. I think that s good advice for any marriage, but why? Why not go to bed angry? Well, when you don t get your anger out and resolve it, when instead you push it down and harbor it, what happens is that the anger lasts for a lot longer than your memory of what the anger was even about. And that is when couples starts snapping at each other because one of them put the cap on the toothpaste the wrong way, and the other one loads the dishwasher in the wrong way. And that doesn t just apply to couples, it applies to your relationships with your parents, with your brothers and sisters, with your friends, it applies to all your relationships. If you are angry, say why you are angry, say what the other person has done to make you angry. Tell them, because if you don t, that anger will become a part of you and it will kill you, and I don t mean that it will kill you necessarily in the sense that your heart will stop beating, although that, of course is one of the dangers of anger. It may not kill you that way, but it will kill your soul. If you see people who are bitter all the time, the kind of people who never smile, who are never happy, they have been robbed of their joy and therefore life itself and that s what happens when you push that anger down. 2

3 The second thing this passage tells us about anger is not in what it includes but in what it does not exclude. Sometimes the one you need to express your anger to is not just another person. It is God himself. When someone you love has suffered undeservedly, or you see a child suffer undeservedly, or you see a world full of injustice, or natural disasters, it is quite natural in those times to be angry with God. Now, maybe you re saying to me, Pastor you are going too far, here. What right do I have to be angry with God? Isn t that a sin? Didn t God make me and isn t God better than me and wiser than me and so if all these things about God are true, isn t it wrong for me to be angry with God? Well, let s forget about whether it s right or wrong to be angry with God for the moment. Regardless of whether it s right or wrong it may just be where you are. It may just be what you ve got. And if that is the case, the worst thing you can ever do to yourself or to God is to keep that bottled up inside you. The psalms are full of people expressing their anger to God. Psalm 22 says My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Psalm 13 says How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Psalm 10 Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you stand far off in times of trouble? So I am not saying that anger toward God is something you should seek out. But what I am saying on the other hand is that nothing good can come of denying that you are angry at God if in fact you are. Yes God wants our reverence, yes God wants our respect, but God also wants our honesty. And if you are never able to be honest about your anger with God, then you will never be able to honestly praise God either when you finally get that anger out. 3

4 The third thing this passage tells us about anger is to be angry, but not to sin. Be angry but do not sin, it says and do not make room for the devil. What does that mean? Well, some people may be reluctant to express their anger because they think that any expression of anger has to be hurtful, it has to be abusive, and expressing anger therefore has to be damaging to your relationship with your loved ones, or even with God. But I want to tell you that that simply isn t so. It doesn t have to be abusive and it doesn t have to damage your relationship. In fact, while no one likes it when someone is angry with them, if you express your anger in the right way you can actually make your relationship stronger. And so when you are angry with someone, what I would suggest you do to express your anger is three things. First, use what is called I language, not you language. Tell about your own feelings, not about what the other person has done. Don t say You make me angry when you do that. No one in this world is responsible for making you feel a certain way. Say I feel angry when you do that. I feel hurt when you do that. Second, only speak for yourself. Don t say, Maurine, everybody says this about you. Everybody says you do this. Don t speak for others. If the others have a problem with Maurine, let the others come forward and state their problem. If the others aren t courageous enough to come forward and address Maurine themselves, then it isn t fair to bring it up to Maurine. And finally, don t talk in generalities. Don t say You always act selfishly, you always act rudely, you are always inconsiderate. Be specific. Say This one time when you did this, I felt that you weren t being considerate of me. Or this one time when you did that, I felt that you were acting selfishly toward me. When you do these three things, I promise you something. I promise you that you will not feel as though you have expressed your anger any less than you would have expressed it had you blown your top, had you become abusive and 4

5 torn the other person into a million pieces. But the difference is that you will be saving your relationship with the other person, and you won t be keeping that anger bottled up inside until the day when it utterly kills you either in your body or in your soul. In the Spring of 1894, the Boston Red Sox were playing the Baltimore Orioles when all of the sudden the Orioles John McGraw got into a fight with the Red Sox third baseman. The next thing that happened was that the benches cleared and both teams got into the fight, and then the next thing that happened was that the entire stadium got into the fight and then the next thing that happened was that the stadium was burned to the ground, and then finally the fire spread to a 107 Boston buildings leaving unimaginable destruction in its path. Now, I know that none of you can remember this destructive power of anger which broke out in the Spring of 1894, but you may remember the Ohio State football coaching legend Woody Hayes. Woody Hayes was a brilliant coach and he had a brilliant career. And I know I don t have to tell any of you that. But what happened to him? What happened? Ohio State was playing the Clemson Tigers in the 1978 Gator Bowl, when a Clemson player named Charlie Bowman intercepted an Ohio State pass and ran out of bounds on the Ohio State sidelines. Well, it was a spectacular play that this athlete made because it basically saved the football game for Clemson. But what did Woody Hayes do? Did he shake Bowman s hand and congratulate him on a great play? Did he keep to himself or simply shake his head in disgust. No, Woody Hayes grabbed Bowman and punched him. Just because he made a spectacular play, he grabbed him and punched him. Now, as a life-long South Carolina Gamecock, I am tempted to tell you that there is nothing wrong with punching someone from Clemson. But because Coach Woody Hayes could not control his temper, this one action ended his career, and what is worse, is that this one 5

6 moment in his career made him look like a fool. 238 wins, 5 national titles, 13 Big Ten Conference Championships. What a glorious career. But go on the internet today and do a video search of Woody Hayes and what do you think you ll find? A thirty one second video which has forever tarnished an otherwise brilliant career. 31 seconds. The danger of anger is that it can become destructive and leave damage and pain and hurt in its path. But the tragedy is that it doesn t have to be that way. Expressions of anger can even bring healing. So let it out, don t be ashamed of it. Even Jesus got angry. Even the psalmists got angry with God. Let it out because anger doesn t have to be destructive or abusive or cruel, but I promise you it will become that way if you keep it bottled up inside. 6