Richard J. Fairchild writes, in his book, Clearing the Temple:

Transcription

1 The Passion and the Pitfalls of Spiritual Anger (A Lenten Sermon Series on Passionate Spirituality) John 2:13-22 Sunday, March 11, 2012 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching Scripture. Prayer. Opening. Richard J. Fairchild writes, in his book, Clearing the Temple: The story of Jesus cleansing the temple with a whip reminds me of the old eastern story about a snake that lived on a path on the way to a famous temple in India. Many people would walk along the path to worship, and the snake would often bite people with his poisonous bite. One time a swami was on his way to the temple and the snake jumped out to bite him, but before the snake could bite him the swami put the snake into a trance and ordered him to stop biting people. It is not right to bite people with your poisonous bite, the swami told him. From now on, you shall not bite anyone. A few months later the swami was passing that way again, and he noticed the snake lying in the grass beside the path. The snake was all cut and bruised and was in an awful state. Whatever has happened to you, my friend? the swami asked. Since you have put your spell on me, the snake explained, I have been unable to defend myself. Give me back my bite. You foolish snake, the swami answered. I told you not to bite anyone. But I never said that you couldn't hiss! In today's gospel reading we see an angry Jesus, and it is rather refreshing, since we are so used to thinking of Jesus as gentle, meek and mild as the old hymn describes him. Anger can be a difficult emotion for us to deal with. We don t like being angry; we don t like other people being angry with us. 1

2 For Jesus, anger is a divine wrath over sin and injustice and unrighteousness. For you and me, we need to watch out for pitfalls when it comes to our human anger. I. The Pitfalls: Worldly Influences. This doesn t mean that human anger is bad. Anger gives us information. It lets us know that something is not quite right. When we feel angry, it s time to get curious about what is going on around us, and what is going on inside of us. It may be that we are angry about something going on around us. Maybe there is some injustice occurring, such as a child being bullied, or an elderly person being disrespected, or someone being hurt or injured in some way. It is legitimate for us to get angry about poverty or racism or hunger or violence or any number of wrongs that humans perpetrate upon one another. In fact, Jesus became enraged by the financial burdens that the sellers and the moneychangers were putting on worshippers at the temple in Jerusalem. Folks were required to offer sacrifices as a part of the religious laws of the time. Poor folks and foreign visitors were being gouged by crazy exchange rates and shady sales practices. Jesus got angry. Maybe it s OK for us to get angry, too. Besides getting angry on behalf of others, we may get angry about wrongs being done to us. Maybe we lost our job and we don t know why. Or we do know why, and we feel the sting of the unfairness of it all. Maybe we get angry about the intricacies of relationships with friends and family. It is so easy to offend one another without even intending to do so. And if you throw in a bit of intention, we re at each other s throats! Anger in relationships is so dicey, because there is a history there. We can carry old hurts around for decades, until we ve forgotten what the original wrong was all about. That s how feuds and wars get started! 2

3 Some wrongs done to us are very serious and life-changing. Situations of abuse come to mind. In short: we have many legitimate reasons to get angry about things going on around us things done to others and things done to us. The other piece of this, in terms of sources of anger, is what s going on inside of us. We can, sometimes, be angry no matter what is going on around us. Even if the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the butterflies are fluttering and all is right with the world, we can still be angry. We may not even know entirely why. It can be a layering on of hurts over the years, hurts that never got dealt with. It can be related to physical health issues like blood sugar levels and aches and pains and such. It can be a generalized feeling that the other guy has it better than me and why is he so special and why doesn t God zap him like I ve been zapped?! The truth is, anger is just a feeling. We don t have a whole lot of control over how we feel. Feelings come and go. Feelings can change on a dime. Feelings are just feelings. What we do have a choice about is what we do with our anger. We have the power to choose how we behave. Easier said than done. Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, has this to say on the subject: Anyone can become angry; that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is difficult. Will Rogers once said, in a similar vein: People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing, and, Remember the end never really justifies the meanness. That may be true. But, thank God, Jesus frees us to be angry in positive ways. I almost said constructive, as well, but in this particular scripture passage, Jesus is expressing his anger in a destructive manner. Sometimes we need to tear things down before we can build things up. So, we feel angry. Now what do we do? 3

4 Our passion for God can help us with that question. II. (The Passion: Zeal for God s Temple. One of the most important steps to take when we feel angry is to turn it over to God. To ask God to sort out our anger for us, to open our eyes to any selfish motives on our part, to give us clarity about our anger, to provide direction about what to do as a result of our anger, to slow us down when the cycles of anger grab hold of us For Jesus, his divine wrath is directed at the sellers and the moneychangers, yes. But it is more than that. He is angered by the location of their activities as much as by the activities themselves. Golden arches in the sanctuary, that s the image that comes to mind when I think of the marketplace in the temple. If we were to advertise McDonald s or Burger King in here Or let s imagine a Starbucks logo on the altar instead of the cross This is the kind of thing that drove Jesus nuts. This is the level of offensiveness that led to his table-turning rage on behalf of God and God s holy dwelling place. As the disciples witness Jesus angry rampage, Psalm 69 verse 9 comes to their minds: Zeal for your house will consume me. This is a good measure of the appropriate expression of anger. If the situation is on a level of being an affront to God, then we can feel affirmed in expressing our anger vehemently. If the right worship of God is violated, then righteous anger seems to be warranted. Problem is, most of the time we re angry over more mundane issues: the checkout clerk looked at us the wrong way; someone cut us off on the freeway; we didn t get what we wanted, when we wanted it, in the time frame we expected to get it. Whatever it is. Mickey Anders, in his book, Endangered Worship, writes: 4

5 Imagine an updated version of this story in our church today. Suppose everybody was required to make an offering when they came to church, but the Elders refused to accept American money or regular checks. The new rule requires that all offerings to the church be made with a special credit card, perhaps one with a cross on it. Everyone must use that credit card to give their offering. And by the way, the bank will make 25% on the exchange of your money! Nobody would be very happy with that arrangement, but it is very similar to what was taking place in the Temple. The money-changers were making profit on the people's worship. Jesus was outraged by such hucksterism of piety! He threw them out of the Temple because they were hindering true worship. Jesus came into the temple not to be destructive or disruptive, but to draw us back to the heart of God. Jesus came to the temple to overturn every barrier that separates us from God. III. (The Aftermath: Passion for Jesus.) Jesus says it most clearly, although no one gets it at the time. He says, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (v. 19). Standing in the middle of the temple in Jerusalem, it is understandable that the religious leaders thought he was talking about a building. But in verse 21 John tells us that Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. Our truest spiritual anger ought to flow from our passionate love for Jesus, and our anguish over the sacrifices he made for us on the cross. Sure, we will all have those moments of pettiness when we get angry over the little things in life. But our sincerest prayer ought to be that, as we grow deeper in our love for Jesus, the lesser angers gradually fall away. Our prayer should be that we would be angry on his behalf, that we would be angry when we are distracted from the proper worship of him. Our prayer should be that we would be angry on behalf of the 5

6 lost and the forgotten and the oppressed and the poor those whose suffering stirs his divine wrath. It is so easy to get distracted by unimportant things. It is so easy to become enraged about things that don t matter. Jesus matters. His life, death and resurrection matter. His love for you and me matters. His love for hurting people matters. Passion for Jesus matters. J. Wallace Hamilton has some interesting thoughts about anger in his book, Ride The Wild Horses! (What a glorious title for a book). He writes: Anger is not the opposite of love; often it is love's clearest expression. How can we love people and stand by while they are wounded and exploited by selfish (people)... One of the most lamentable weaknesses of our generation lies in the lukewarmness of its love -- the feebleness of its protests growing out of its lukewarmness. Monstrous evils thrive right under our noses, become entrenched in politics and custom, grow brazenly insolent to every plea for decency and justice because we who are Christians do not speak. Closing. Bishop Melvin Wheatley once said, There are situations in life in which the absence of anger would be the essence of evil. Sometimes our expressions of anger are inappropriate. When this is the case, we may struggle with the aftermath. But we must also acknowledge that there is a time to be angry. There are situations in life in which the absence of anger would be the essence of evil. 6

7 Jesus loved us enough to get angry at injustice and unrighteousness. He loved us enough to brave the anger of the established religious and political authorities of his day. Jesus did not suffer from lukewarm love. Does Jesus jealous anger at the enemies of your soul raise within you a similar anger? Does his passion for you elicit in you a passion for him? Does the wild abandon of his love for you create a wildness of love for him within your heart? Know that passion for Jesus can carry you through whatever life throws at you. Amen. 7