Haydenville Congregational Church The Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian August 12, 2012 Ephesians 4:25-5:2 The Dance of Anger May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen. This week in the Stillspeaking Daily Devotional that appears every morning in my e-mail inbox on my computer, the Rev. Anthony Robinson wrote the following: Okay, Paul, which one is it? In Galatians 6:2 the apostle Paula writes: Carry each other's burden and so fulfill the law of Christ... But in Galatians 6:5 he writes, each one must carry their own load. Rev. Robinsons writes: In verse 2 Paul says, "Carry each other's burdens." I get that. Help someone with their heavy load, literally or figuratively. Give them a ride to the hospital. Take dinner by to someone in crisis. Listen to another's concerns and so help them carry the load. Take the kids for an evening and let Mom and Dad have a break. Pack a bag of food for someone who needs it. But three verses later, in verse 5, Paul says, "Each one must carry his own load." Pick up your own bags. Deal with your own stuff. Do your own work. Learn to be responsible for yourself. Carry your own load. When someone doesn't do their part of the job, someone else may end up doing it for them. On a long-term basis, that's not a good solution for either party. So which is it, Paul? "Carry each other's burdens" or "Each one must carry his own load"? Could it be both? Rev. Robinson continues: I once heard a story of a man who was doing a retreat at a monastery. At dinner he enjoyed some wonderful dark, rich homemade bread. He asked one of the monastery's brothers (who had made the bread), "Did we make this bread ourselves or was it given to us?" The brother thought for a moment and then said, "Yes." 1
At least sometimes things aren't either/or, they are both/and. We might wish everything could be either this or that. Then life would be simple. Black or white, no grey. But life is complex and so, thanks be to God, is our faith. In today s reading from the Book of Ephesians, Paul pulls this same trick again he gives contradictory advice. In the Ephesians passage, just five verses apart, Paul contradicts himself and leaves us confused and scratching our heads. In Ephesians 4:26, Paul says very clearly: Be angry. Listen again: Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. But just five verses later, in Ephesians 4:31, Paul says: do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God Put away all wrath and anger I find myself in agreement with Rev. Robinson who asked, Okay Paul, which one is it? The problem with some advice in the Bible, and the problem with some of life s difficult challenges, is that on occasion contradictory messages are both true, and we must strike a balance and navigate the delicate path ahead. In the case of Carry each other's burdens AND Each one must carry his own load, both are true. God gives US the task of discerning when it is the time and the place for one or the other or both in right measure. In the case of Be angry AND Put away all wrath and anger, both are true. And again God give US the task of discerning when it is the time and the place for one or the other or both in right measure. Remember the brother in the monastery the one who made the delicious dark bread? Well, if you asked me: As Christians, should we express our anger OR should we put away all wrath? I would have to answer YES. Life is complex and so, thanks be to God, is our faith. Sometimes contradictory messages are both true. Sometimes things are not either/or, black/white. Anger, especially for people of faith, is one of those complexities. 2
Maybe in the moment when Paul wrote in his letter to the Church in Ephesus Be angry but do not sin he was being a realist. Maybe at that moment when he wrote be angry he knew that saying do not be angry was an impossible goal. Maybe Paul wanted to acknowledge that every living mortal will feel anger. Even though he contradicted himself moments later, Paul may have had the clarity for a moment that being angry is part of being alive. In her groundbreaking and bestselling book The Dance of Anger, Harriet Lerner writes that as a psychotherapist, she is often asked, Is my anger legitimate? Do I have the right to be angry? Her response is this: To ask, Is my anger legitimate? is similar to asking, Do I have a right to be thirsty? After all, I just had a glass of water fifteen minutes ago. Surely my thirst is not legitimate. And besides, what s the point of getting thirsty when I can t get anything to drink now, anyway? Anger in faith communities is hard to deal with and sometimes scary. We are unsure what to do with it. We are worried it might get out of control. We are afraid that it is un-christian to feel, much less express, anger. We confuse being nice with being Christian. We think Christian tenets include being endlessly kind, generous, compassionate, available, and patient without limits or boundaries. And so when anger, a human feeling just like thirst, gathers steam inside us, we don t know what to do with it. If we express anger with feeling and drama, we feel regret and guilt. If we bury anger, it comes out spread thin in passive and painful ways. So what do we do about anger? It seems like we cannot win. If we yell and carry on, we have vented, it is out there, and we experience relief and later we feel badly. If we contain it, we hold it inside and it festers and later we feel badly. Rev. Frederick Buechner describes this dilemma in a brief reflection on anger: Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. So what s a poor mortal to do? And why didn t the apostle Paul give us clearer advice? Paul! Why did you tell us first, Be angry AND THEN Put away all wrath and anger?! 3
If asked, can we be good Christians and BE ANGRY? OR should we PUT AWAY all anger? I would have to say YES. Anger is a normal and not uncommon human emotion. The point is not to deny the feeling, the point is to distinguish between feelings and behaviors. Sure we get angry. As people, as parents, as partners, as Christians, as colleagues as friends, we get angry. We get angry, like we get thirsty, like we get tired. Okay. So we feel angry and we accept that this is a common and not awful human emotion. Okay. The key is: we must take care how we express our anger. There is a big difference between having a feeling and acting on that feeling. Paul is right on both accounts: Be angry, and put away all anger. We can be angry, but we also are called to behave in responsible ways. Expressing rage will never help. That just hurts and alienates people. And denying the anger will also never help. Don t let the sun go down on anger or it will fester and grow. As Christians, we have the wonderful gift of a community of faith. We can gather with a pastor, an elder, a spiritual friend, or a Deacon and express our anger and work it through. It does not have to take over, win over, enlarge, explode. Anger is instructive, mine its lesson. Anger can be trusted to tell us something. We need to responsibly face anger and express it but not in rage. We can face and express feelings of anger directly and bluntly and in the context of prayer. We re Christians, we create community. That s what we do. And community can help us deal with anger. Our brothers and sisters in the faith can hear us, support us, and pray with us. There is a huge difference between petty gossip and asking for help to work through something that made you angry and hurt your heart. Paul s seemingly unsolvable contradiction is right: Be angry! AND put away all anger. Also we can give God our anger. Sometimes we treat God like a ceramic doll.handling God gingerly, carefully, like God will break or be offended or withdraw or hide. God is bigger than our feelings, God is stronger than our fears we can lift our anger to God, give it to God and feel some relief. God is big enough to absorb our anger, and still be close to us and still love us AND comfort us. 4
There is a big difference between feeling and acting. We can feel big anger. And we can still act in responsible and disciplined ways. What is not responsible or disciplined is to act out or to become enraged and out of control. Sometimes we hear that if you are very angry you should let it out, vent your anger, express your rage. It will be cathartic, we are told, it will release you, it will help. Sounds right, but it s actually wrong. I know this is counter-intuitive. But research done by social psychologists shows (in study after study) that when anger is expressed in big dramatic outbursts, it does not help. It makes things worse. In fact, big outbursts of anger don t release the feelings, big outbursts make the feelings of anger deepen and become fixed. In the Dance of Anger, Harriet Lerner writes: Venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain and even rigidify the old rules and patterns in a relationship thus ensuring that change does not occur. As Christians, our job is not to try (unsuccessfully) to delete a normal feeling from our repertoire of human emotions. Our job is to feel the feelings (like they say in AA: feel all your feelings) and then to determine how best to deal with them, how to act on them. This does not mean repressing our anger, it means ACTING, even when angry, in responsible ways. It means not succumbing to the temptation to give in to fits anger and act out. Remember Buechner s words: Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past to savor to the last morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you. There are numerous places in Paul s many epistles that he contradicts himself. That drives some folks crazy. The apostle has been called exasperating, annoying, and irascible. In Galatians, Paul says, Carry each other s burden And then three verses later, Paul says each one must carry their own load. I say: good for you Paul. I think both are true. In Ephesians, Paul says, Be angry And five verses later he says, Put away all anger I say good for you again Paul. I think both are true. 5
Anger as an emotion need not threaten a community of faith. But HOW anger is expressed can threaten a community of faith. The key word in both sentences is COMMUNITY. WE are a COMMUNITY of faith, Praise God, Praise God. We can help one another when anger bubbles up and threatens to bubble over. We can gather with a few close spiritual friends and talk, cry and pray. We can feel our feelings and act on them responsibly. A man went on retreat at a monastery. At dinner he enjoyed some wonderful dark, rich homemade bread. He asked one of the monastery's brothers (who had made the bread), "Did we make this bread ourselves or was it given to us?" The brother thought for a moment and then said, "Yes." Ephesians 4:26: Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Ephesians 4:31: do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God Put away all wrath and anger If asked: so which one is true? I would say Yes. Life is complex and so, thanks be to God, is our faith. You can do the dance of anger. Just make sure you learn the steps. Amen. 6