On Anger
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
8/6/06
Ephesians 4:17-5:2
Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
It is strange that at a time when tolerance is the catch word of the day,
rage is the emotion of choice. In the last few years road rage makes the news as
angry motorists have exchanged the hand gesture for the hand gun. Social
commentators are referring to today's era as "the age of rage."
The Michael Douglas film a few years back, Falling Down portrays the
everyday man who has had enough with society gone mad by responding to the
injustices of life with unmitigated rage. Throughout the movie you find yourself
cheering his righting the wrongs of injustice, but soon realize that his anger
is the problem, not the solution for society.
This problem of rage can be seen in the example of Eugene Schneider of
One may become angry at painful circumstances resulting in a desire for
revenge.
Pamela Wiser was mad at the ex-boyfriend who infected her with the AIDS
virus. So she decided to get even by passing on HIV to every man she could find.
She spent a year picking up men at bars in rural
Anger can often affect those outside the scope of our frustration.
Take for instance what happened in the spring of 1894, when the Baltimore
Orioles came to
The warfare quickly spread to the grandstands. Among the fans the
conflict went from bad to worse. Someone set fire to the stands and the entire
ballpark burned to the ground. Not only that, but the fire spread to 107 other
Anger has been defined as "that
strong feeling of displeasure and hostility resulting from injury, mistreatment,
or opposition." Yet so many
of us deny its stronghold in our lives, using sophisticated language to deflect
having to wrestle with our rage. We may call it frustration or depression; we
may say we are tense or just under a lot of pressure. We
may excuse our anger by saying that we blow up but we get over it quickly. But
like a hand-grenade, the explosion may be quick, but the degree of destruction
is tremendous.
What is the place of anger in the Christian life? Is it wrong to be
angry? What should be our response to our anger? Why should we concern ourselves
with this very common response?
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.”
Are you surprised by this? In fact, there is a command here to be angry.
"Be angry and do not sin." There is an assumption here that
there is a place for anger. Too often in running from sin we embrace another
sin. A pietistic response to anger is to imagine that any ire is inherently
sinful. But Paul assumes that there will be times when anger is a proper
response.
The great preacher Henry Beecher once said, "A man who does not know
how to be angry, does not know how to be good. A man who does not feel
indignation over evil is either a fungus or a wicked man." There are times
when we see evil when anger should be the assumed response. Having just
prescribed truth in the place of falsehood, Paul is clear that when the truth is
spoken in situations where falsehood reigns, anger may well be evidenced.
Think to a time when you got angry. What was behind that anger?
No doubt you were frustrated at not attaining something you thought was
rightfully yours. It may be hard to see anger as a problem, because you may have
been legitimate in your frustration. Your rights may well have been violated,
your reputation may well have been harmed. But the problem of anger is that now
you want someone to pay for your inconvenience. You want them to hurt.... oh,
not bleed necessarily, but squirm a bit.
When you don’t get the raise you know you’ve deserved, when the kids
don’t do what you tell them to do... what happens? You feel helpless,
frustrated and, yes, angry. Your goals have not been met and now others need to
know they have not toed the line properly.
We often think of anger as an explosion, but there are forms of anger:
Venting is the most common picture we have of anger. We may just want to
let off a little steam, but we often get ourselves into more hot water. If you
are a "ventor" you know the routine:
Respiration deepens; the heart beats more rapidly; the arterial pressure
rises; the blood is shifted from the stomach and intestines to the heart,
central nervous system, and the muscles; sugar is freed from the reserves in the
liver; the spleen contracts and discharges its contents of concentrated
corpuscles, and adrenaline is secreted.
You may excuse your rage by saying: "At least I don’t hold it in!
It’s over in a matter of moments."
Recently a study done by
The study found that people who vent their anger tend to become more
aggressive in their behavior. As Proverbs 29:11 reminds us: "The fool gives
full vent to his anger; but a wise man keeps himself under control."
For the quiet sorts among us, you may sit there with smug expressions of
righteousness because you don’t vent. But do you internalize the anger? There
may not be an explosion, but there is a slow burn over time. While anger turned
outward leads to aggression, anger turned inward leads to depression. As one
sage once commented: "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm."
Rather than pouring forth wrath toward a person or object which has kept us from
our objectives, we turn that rage inside and consume ourselves.
How should we handle anger? If we should neither vent nor clam up, what
should we do?
Paul gives great advice: anger, no matter what its source or form, is to
be short lived. Even godly anger will go sour if it sits too long. It is to be
set aside at the end of the day. We don't have the luxury of dealing with it
later. What Paul says here is often understood to mean don’t go to bed angry.
But for some of us that may mean no sleep for days! But this reminds us that
anger, for all its possible legitimacy, is a dangerous emotion and should not be
nurtured into a grudge. Anger is the moral equivalent of biological adrenaline.
It is good and healthy to experience periodic secretions of adrenaline in
reaction to dangerous situations. But a steady flow would damage the heart. So
with anger. It has damaged many hearts because it was not put away, but nurtured
again and again into a life-destroying grudge.
Consider Paul’s advice a metaphor rather than a literal command.
We are not God. We need to
sleep sometimes with unresolved angers. But
too many days spent that way will make anger an ally…and give the devil a
foothold on your life. We must
repent of the self-righteousness that always justifies our anger, our hurt, and
our pain.
Thus Paul concludes by warning of a possible side effect of anger which
we may not fully realize. What happens when we become angry, but do not quickly
move on? What happens when we harbor anger, then we revel in our rage, when we
relive and re-ignite our ire and pour gas on our fury, we open the door to many
more problems in our life? To do so, Paul says, is to make room for the devil. The
phrase means to give sin a "possibility" or "opportunity."
Anger divides. As you lie in bed and your mind rehashes all the
justifiable reasons for your anger, you only create more and more division.
Paul’s concern in Ephesians 4 is for the unity of the church. Your anger can
quickly destroy that bond of peace.
How can we conquer anger?
The answer comes in verses 31-32. Anger is put away at the foot of the
Cross. Where our sinful nature was put off, where the righteousness of Christ
was put on, that is where our minds must be renewed. Rather than anger,
forgiveness must control our thinking. We forgive in light of the forgiveness
secured for us by Christ.
In our relationships with others, often what passes for love is little
more than a neat business transaction. People are kind to us, so we repay them
with equal consideration. When they treat us unjustly, our negative response is
really what they asked for. Everything is so balanced, so fair, so logical with
this eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth kind of justice. But Christian love
never settles for only what's reasonable. It insists on giving mercy as well as
justice. It breaks the chain of logical reactions.
General Robert E. Lee was once asked what he thought of a fellow officer
in the Confederate Army who had made some derogatory remarks about him. Lee
rated him as being very satisfactory. The person who asked the question seemed
perplexed. "General," he said, "I guess you don't know what he's
been saying about you." "I know," answered Lee. "But I was
asked my opinion of him, not his opinion of me!"
Be angry but do not sin. Do
not let the sun go down on your anger, lest you make room for the devil.
Only those who know the love of God and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ
for their sin will find this within their reach.
Will you pray with me now?
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church,
Web Site: SAPC-CT.HOME.ATT.NET
Office Email: SAPC-CT@ATT.NET
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