Anyone feeling angry?

Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. “Tear it down!” they cried, “tear it down to its foundations!” Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. Psalm 137:7-9

A question: Do you tend to get cross easily?

Life is full of things to get cross about, isn’t it? – whether it’s a neighbour who parks his car awkwardly, or a parcel delivery that doesn’t come, or being kept on hold for ever.

Another question: What about anger? The Bible tells us that God is “slow to anger”. But could that be said of you?

Again, there might be many reasons for anger. Those stupid people in north-west London – some 500 of them – who decided to have a street rave to celebrate an easing of the lockdown, thus ensuring that the corona virus is allowed to spread… A father who bullies his children… A driver who treats motorways as a racetrack…

A third question: What about rage?

You could define rage as extreme anger that is out of control – or threatening to get out of control. It’s an all-consuming emotion that can easily rob us of our judgment and prompt us to act in ways that we will regret later.

I certainly know what it is to be cross (oh yes!), and sometimes angry. But out-and-out rage… no, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that. But then my life has been so comfortable and easy that I’ve never had cause, for which I’m thankful. So there’s no reason for pride there.

Nowhere in the Bible is sheer rage reflected more vividly than at the end of Psalm 137.

Israel’s historic city Jerusalem – “Zion” – has been invaded by the ferocious Babylonians, its beautiful temple destroyed, and many of its people dragged away into slavery. To make matters worse, we learn from verse 7 that the people of Edom, one of Israel’s bitterest enemies, looked on gloating and egged the Babylonians on.

And then we get that raw, naked, enraged cry for revenge in verses 8-9. The writer declares “happy” anyone who is able to get hold of Babylonian children and dash their brains out.

What a shocking, appalling thing to say!

It used to trouble me that those words were in the Bible at all. But I think I have learned differently. Whether or not the person who wrote this psalm would have actually done what he describes I don’t know, though I very much doubt it; it’s just the way he feels at the moment. But I have come to think that it’s good that this sentiment is expressed in God’s word. The Bible is an honest book and – especially in the psalms – it reflects just about every mood of which we are capable. (The fact that the Bible reflects a mood doesn’t necessarily mean it approves of it.)

You can probably see where I’m heading. Much of America is on fire –  with rage. A man died in Minneapolis under utterly shocking circumstances; racial hatred and injustice came to the surface in a way that hardly bears thinking about.

That doesn’t, of course, justify the rioting and destruction that has followed. But it certainly helps to explain it. It is a way of people crying out: Notice us! Listen to us! We are people! Give us justice!

Being cross and being angry are generally things we can do something about, so we can channel them into some kind of positive response. But rage is different. What gives it its dangerous power is its helplessness, its impotence. It is, in effect, a way of saying: What happened was wrong! wrong! wrong! And there is nothing I can do about it – except to let my feelings explode in this manner. What else will make you listen to me?

So now the question is: Will America do that? Will the world as a whole do that? Will George Floyd’s death end up as “just another example” of a deep-seated disease? Or will it lead to real change? – and not only in America but in Britain too and throughout the world, for aren’t injustice, cruelty and prejudice to be found everywhere?

The fact is that there are times when it is wrong not to feel rage. And this is surely one of them. Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) was an English clergyman and writer. He wrote: “Anger is one of the sinews of the soul: he that wants it [that is, lacks it] hath a maimed [that is, a diseased] soul.” Yes, if we have lost the capacity to be angry, and even enraged, at wickedness we are sick indeed.

Even if much of our anger, and certainly our rage, takes a sinful form, we ignore it at our peril.

Let’s go back to the Bible. Let’s take seriously the fact that the perfect, sinless Jesus was sometimes angry. Let’s take to heart Paul’s words: “Be angry but don’t sin” (Ephesians 4:26).

And let’s pray to God:

Lord God, help me to know when anger is sinful – and when it is sinful not to feel angry. Help me to know how to channel my anger positively. Above all, please grant that the anger and rage that are seething today in our world will lead to change, justice, reconciliation, and hope. Amen.

Want to think some more…?

There is a holy anger, excited by zeal, which moves us to reprove with warmth those whom our mildness failed to correct. Jean-Baptist de la Salle (1651-1719)

He that would be angry and sin not must not be angry with anything but sin. Thomas Secker (1693-1768)

However just your words, you spoil everything when you speak them with anger. John Chrysostom (?347-407)

Without anger a man cannot attain purity; he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy. Isaiah the Solitary (died 490)

If we are attempting to hear God’s word, we must listen to anger as carefully as we listen to joy, peace, fear and fatigue. Kathleen Fischer

Anger denied subverts community. Beverly Wildung Harrison (1932-2012)

Justified anger is far better than lazy indifference.