Matthew 5: 21-26
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder,[a] and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause[b] shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. 23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.
“The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.”
“Anger blows out the lamp of the mind”
“The truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you angry”
“A woman can hide her love for 40 years, but her disgust and anger not for one day”
Forgiveness depends upon the existence of justified anger, and if anger is justified then it is unreasonable to ask a person to renounce it too quickly or in the wrong circumstances. Indeed, such a request is arguably unjustified because it involves asking a person to abandon a proper and fair emotional response to what has happened to them. If that anger is not allowed to run its course, providing a person with the ability to come to terms with their experiences, then that would be a deficiency - one which might seriously impede the long-term development of their moral and social character.
To forgive, however, means to renounce resentment and try to restore your attitude to that which you might hopefully show a stranger: optimistic with some trust, but neutral because you don't trust them too far. You are neither excessively positive nor excessively negative.
Have any of you ever been angry? I don’t remember this but my mom tells me a story that when my sister and I were little, I got my sister so mad at me one time that she was choking me. My mom swears that if she hadn’t looked out the window at that moment and rescued me, it would’ve been all over. Mom says that my face was actually turning blue. Of course that lack of oxygen to my brain certainly explains a lot about me today.
Anger is a strange emotion. It is incredibly powerful. In fact, it is so powerful that we greatly fear it. Remember the tv show, “The Hulk”. Mild mannered Bruce Banner becomes the raging, fearsome Hulk when he gets mad. “Don’t make me angry, You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” Who was that that played Bruce? - - - - - - He played Eddie’s father, too, right?
Anger does change people doesn’t it? People become strangers to us, almost don’t they? People we feel safe around, we may suddenly not feel safe around. People we trusted, we may not trust when they are angry because anger can be an unpredictable emotion, making someone who is usually stabile, not quite so stabile. People can go from being nice, polite, civil human beings to savage, mean, nasty, dangerous animals. Anger can make us forget we love someone. Anger can make us into criminals. Anger has been successfully used in many criminal defense cases as it has caused temporary insanity. Anger can make us behave in ways that we are later ashamed of.
Anger is both genetic and learned. What I mean by that is, you inherit a gene from your parents that determines a starting point for your level of reactivity. Ever notice how it doesn’t take a lot to get some people going? Yet, there are some people who never seem to get upset about anything. Some people are born “touchy”. Some people are born with thick skins. We all have a different starting place. The ability to be angry is not the same for you and me. What causes some people to fly into a rage, other people hardly even notice.
But. . . then we live in an environment. That environment can have an effect on how we deal with situations that cause anger and frustration. How we handle anger, how we process anger, how we deal with frustrating situations, is very often determined by our family environment. That environment can produce anger and frustration. Angry people usually come from anger inducing and anger producing environments. Some homes where violence and abuse is the norm are hothouses for angry people. And it has long been known, that alcoholic and drug addictive families produce angry, resentful, confused adults.
I think that the point of today’s scripture is simple. God did not create human beings to exist in a state of anger. You will notice that Jesus begins this passage with a quote from the ten commandments. You all know them, right? What number is this one, “Thou shalt not murder”? - - - - Break this one, murder somebody, and your soul is at risk, you are in danger of a less than positive judgment when God decides to call your number. Because that’s the judgment that Jesus is talking about here. Not a judgment, the judgment. But Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that murdering another human being is wrong and that you’ll have to face God for that sin. Anybody in here think that murder is alright? Anybody? But you know what; I know that just about everybody in here has wanted to commit murder at some point in their lives, me, too. But I’ve never done it! Notice here in the text though, that Jesus takes the emotion of anger and puts it in the same category as the act of murder. He goes from murder, to angry. Now, in the King James, there is a phrase that is one word in the Greek New Testament and this is one of those places where it can make a big difference in how we determine Jesus’ meaning. The Greek word is eike and the English phrase is without cause or without reason. The oldest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament that have been discovered do not have this word. Why is that important? I am not one of those people that argues about every little word in the Bible but if Jesus is being quoted, I would like an accurate quote. The older manuscripts are more likely to be more accurate to what Jesus actually said. In fact, this passage makes more sense without those words. “Whoever is angry with their brother is in danger of judgment”, they don’t automatically fall under judgment but being angry puts them only a hairsbreadth away from sinning.
Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher wrote that: “Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.”
Anger is not totally wrong and I don’t think Jesus is saying that. Anger has its place. God is said to get angry. Jesus got angry on several occasions. He even went so far as to use a whip and flip tables over. That’s angry. That shows us that anger is acceptable.
Anger is only a natural reaction; one of the mind's ways of reacting to things that it perceives to be wrong. While anger can sometimes lead people to do shocking things, it can also be an instinct to show people that something isn't right.
Joan Chittister wrote that “Anger can be the thing that moves us beyond the acceptance of evil.” Anger can be the motivator that forces us to move against evil. In other words, sometimes we have to get mad enough before we will act. The problem is, we often act in anger and say and do things, we do not mean.
Charles Ingersoll said that Anger blows out the lamp of the mind and this is certainly true. Because of anger Relationships cool and end, marriages break up, and churches split because people allow their anger to rule the moment. Jesus said that whoever says to his brother “Raca” which means empty headed is liable to the same consequence for murder. Raca is an Aramaic term for stupidity and derision: it’s an insult. But the inference is clear: your anger should not control what comes out of your mouth. That is your responsibility. Anger, itself, is clearly not wrong: the results of anger, what you do with your anger, that is what determines whether there is a danger of judgment.
But Jesus does not leave it there. Notice what he says here: if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift, and go take care of it. It is that urgent. It is that important. Our brother’s soul is at stake. Jesus doesn’t qualify it. He doesn’t say if you are justified or right or wrong, he just says, go and take care of it. That’s because anger is very much like slow setting cement. Over time, it hardens, sets up, and becomes very hard to break up and get rid of. Anger becomes resentment which becomes very difficult to deal with. Jesus says if you know that someone is angry with you, go deal with it. Don’t wait. Don’t put it off. This sounds very co-dependent, doesn’t it? Co-dependency is when you become responsible for what really belongs to somebody else, even their emotions. This sounds like I’m responsible for someone else’s anger. You know, there’s a fine line between life-saving and co-dependent. If someone else is unable or incapable of doing the right thing themselves, shouldn’t we help them if we can? If I can swim and those drowning people can’t, shouldn’t I jump in and save them? Well if this angry person can’t or won’t come to me and I know they are angry with me and God is leading me in that direction and I can go to them, shouldn’t I jump in and go? Especially when I understand that anger is on a par with the sixth commandment? That is one of the problems with Christ centered spirituality; the obligation always falls on us. The duty to act is not given to someone else, it is placed squarely in our own laps. I was once at a very solemn event and hundreds if not thousands of people attended. There was very little official parking, so people were parked all up and down the small narrow side streets. Tina and I had to walk about half a mile to the event and we passed a woman in a car and a man in a truck faced off at each other with traffic getting very long and angry behind them. Someone had done a very bad job of parking and the space was exceptionally narrow and neither one could get past the other. One of them was going to have to do something but all that was going on was them getting angrier and angrier. Each one refused to give in to the other and do what was needed to get things moving again. Anger is like that.
Another very real problem with anger, is that anger is like fly paper. Once you have it, It can be very hard to let go of which on the other hand, makes it very easy to hang onto. How many of us are hanging onto grievances that occurred in our childhood? How many of us are still angry over treatment handed out to us years ago, never mind what happened last week?
Fred Buechner wrote that: 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.
This is hard stuff, people. David Seamands who wrote a great little book titled Healing for Damaged Emotions says that “Anger is a divinely implanted emotion. Closely allied to our instinct for right, it is designed to be used for constructive spiritual purposes. “ But it’s like handling an atom bomb. Anger has the potential for aiding us toward tremendous spiritual growth but it also has the potential to destroy us. That is the power of anger. Too many times, we have misunderstood the Christian viewpoint of anger and think that we are not supposed to get angry at all. Too many times we think that the Christian is supposed to always be calm and serene. This is not true. Some things deserve our anger. What Jesus is telling us is that we should not be abusive in our anger and that we should not allow anger to continue when it can be resolved. We were not meant to live in a state of anger. Notice the last few verses, if you do not come to an agreement with your adversary, the person you are angry with or the person angry with you, you put yourself into prison. Jesus tells us what the result of non-agreement is, you put yourself in prison. Like the two people stuck in traffic, sitting immobile, while life and the event they were supposed to be attending took place, you can be sitting there in the middle of the street, stuck in your anger. But you don’t have to. Jesus has put before you the path that will release not only you from the prison your anger has created, but also the other party involved.
No matter which side of the anger fence you are on, get out of your prison with the love and humility given to us by God through his Holy Spirit, There is no need to remain there. Jesus has called us to freedom and in this case, he has literally paid the last penny already. You do not need to stay there but you do need to step out of the dungeon of your anger and claim your freedom.
