B, Pentecost 11 Proper 14 - Ephesians 4:26,31-5:2 "Anger and Forgiveness"

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger… Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 4:26,31–5:2 ESV)

There is a lot of misunderstanding about anger.  If someone was to ask me if Jesus ever showed anger in the bible or if he is ever reported as being angry, I would immediately say that on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a week before he was crucified, he was angry when he entered the temple.  After all he overturned tables and drove out those trading sacrificial animals from the temple forecourts.

A journalist with whom I once worked chipped me over Jesus’ so-called “sinfulness” when he seemingly acted in anger.  Jesus made a whip, tossed coins, and drove them out of the temple.  It seems the reporter, saw it wrong that Jesus’ zeal and consumption for his Father’s house would consume him.  Or was the journo, right?  Perhaps his understanding of sin and anger was more about his own misjudgement of anger because of his own sin.

Most people’s anger, like the journalist, is more like that of Jonah’s anger.  Jonah was so angry with God he sat down to die.  A flighty figure of a man, captured by God in the sea, in a fish, and sent to save the barbaric marauding Ninevites made Jonah so self-righteously angry, he sat down to die because God was working repentance and forgiveness through him.  Was Jesus angry in the way Jonah was angry with God?  Although Jesus compares his three days in the earth to Jonah’s three days in the fish, the comparison ends there.

Was Jesus angry?  Do you think it’s okay for Jesus to be angry?  It’s noteworthy to see the disciples remembered Jesus’ zeal would consume him.  Was Jesus so angry he could die?

Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger.  What does that mean in the context of Jesus’ zeal at the temple?  Unlike my journalist colleague we know Jesus was without sin, this zeal was a jealous anger, but it still wasn’t a sin.

What is anger anyway?  Our society frowns on aggressive behaviour, even on the football field these days.  If argy-bargy on the paddock turns into a bit of biffo one is sent off and thrown in the sin bin.  It’s no wonder passive aggression is on the rise in all areas of life. 

Anger at its basic is a feeling and it occurs because of the fight response provoked within us.  One’s attention is heightened and focused, the heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and the breathing becomes heavier.  You’re ready for action so you can protect your well-being from threats.  It’s a fear response where one either fights or flees to protect themselves.

Spiritually, anger makes a person narrow their focus, usually turning in on themselves.  When one is afraid, hurt, worried, in pain, or there’s a chance of these occurring, the person is stretched and stressed, threating their stability.  This stability might be a trust in themselves or in something else.  Anger comes because of a loss of stability and control.

Jesus was born with the same physical attributes as all of us.  He had the capacity to be angry like you or me.  But if his actions in the temple were because of anger they were not done from a loss of stability and control.

Jesus’ anger is not a knee jerk reaction to stop instability and to reassure himself of his position in life as is our anger.  Nor is his anger like that of Jonah who was so angry he wanted to stop and die.  Jesus was so angry with sin he didn’t lie down to die, nor did he fight or flee, instead anger propels him on the road to the cross. 

Jesus’ anger was a righteous anger.  The question goes begging, can we be angry with a righteous anger like that of Jesus?

Paul says to the Ephesians, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”   He says be angry but don’t react in a way that is sinful.  Do not descend into darkness because you are angry!  Do not let your anger kill you; spiritually, emotionally, or physically.

The problem is our anger affects us in many ways leading us into sin.  Paul lists them in verse thirty-one.  They are bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, slander, and malice.

When a person become bitter, one can’t walk away from the issue causing anger.  It’s as if that individual becomes chained to what makes them angry or pegged to their suffering.

To best understand wrath, we do best by picturing a rush of hot air, smoke, or one’s hot breath as a release of pressure like boiling water suddenly released as the power of steam. Think of the phrase, to “get hot under the collar”, and “letting off steam”.  Wrath sees one hot even beyond the point of exploding.

Anger appears in the list of things one must put off.  But earlier we are told to be angry and not sin.  Here this is the anger that has allow us to descend into darkness and sin.  It still has the meaning of being stretched but now the stretching becomes a means to a sinful end rather than hoping in a new beginning.  Like a perished rubber band, we have no way of retaining our elasticity and we snap.

Clamour is shrieking and crying out without hope which goes on and on and destroys our hope, as well as others around us.  Think of an annoying sound, like a croaking frog, outside the window all night leaving you exhausted and unrefreshed in the morning.

Slander is straight forward.  It’s bearing false witness.  When we slander another person, we defame someone made in the image of God, and therefore slander God himself.  Slander then is the same as committing blasphemy.

Malice is badness or evil in as far as when one practises malice, they participate in things that are worthless or meaningless in the kingdom of heaven. A person who is wilfully malicious cannot stand before God who has no use for malice.

Paul tells the Ephesians to avoid these six things.  So, know that he wrote to them about departing from these things because they struggled with them.  We like the Ephesians get angry but also like them we sin and let the sun go down on our anger.

It’s here God’s word calls us to let the Holy Spirit kick in with the work of Christ’s love for us. Paul calls this being imitators of God.  Literally, this is being mimics of Jesus where we die to self, to all that angers us, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted or compassionate, and forgive.  We become like a living ventriloquist doll speaking and acting like Jesus, but our actions find their origin in the Holy Spirit and not in what we do.

The good thing in all of this is when we are confronted with our own anger, be it self-righteous or unrighteous, we are invited to lie down and die to self, knowing Jesus was so angry with sin, both self-righteous and unrighteous, he bore all God’s anger on the cross for your self-righteousness and unrighteousness, and mine too.

When Abraham Lincoln was asked why he was helping the defeated enemy in the southern states of America get back on their feet, he replied, “how can I better destroy the enemy than by making them my friends?”

What we need to understand about God’s love in Jesus Christ, moved in us by the Holy Spirit, is that he has made us his friends.  Because ever since Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden, we were his sinful angry enemies.

So, another way of saying, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Is, “Be angry but forgive; let the sun go down on your forgiveness.”

Let us pray.  We were once hostile to you heavenly Father, but you forgive us our sin and make us your friends.  Help us when we struggle with anger by letting the Holy Spirit put that anger and pride to death in Jesus’ death so we can love others with the freedom of forgiveness in Jesus’ name.  Amen