The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith: Beyond Anger
Oh Lord, uphold Thou me, that I may uplift Thee. Amen.
A man walked into the office of his parish priest and said, “My dog died yesterday. He was the joy of my life. He lived for 15 years, and he was the most faithful friend. Father, could you offer a Mass for the repose of his soul. The priest, rector of a very prim and proper Episcopal Church, was taken aback by such a request. Slightly indignant, he responded, “We don’t offer Masses for pets,” he said matter-of-factly. “I am sorry I cannot help you, but you might go down the street to the Methodist church, they may be willing to hold a service for your dog.” The man was saddened by this response, and he said, “I really loved this little dog and I wanted to give him the proper send-off. I don’t know what is customary, but do you think the Methodists might be willing to do it? I really want to make a memorial gift in my dog’s honor, and I was thinking about ten to fifteen thousand dollars.” “Now wait a minute,” said the priest. “You never told me your dog was an Episcopalian!”
The problem with an institution, any institution, is that sometimes the institution becomes more important than the people it is meant to serve. In our Gospel for today, Jesus reacts strongly against an institution that has seemingly lost sight of its purpose. He is upset because activity in the Temple seems more about doing business than worshiping God. In an unusual display of anger, he throws out the moneychangers and merchants, overturning their stalls and driving them out with a whip of cords.
Now, it is interesting to note that the merchants and the money changers were in the temple for good reason. In the city of Jerusalem, it was difficult for people to have their own livestock, they didn’t have the room to raise animals. As a result, they needed a way to purchase a dove, sheep, or goat to offer their sacrifice. The merchants were there to allow the city folk to purchase the animals they needed. And because it was sacrilegious to bring Roman coinage bearing the image of the emperor into the Temple – the money changers where there to allow the faithful to exchange their imperial dollars for local currency, at a slight profit, of course.
All these additions to the worship life of the temple were created with the best of intentions, but somehow, over the years, worship in the temple began to take a back seat to doing business in the temple. Jesus was angry because he could see that God was becoming of secondary importance. As the preacher Richard Fairchild wrote, “The temple had become a place that exploited the need for salvation rather than a place that furthered it.” (Rev. Richard J, Fairchild, 2000).
Angry Jesus, it’s not something we often see in the scriptures, if ever. Compassionate Jesus, patient Jesus, inclusive Jesus – these are the views of Christ we see more often. Was it wrong for Jesus to get angry in this circumstance? After all, he was fully human as well as fully divine. Cleansing the Temple was a human reaction to an upsetting situation, but Jesus’ anger at the way the Temple was being misused was righteous anger, deserved anger, appropriate anger.
Jesus got angry; if we are being good, loving, kind Christians is it okay for us to get angry? Can we be angry when the idea that all men are created equal seems to apply to some people more than others? Can we be angry that there were more mass shootings in 2023 than there are days in the year? Can we be angry about income inequality when the top 10% of people in this country own 66% of the wealth? Can we get angry about these and many other issues? Yes, of course, we can, and we do. There are times when Christians need to get angry about the inequities and injustices in our world. As Melvin Wheatley once said, “There are situations in life in which the absence of anger would be the essence of evil.” There is a time for anger.
But while anger can be righteous, it can also be destructive, especially when it leads to violence. Jesus expressed his anger, but he didn’t stay there. It wasn’t his anger that changed the world, it was his love. As Aristotle, once said, “Anyone can become angry that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is difficult.”
In my thirty-three plus years of ordained ministry, I have seen my fair share of church fights. Arguments about where to place the altar, which Prayer Book to use, who can partake at Christ’s table, whether or not to renovate a church building, you name it. During these times there are a lot of good people who often get quite angry, and how that anger is handled can determine whether the community is able to healthfully resolve the issue, or the issue goes underground, festers, and pulls the community apart. In my experience, things often go wrong when people on one or both sides of the argument don’t feel listened to, respected for their opinion, or taken seriously. Conversely, most often these situations resolve themselves when both sides patiently and openly listen to one another, focusing on the issues and not individuals.
Mark Twain once said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” During this election year, as I have said before, the Cathedral is focusing its programming on the importance of civility, respect, love of neighbor, and recognizing that even our worst enemies are the beloved children of God. We are doing this because right now in our country there is so much anger, too much anger, as we saw so clearly on January 6th. And if we don’t learn to honor and respect one another, we may pull ourselves apart as a nation. As Governor Cox of Utah said last week during the program on civility here at the Cathedral – “You can’t love your country and hate half of the people in it.”
Anger on both sides of the political aisle that was once episodic is now more persistent, more constant. When only 36% of American workers think that the American dream still holds true, then you can see how they might be increasingly angry about that. In an article for the Atlantic, Charles Duhigg writes, “the tenor of our anger has shifted. It has become . . . a constant drumbeat in our lives. It is directed less often at people we know and more often at distant groups that are easy to demonize.”
In 2012, political scientists at Emory University found that fewer than half of voters said they were deeply angry at the other party’s presidential nominee. In 2016, almost 70 percent of Americans were. What’s worse, this partisan nastiness was also directed at fellow citizens who held opposing views. In 2016, nearly half of Republicans believed that Democrats were lazy, dishonest, and immoral, according to the Pew Research Center. Democrats returned the favor: More than 70 percent said that “Republicans are more closed-minded than other Americans,” and a third said that they were unethical and unintelligent.”
Yes, in our Gospel for this morning Jesus got angry, but he didn’t stay there. Rather, his ultimate response to the way sacrifices were being offered in the Temple was to give his life on the cross as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, as the way to save us all from the power of sin and death. He didn’t stay angry, instead, in humility and love, he looked for ways to better the world by giving of himself.
My brothers and sisters are you in one of those families that is so split politically that peacefully being together at Thanksgiving seems almost impossible? Do you have friends on the other side of the political aisle with whom you disagree so stridently that you can’t begin to imagine having a constructive conversation about politics? Most of us do and most of us are pretty sure that what we believe is right and what they believe is wrong. This Lent, I invite you to try and do what Jesus did, to give of yourself for the sake of love. I invite you to reach out in humility to the member of your family or the friend with whom you strongly disagree and invite them to share with you what they think and why they think it. Then, if they agree to talk, don’t argue with them, don’t correct them, don’t confront them, just listen. Just deeply listen and try to put yourself in their shoes. Because it is okay to get angry, but it is not okay to stay there. For anger sustained never solved anything, only love freely offered has any hope of saving this broken world of ours. Amen.