Righteous Anger

As it is written:
“There is no one who is righteous, not even one;     
there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
    there is no one who shows kindness,
        there is not even one.”
“Their throats are opened graves;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of vipers is under their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
     ruin and misery are in their paths,
 and the way of peace they have not known.”
    “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
There is no distinction,  since all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God. 
(Romans 3)

Last week I wrote about the terrorist attack on the nation’s Capitol and in the process took a swipe at Donald Trump. While I feel no need to apologize for what I wrote and stand by it, the paragraph about Trump was unnecessary. It was born out of an angry and divided heart.

One side of my heart is very angry with the lies that have been told and with the violence and hatred spawned by those lies. As for the other half, well, as a pastor I made a promise to work for peace. This half of my heart, the peaceful half, feels that anger is always wrong. Intellectually I know this is not true, but it’s hard to overcome my upbringing. So, my heart is conflicted.

Perhaps, like me, you were raised with the idea that Christians should never be angry. I’m not entirely sure where that comes from. It certainly doesn’t come from the Bible. The Old Testament speaks of the wrath of God. And the New Testament shows that Jesus got angry with religious hypocrites and even with his own disciples when they were particularly thick-headed.

There are things Christians should be angry about: Hunger, injustice, homelessness, racism, rampant materialism, violence, domestic abuse, etc. We should be angry about these things and that anger should motivate us to do something about them. That is righteous anger.

But, righteous anger must be tempered by two things or it will lapse into self-righteous anger.

First, anger must be tempered by the realization that we are all, each and every one of us, sinful. As the psalmist puts it, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one.” To this Paul adds, “There is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” As the saying goes, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Here we all stand together as recipients of God’s forgiveness and grace. No one has the standing to look down on anyone else.

It is one thing to denounce a person’s actions; there is behavior that must be called out. But, it is another thing entirely to denounce and demean that person as if you are any better. With that kind of self-righteous attitude there can be no chance for forgiveness and reconciliation. The recognition of our own lack of righteousness allows us to empathize with each others’ struggle with sin.

The second thing that must temper our righteous anger is love; love of God and love of one another, even those with whom you disagree. This is a vital point because I would argue that the opposite of love isn’t hate; it is fear. I couldn’t see this last week. Think about it. What caused the rioters to act out? Fear. Fear that their place in society was slipping away, fear that other people (immigrants, people of color) were now getting a place at the table, fear that the rich were getting richer and they were being left behind.

Let’s be honest, though; many of these fears were and are grounded in racism. As Martin Luther said, you have to call a thing what it is. But, while I don’t agree with many of the causes of their fear, recognizing that fear helps me understand them a little better and enables me to love them.

Today, as we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it would be good to remember his words on love and forgiveness. If anyone could have felt justified in his self-righteous anger, it would have been Dr. King. But, he didn’t. He chose another path, a way of love and peace. Dr. King said:

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King is one of my heroes, but I know plenty of people who share my skin color who don’t think very highly of him (to put it politely). I have no idea why, other than he was a vocal leader of the civil rights’ movement. It’s too bad that so many gave into their fear of African-Americans. If more people had actually listened to him, Dr. King might have lived and our country might not be in the mess it is today.

But, it’s not too late. It’s not too late to choose love over fear and righteous anger over self-righteous anger. It’s not to late to forgive one another. We can head off the violence that seems imminent. The choice is ours.

Grace and peace.