About the Author: Sunday Sermons from Sell Chapel are written by Rev. Preston Van Deursen, Director of Pastoral Care at the Masonic Village at Elizabethtown.
Have you ever gotten so angry with your boss that you wanted to walk out the door? Not just walk out the door, but to exact a little revenge in the process? An advice columnist once asked his readers that question. Here is what he got:
Several waitresses and secretaries said their most satisfying career moves were out the door. Gina, a waitress, told how her boss once offered a ten-cent raise, “as a big favor.” Gina saw it as a big insult, and her customers egged her on to quit. It made her day, she says, “to see the manager running from table to table, trying to fill her shoes.”
A young research chemist, a Ph.D. candidate, had spent three years separating a certain substance into its components. It was excruciating, tedious work, done for starvation wages. His ego-maniacal adviser demanded top billing when the important research was published. Having done all the work, the Ph.D. candidate balked at giving his adviser top billing. The adviser wouldn’t yield, so the young chemist took the two flasks of separated compounds and poured them together–yielding them useless. The phrase “all that work down the drain” was never more appropriate. Have you ever felt like doing something like that?
Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson paid a $1000 fine for disputing a strike called by umpire Joe West. On the memo line of his check Dawson wrote: “Donation for the blind.”
Is there anyone here who has ever gotten so fed up with someone at work, or on a ball field at church or even at home that you wanted to strike out at them? Maybe you got to the point where you didn’t think you could take it anymore. Have you ever felt that way? You don’t have to raise your hand. Has anyone here ever gotten fed up with your spouse–keep your hands down, ladies–with one of your offspring–with a parent?
Amy Grant, one of the biggest names in contemporary Christian music, was just a teenager when she caught the ear of a record producer. Out of the blue, he called late one night to offer her a recording contract. Just as Amy was accepting the recording contract, her father picked up the extension phone and told Amy she was grounded for talking on the phone after curfew. Here was the biggest moment of her young life, and she just got grounded. She was so angry that she didn’t tell her parents about the record contract until the next day.
We all get angry sometimes. Even Jesus got angry. We have a couple of well-documented instances where Jesus clearly lost his cool. I worry about anyone who says they never get angry. We may redirect anger in a positive way, we may contain anger so that there is no collateral damage from it, but anyone who says they never get angry is in denial. They have a serious problem that will some day manifest itself, perhaps in a tragic way.
Freud said that depression is anger turned inward. Some people who feel defeated by life may very well have loads of anger within that they have never owned up to.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that it is unChristian to be angry. Like any emotion anger is part of being human. However, there are appropriate ways to deal with anger and there are inappropriate ways to deal with anger. In Romans 12 we read, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.'” (NIV) That is a demanding passage of scripture. It goes against our basic nature to be kind to those who do us wrong. How do we deal with the potentially destructive emotion of anger?
FIRST OF ALL, WE NEED TO BE CAREFUL HOW WE EXPRESS ANGER. That is obvious, of course. Still, it must be said. More than 60 percent of the homicides in America are committed by angry people.
Anybody can get angry–even the best of us. In an article titled “Only in America,” FORTUNE magazine recorded a humorous, but tragic, story. It was datelined Honolulu. It told of an anger-management counselor who lost his temper and allegedly punched a man who arrived at a class drunk. The man lapsed into a coma and was declared brain dead. To make matters worse, this act of violence happened in a church. A witness said that the anger-management counselor punched the intoxicated man, knocked him to the ground, and hit him three more times.
The victim had been ordered to attend the anger-management class after he was arrested and accused of assaulting his girlfriend. Even an anger-management consultant can get out of control given the proper circumstances.
Be careful how you express your anger. Some of us may need professional help with our anger. We should not be embarrassed to get help. That’s better than doing something we will regret later.
Be careful how you express anger, but DO NOT HANG ON TO YOUR ANGER. That is the second thing that must be said. If someone has done you wrong, go to them, explain why you feel betrayed, give them a chance to explain their side, then move on. Confront the person who has wronged you and then move on. If fear or low self-esteem will not allow you to confront them, then you have another problem, but the worst thing you can do is to hold on to anger. There is little to be accomplished by nurturing feelings of anger and betrayal, and much can be lost.
Don’t hold on to anger. Anger kills.
Reuters News Agency carried a story just after Independence Day last year about a 28-year-old Kansas City man who accidentally blew up his kitchen.
This gentleman had spent the night of July 3rd celebrating with a group of friends. The group, “who had been drinking heavily,” were shooting fireworks off for several hours disturbing neighbors who called police.
Someone in the group attempting to hide a stash of fireworks from the police, stuffed them into the oven and then forgot about them. About 3 a.m. the homeowner decided to bake some lasagna and turned the oven on. “It blew the kitchen all apart,” said authorities afterward. “The walls were all blown out, the oven flew right through one of the walls.”
Flying glass caused some slight injuries, but otherwise no one was hurt.
I read that story and thought about people who have hurts that they have stuffed deep down inside themselves–just like those fireworks stuffed in the oven–and all those deeply felt pains are lying there just waiting for someone to light the oven, and then stand back.
Don’t hold on to anger. Anger kills. It kills mind, body and soul. Most everyone knows that the number one killer in America is heart disease. But would it interest you to know that the number one cause of heart disease is anger? According to Dr. Redford Williams, director of Duke University’s Behavioral Medicine Research Center, “The hostility and anger associated with Type A behavior is the major contributor to heart disease in America. People who struggle with anger are five times as likely to suffer coronary heart disease as the average person. People with heart disease more than double their risk of a heart attack when they get angry.”
Be careful how you express your anger. Just as important, don’t hold on to your anger. Be smart. FIND A WAY TO CHANNEL YOUR ANGER IN A POSITIVE WAY. Learn from your anger and use your anger not to destroy the person who has harmed you, but to better your own life.
That is what Muhammad Ali did. When he was a child in Louisville, his parents gave him a brand-new bicycle. Proud and happy, he parked it outside a gym one day. Then somebody stole it, and it just about broke Ali’s heart. Someone told him there was a policeman in the basement. Ali told the policeman that he was going to find the guy who’d stolen his bike and beat him up. When the policeman discovered that Ali didn’t know how to fight, he offered to teach him. That’s how Muhammad Ali got into boxing. He never found the thief. But from that day forward, he says, every time he got into the ring, he looked across at the other fighter and told himself, “Hey, that’s the guy who stole my bicycle!”
I’m not suggesting that we take up boxing when someone has wronged us. Though, it may not be a totally bad idea. But rather than letting our anger be a stumbling block, let it be a stepping stone. Anger can be a great motivator, as long as we can appropriately channel it.
Gilda Carle, who markets a video called, “How to Manage Anger and Take Control,” has developed a three-step “frame it, claim it, tame it” program to control anger. “It works every time,” she says.
The first step to managing anger, FRAMING IT, means taking a step back from the situation and collecting yourself. “Count to 10 or take a walk around the block–whatever you need to do,” says Carle.
Next, you’ve got to CLAIM your anger, or admit to yourself that you’re upset. Here, instead of focusing on being mad, you need to discover the true issue that’s making you angry.
Once you know what the real problem is, the next step is TAMING your anger. “Here, you need to make a decision: Is the problem something that isn’t really important, or is it upsetting you to the point where your self-worth is being eroded?” says Carle. When the matter is of great importance to you, you need to take action. You need to confront the person with whom you are angry.
If you are unable to do that, there is one more possibility: YOU CAN TURN YOUR ANGER OVER TO GOD.
Colleen Jennings Fraioli, in DECISION magazine (August 1997) describes her way of dealing with anger. She says that once she admits that she is angry, she pictures herself handing her feelings to Christ: As 1 Peter 5:7 (KJV) says, “Casting all your care upon Him; for he careth for you.” Then she asks God to give her the ability to see her situation from God’s perspective. This may not change her circumstances, but she says it greatly affects her response.
For the inevitable times when she feels overwhelmed and needs to vent her anger, she has developed a habit that she learned from David’s example in Psalms 55:16-18, 22. David poured his heart out to God. If David could pour out his heart to God, Colleen says, she can too! Before she goes to sleep, she dumps all her “toxic waste”–frustrations, irritations, disappointments and hurts–onto God. She may ramble, she says, and she often cries, but she gets it out. She says she can almost hear God say, “It’s OK–I’m here with you–let it go . . .” That’s great advice. Turn your anger over to God.
Be careful how you deal with anger. It’s not unChristian to get angry. Anger is part of the human condition. Anger can even be constructive. How we deal with anger sets the follower of Jesus apart from the world. Try Gilda Carle’s formula: Name it, claim it, tame it. And then, after you’ve done all you can, turn it over to God. Pour out your hurt to God. Pour out your heart to God. God can heal your anger. Above all, says St. Paul, following the example of his Lord, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”
