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 egomaniacal 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. (2)
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.
