Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Sermon Text
Everyone is angry sometimes. There are few emotions so raw or deeply felt as anger is. The moment that something seems to overstep the bounds we have placed it in, something wells up inside up. Anger, a fire that floods through us, can quickly consume all sense and all wisdom, leaving us as an unchecked whirlwind of emotion, adrift in whatever setting we’ve sadly been pushed over the edge in. Anger is a dangerous thing, but, our question for today, is whether anger, and more specifically spite, have any use in our life.
There are few emotions that exist within us, I believe this strongly, that are exclusively negative. Anger, sadness, anxiety, fear – all of these things exist within us to help us live a safe and balanced life. If you lose something dear to you, you should be sad. If you are unsure of the future, anxiety can help us to plan a way to deal with some of that trouble. When we are faced with danger, fear allows us to protect ourselves however we can. The problem with any emotion is not its existence, but its prevalence, and more important even than that – what we do with it once we begin to feel it.
I’ve been open about my struggles with depression and very recently I had a flare up of my depressive symptoms. Typically, we think of depressed people as being sulky, sad sacks over in the corner crying about this or that. However, many times depression leads to a far more affecting response – irritation, frustration, and anger. Across the week or so that I had this flare us, it wasn’t just that I was unable to feel happy, it was that every little inconvenience and trouble was elevated. If I couldn’t find what I needed, if a plan didn’t go exactly as I hoped, if the dishwasher left a dish with some residual gunk… I was much more likely to snap at the inanimate object or person I was dealing with than I ever would be otherwise. Anger, a response born out of a legitimate feeling of frustration at my brain’s inability to produce the right chemicals, had left me in a place where I could cause real harm to my relationships if I was not considerate and careful.
Beyond issues of mental health though, we all can become angry. We all have something that just sets us off, and usually this is explained as us coming into a situation where we feel someone has crossed a line. We’re angry when people don’t follow the rules of life – they don’t drive correctly, they don’t put their cart away, they say something that’s rude, or they insert themselves into a situation where we feel they do not belong. We get angry, often times, from a legitimate feeling that something isn’t quite right. The problem becomes how we feed that anger once it is with us.
You see, anger can be a motivator to do something that needs to be done. Sometimes a relationship we have really has had some important boundaries broken, in those cases anger can bring us to confront the issue and do something about it. Likewise, when we see people being mistreated we should be angry, and that anger should inspire us to action. The thing that we must always be sure of is that we are equipped to process our emotions, our anger and all other feelings, in a way that ultimately helps the general state of the world rather than hurts it. Anger is a feeling that, if we encourage it, will consume much of our soul and eventually turn to hatred.
When I spoke a moment ago about my mental health, it would be so easy to write off anything I do while in a depressive episode as, “Just a thing that happens.” I can’t help my serotonin levels, so why shouldn’t I claim immunity to anything I say or do when I enter a funk? The answer should be obvious – while I cannot control the situation I find myself in, I do have some control over what I do with it once I’m there. I should be able to notice when I am getting unnecessarily irritated, when I’m being pushed by normal things as if they are serious, when I need to disengage and then return to a situation to handle it properly.
We all have moments we will respond angrily to things, and will do so in a way that is not productive. Thank God reconciliation is possible. Yet, the goal we live into is what Paul puts forward in today’s scripture. We should live a life so rooted in grace, that even in the midst of hardship and in the midst of people causing genuine harm to us, our core conviction to do what is right is not changed. We should hate what is evil, following our righteous anger to take action in this world, but we should only do things we know, “do not repay evil for evil.” Likewise, our response even to the most wicked people we know should be one of grace and mercy, we should be willing to feed those we disagree with, those we dislike even, and treat them with respect.
There was a component of the question I was offered which focused specifically on the idea of spite. “Can a Christian be motivated by spite?” To answer that, I think we need to find a working definition of the word. Spite is defined as a desire to “hurt, annoy, or offend.” In that sense, I think spite is a dangerous thing. When we are consumed by the idea of making someone else’s life worse, we will inevitably cause more harm than good. If, however, our spite is toward something ideological, we might be able to turn it into something useful to the life of a Christian.
Do we want to hurt people or do we want to strike out against the unjust things of the world? That I think is the central question we have to hold in our hearts when we consider what we are motivated by. If we hate the evil that is exclusion, then we will do all we can to fight against things that exclude other people. If we hate the evil that is criminalized poverty, then we will advocate for those around us. If we hate the evil that is cruelty of any kind, then we will practice kindness that seeks to erase that evil from the world. In practicing a life that is antithetical to evil, I cannot take up the tools of evil to get what I want, because anyone who uses an evil tool will eventually find that evil is far more enticing than moderation.
Paul tells us that a life lived in opposition to evil requires us to be consistent in our opposition to evil. We may be mistreated, but we do not do anything to mistreat other people. We are not to ever think of ourselves as above other people, but in all things we should be willing to walk alongside others as equals. We should not ever find ourselves consumed with anger so that we want to tear the world down, but we should feel our indignation turn to compassion, as we join Christ in trying to repair this broken world – not tear it apart further.
Elsewhere, the Apostle tells us that we should not “let the sun set on our anger,” in other words we should not hold onto grudges. That can be hard. When people do something that really irks us, or they strike at something that we care deeply about, it can be hard to let go of that anger. The truth, however, is that we are meant to cleanse ourselves each night of our anger, our fear, our anxiety, and face each new day with a renewed commitment to doing what is right. Our prayer as we lay down to sleep should be that God will quiet our anger, so that in the morning we may love more intensely than ever.
Christ put it another way. “If you come to offer a gift at the altar, and you remember that you have a problem with a neighbor, leave your gift and go reconcile with them.” We cannot be righteous, we cannot worship properly, if we are letting anger overtake us, conflict define us, and hatred consume us. If we have done wrong, if we have been wronged, we should be doing something to try and fix that situation. We will talk later this month about what reconciliation looks like, but today I want to make something clear. When we come to our time of Holy Communion, when we get to the passing of the peace, the intention of that time is not just to shake hands and hug. It is a time to bury the hatchet, to let go of anger, to be better together.
So when we come to this part of our service today – if you need to walk across the room, leave the room and make a call, or come to the altar and pray – whatever you need to do to make amends – do so. Your soul is worth more than the grudge you hold onto, and the process of reconciliation can start with you – if you let it start with you. – Amen.
Teach us to Number our Days 