I graduated from a Christian liberal arts college, which means that while I attended school with many future pastors and leaders of faith based not-for-profits, I also counted a wide array of future nurses, doctors, business people, teachers, journalists, and artists among my classmates.
I was studying to be a social worker–so most of my course work was in the social sciences–sociology, psychology, and the like–but I also really enjoyed two required classes in biblical studies that everyone had to take freshmen year so I added a minor in Bible, too.
Since the school was small there weren’t a lot of options when it came to planning your schedule of classes.
Classes needed to complete your degree might only be offered once a year, and if that happened to be at 8AM every Monday morning, well, then you planned your weekends accordingly.
I was fortunate. An important class that I needed to take at the beginning of my junior year was offered Mondays at 10, earlier than my twenty-year-old self preferred, but doable.
However, this class had the reputation of being the school’s most depressing course regardless of when it was offered.
The class was called, rather ominously, Social Problems.
Social Problems might’ve just as well been named "People Are Horrible” because every class, every lecture, every assignment was about the horrible things people, countries, and corporations do to hurt others, often in the name of religion, ethnic supremacy, or profit.
Racism, genocide, pollution, landmines, domestic violence, child abuse–every topic we discussed displayed humanity’s inhumanity.
The callousness of it all was disturbing.
It was infuriating!
We listened to stories, and testimonies, and read research on topics like these every day that semester, and every day I’d ask myself, “How can people be so selfish? How can people be so cruel?”
And then, after Social Problems, I’d walk across the quad for my 11:00, which was required for my minor in Bible, Old Testament Prophets.
In Prophets, we’d read and discuss the relevant books of the Bible–books like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea–and it didn’t take long before I realized that the people the ancient prophets called out were just as selfish and cruel as people are today!
“This is just like Social Problems!” I wanted to shout.
Taking Social Problems and Prophets back-to-back really did a number on me.
They woke me up and opened my eyes to the historic and ongoing realities of suffering and injustice.
But, in addition to that, while they made me see that there are horrible things happening in this world, they also pushed and invited me to see the world’s brokenness not as evidence of God’s absence, but as one of the most well-traveled paths between God and humanity.
Social Problems confronted me with stories of a hurting world filled with hurting people.
Old Testament Prophets taught me that God not only hears the cries of the people, but jumps into the fray on behalf of those who are suffering, neglected, discounted, and oppressed.
These two classes also showed me that righteous anger has been a part of our faith tradition for a very long time.
Over 2000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle described the promise and challenge of righteous anger.
Writing in The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle noted,
Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.We read from John’s Gospel today what is probably the most iconic example of righteous anger in the Bible, an event commonly called The Cleansing of the Temple.
The Cleansing of the Temple occurred when Jesus entered the Temple in Jerusalem and drove out a group of merchants who were cheating and exploiting the pilgrims who came there to worship, to give their offerings, and to make animal sacrifices in accordance with the Jewish Law.
Saint John tells us that,
In the temple [Jesus] found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. (John 2:14)The cheats and money changers were part of a system that was rigged, especially against the poor.
Officials would judge the animals and the money that the people brought with them to the Temple to be unworthy of being used in such a holy place. Instead, for a fee, there were perfectly acceptable animals available for purchase and acceptable currency for which you could exchange your own.
Taking it all in, Jesus was livid!
Making a whip of cords, [Jesus] drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:15-16)It’s worth noting that Jesus’ last point about selling doves hit close to home.
Doves were the offerings made by the poorest people, including, according to Luke’s Gospel, Mary and Joseph–Jesus’ own family.
This was the abusive and unjust system that set Jesus alight.
Saint John concludes his account by telling us that when the disciples had an opportunity to debrief from what happened in the Temple that day, they recalled a verse they had read in the Book of Psalms.
“Zeal for your house will consume me.” or, said another way, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” (Psalm 69:9 in John 2:17)
“Jesus was like that,” they said to themselves. “Eaten up with zeal for God and God’s people.”
This morning, Jesus’ example and the role of righteous anger in our lives leads us to another mark of salty discipleship.
Again, to review, this month, in order to help us remember that Jesus calls his disciples to be “the salt of the earth” we’re creating an acronym from the letters that spell salt to highlight some of the qualities and characteristics Jesus wants to see in his followers.
S is for Surrender because surrender is what Jesus is talking about when he tells us to take up our cross and follow him.
A is for Awake because Jesus needs awake, alert, and attentive followers to share Good News in a hurting world.
And, today, L is for Livid because Jesus needs disciples who burn with righteous anger like him and are ready to take loving, self-sacrificing, holy action to heal broken hearts, relationships, and communities.
Livid means to be furiously angry, and I’ll admit that it’s a combustible addition to our list.
Aristotle was correct. It’s easy to get righteous anger wrong.
Nevertheless, I think it’s worth talking about righteous anger because getting in touch with why some things bother us so deeply while being committed to keeping our egos in check and using that anger for good strikes me as a worthwhile and holy pursuit.
L is for Livid because Jesus wasn’t wrong to let some things “eat him up.”
But Jesus has a way of doing weird things with anger–ours and his own, for that matter.
That’s where the course I had after Social Problems and Prophets comes into play.
After spending my mornings getting all worked up at stories of horrible people doing horrible things, at 1:00PM I headed back to the classroom for The Life of Christ.
Poor people, Samaritans, lepers, the grieving, sick people–Jesus walked among these and shared his life with them.
He loved them, suffered alongside them, and, in the end, he died and rose up for them.
And that led me to a huge realization.
Well, two realizations actually.
It’s a story for another day, but this was the time in my life when I heard and said yes to a call to ordained ministry. That was one very important realization.
But the second realization was that while our anger with a broken world often tempts us to lash out, maybe even to throw a punch, Jesus turns anger inside out, offers forgiveness to his enemies (even money changers and cheats), and takes the punches of a broken world instead.
As Isaiah prophesied,
It meant the black and blue color of a bruise.
To be livid was to be bruised.
I think that knowledge coupled with Isaiah’s prophecy helps us better understand righteous anger and salty discipleship.
Love leaves a mark and sometimes that mark looks and feels like a bruise–not in some perverse “He only hits me because he loves me” way, but in the way that we will take on suffering for those we love–our kids, our closest friends, and as Jesus would have it, our neighbors in need as well.
Pricked by conscience and guided by God’s grace at work within us, therefore, there’s no shame in being bothered, disturbed, and even angered by actions and attitudes that degrade and harm others.
It’s a far greater problem to be indifferent to their suffering.
Jesus, however, teaches us that if it is to be righteous, anger must compel us to stand with those who are hurting, so close to them, in fact, that we might even get hit with a punch that was intended for them.
L is for Livid because Jesus needs disciples who burn with righteous anger–who get “eaten up” with injustice and cruelty–and are ready to take loving, self-sacrificing, holy action to heal broken hearts, relationships, and communities.
Thanks be to God, then, for righteous anger and salty discipleship.
Thanks be to God for this Good News. Amen. [He] was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
Do you know what the word livid meant when it first came into the English language?
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