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The Anatomy of Anger

January 21, 2001

TEXT: MATTHEW 5:21-26

Is there anything more difficult in life than when you have been wronged, DEEPLY wronged, and need to forgive?

David Rothenberg would tell you forgiveness is hard. His body is disfigured and he's been through dozens of surgeries and skin grafts when since the age of six over 90% of his body was burned when his father set him on fire in a California motel room. Just recently his father, Charles, was released from prison and placed on parole. When David heard of his father's release his words were simple but passionate: "I will NEVER forgive him!"

And who can blame young David for feeling that way? Every time he lay on an operating table for another surgery he was thinking of how he'd been wronged by someone he trusted so deeply. And every time he looks in the mirror he is reminded of the hideous crime his father committed against him.

Until you've been in David's place it's hard to understand the overpowering sense of justice one feels in harboring unforgiveness. When you have been the victim, it feels at times as if it's all the leverage you have in that situation.

We're not speaking of someone who forgets our birthday - or someone who didn't invite us to the party. We don't need to forgive someone of that. We just need to give them grace. But when you've been deeply wronged sometimes our contempt is our only weapon. Sometimes harboring bad feelings is our only consolation.

We say to ourselves: "If I forgive, I'll just be taken advantage of again."

"If I let them off the hook, they won't learn their lesson."

"They deserve my anger."

And let's be honest - all of us have been angry. ALL OF US have been angry! Now some of us say our anger is justified, and then those of us who are REALLY religious say: "I'm not really angry. I'm just disappointed in them. I'm just frustrated."

And yet no matter how much we try and rationalize, the truth is EVERY person experiences anger, and every person must find a way to deal with that anger.

In the New Testament there are two primary Greek words for anger.

The first word for anger is thumos. Thumos anger can be compared to starting a campfire. You gather little pieces of kindling and scraps of wood for the fire. You may even throw a handful of dry leaves into the mix to try and get the flame going. And when you light your match and touch it to the dried leaves there is a flame that INSTANTLY rises up. That is the nature of thumos anger - the anger that quickly rises up, but just as quickly dies down.

The second word for anger is orga, and orga anger is different from thumos anger. Where thumos anger is quickly up and quickly down, orga anger simmers. It is long-lived anger. It is chronic, habitual anger. It is like a volcano that simmers and boils and bubbles until finally it has to explode out. We sometimes refer to people who become angry as "blowing their stack." That is orga.

Orga is where we derive the English word "orgy," meaning a kind of temporary madness. It's interesting that when someone is angry we call it "being mad." That is exactly right, because that's what ORGA anger is about. It is simmering, persistent anger that is nursed to keep it warm.

Do you see the difference? Now, guess what word Jesus refers to in his Sermon on the Mount? Orga anger.

Jesus grammatically describes an anger that we are continually, constantly nursing and keeping alive. Thus, it is not a stretch to describe Jesus' teaching here that you cannot nurse grudges.

Jesus is not saying that when someone cuts you off on the freeway that you're not going to be upset. In fact, in this very Gospel Jesus himself is said to be angry from time to time (almost always with the religious leaders). Jesus isn't describing frustration or even righteous anger.

Jesus IS talking about nursing a grudge. He is saying that the deepest meaning of, "You shall not kill," is "don't nurse hate." Why? Because at the root of murder is contempt.

Jesus uses a present-tense participle to describe this anger which means we do not translate it as a single MOMENT of anger as in "anyone who GET'S angry." But rather as "anyone who is BEING angry - carrying anger - bearing anger - anyone who NURSES a grudge." He's talking about a kind of PORTABLE anger that is carried around and nurtured - a resentment that is constantly with you, eating away at your heart.

You see, when you or I nurse a grudge, after a little while it begins to embitter the inner part of our very being. And suddenly we're not just angry about the event that is causing us to simmer . . . we're angry about everything. And all of us know angry people.

There is nothing sadder than to see a life literally eaten up with anger and unforgiveness. People who may have every right to that anger, but people who simply can't let it go, until it literally destroys everything good in their lives. I have seen people actually become physically ill over the all-consuming power of an unforgiving spirit.

Make no mistake, unforgiveness is truly an all-consuming passion. It keeps us bound to the pain of the past because it's the first thing on our mind when we wake up in the morning, it's what we meditate on throughout the day, and it's the last thing on our mind when we go to sleep. And because its hunger is insatiable in our lives it has the power to devour us.

Anger is like a cancer that eats away at our inner person. Bitterness is the ball and chain that keeps us bound and trapped. I know of nothing more consuming and constraining than refusing to forgive.

Now some folks have a right to be angry. I look at some people and the circumstances of their lives and I say if anybody has a right to be angry they do. Some people, who are very angry and are just constantly mad, have had tough things happen to them in their life.

Some of them have had their most significant relationships let them down. Some of them have experienced tremendous disappointment. There are many reasons for anger, but by nursing that grudge, by nurturing that anger, by allowing it to attach itself to our inner-being, somewhere along the way our heart becomes a bitter cesspool, filtering out in toxic ways into every area of our lives.

When I think about the word "nurse," I think about nurture. I see the image of a person getting up every day and taking the temperature of what happened in their past. I see daily feedings, nourishing medications, patting the pillow and making sure it's comfortable and given the life support it needs to continue. But my friends, whenever anger is nourished it becomes a poison, and eventually destroys everything good and of value in your life.

In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul doesn't say: "Don't get angry." He says: "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." Don't carry around your hurt feelings and nurse it like an old wound. Why? Because if you do, he says, "you give the devil a foothold."

In the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, Paul also says: "Love is not easily angered." WHY? "Because it keeps no record of wrongs." It doesn't carry around resentment and bitterness and nurture the hurt until sin occurs.

But we all know folks who have and who do. Some of us ARE folks like that. And there are times that we find ourselves exploding like a volcano, and spewing poisonous anger in every direction. And after it's over, when we finally come to our senses, we back away and say: "Why in the world did I carry on like that?" It's because deep down inside some kind of grudge has never really been dealt with and released by the grace of God - and it has festered and become infected and yet we continue to nurse the grudge. And SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW God's grace has to touch us, because there is no hope apart from his grace.

But Jesus does not leave us in despair. He offers his grace. But whenever grace is offer it is always accompanied by a call - a call to respond. The call in this passage is reconciliation. And the call to reconciliation goes something like this: "If you are offering your gift at the altar." What is Jesus referring to?

He's talking here about worship. And notice what he says: "And there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you." In other words, when you come to worship, if you worship in spirit and truth, and with an honest heart, YOU WILL REMEMBER if there is any kind of separation between you and a brother or sister. And what we are to do when we remember? "LEAVE THE ALTAR and be reconciled to your brother." Leave the altar and go!

Now think about that a second. Do you realize what a radical statement that is? Do you see how serious Jesus is about right relationships? Now think about that a second. To the first audience who heard these words of Jesus, this teaching had to sound unbelievably extreme. This was outrageous! Especially if you were from Galilee, and to get to the temple you had to travel a couple of days.

Imagine you've traveled for days to get to worship in the temple. You have stood in lines worse than the mall at Christmas time, literally waiting HOURS to worship, and the whole time listening to pigeons squawk and trying to hang on to a goat who doesn't want to be there.

You FINALLY get to the altar, and begin to worship and you remember a grudge you have against a brother, or according to this, you remember that someone has something against YOU. And now Jesus is asking you to step out of the line, return home to make reconciliation, and then travel back only to wait in line again to worship!

Jesus is serious about reconciliation! Because whatever all that means for us and our worship of God, one thing is for sure: God isn't interested in listening to anyone who isn't interested in reconciliation!

If you are nursing a grudge, then worship will never reconcile it for you. You can worship until you're blue in the face, but it won't matter. Reconciliation only happens as you embrace Jesus Christ and go to a brother or sister. Why? Because finally all holiness is relational holiness!

You say: "When should I reconcile?" NOW! QUICKLY! IMMEDIATELY! Those are the key words in this passage. Urgency is Jesus' tone here. Speed is of the essence in Jesus' teaching on anger, because Jesus knows when personal relationships go wrong, the vast majority of the time, immediate redemptive actions will mend them.

These are hard words, but Jesus knows that resentment is the cancer of the soul. It eats out our heart. And when we nurse our grudge, we become rage-a-holics, using anger to feed our hurt.

We are called to be reconciled to God and to each other. And the New Testament is clear - there is no reconciliation with God if we REFUSE reconciliation with each other! We can forgive because God has forgiven us.

There is freedom in forgiveness.

¨ To forgive is put down a 50-pound pack after a 10-mile hike.

¨ To forgive is to fall into a chair after a marathon run.

¨ To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner was you.