"The Mad That You Feel" - Matthew 5:21-26 (February 16, 2020)
/Matthew 5:21-26
‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
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Mister Rogers once said: “Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” So, today we’re going to talk about anger. For anger is human, and mentionable, and manageable.
If you haven’t already seen it, I highly recommend the Disney Pixar film, “Inside Out.” It’s about a young girl named Riley and the personifications of the five basic emotions inside her head: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The film explores how Riley processes her emotions and how they coexist together - sometimes quite nicely and sometimes with much difficulty. The personification of Riley’s anger is brilliantly portrayed by Lewis Black with his classic grumpy voice. One of the brilliant things about the movie is that it refrains from categorizing any one emotion as “better” than the other. It doesn’t label Joy as “good” and Anger as “bad.”
Emotions aren’t good or bad; they’re, well, just part of being human. And, as Mister Rogers reminded us, it’s not our emotions that make us who we are, it’s what we choose to do with them that make us who we are. And the first part of today’s passage is all about Jesus talking to his followers about one particular emotion: anger.
If you’re human, you have anger. Even the people we see as being particularly genteel had anger. Mr. Rogers got angry. Mother Teresa got angry. Jesus himself got angry (remember that little kerfuffle in the Temple when he flipped tables and drove animals and people out with a whip?).
But we must also acknowledge that there are different kinds of anger. When we see anger in the world, either outside of us or within us, we would do well to ask two questions:
1) What is motivating this anger?
2) Is this anger being owned and processed in a healthy way?
Anger can be a perfectly healthy and, at times, necessary emotion. As Christians, we acknowledge that God gets angry in the Biblical narrative. However, God’s anger is always rooted in one thing: when we don’t live together in the peace and justice to which God calls us. When the poor are mistreated, God gets angry and so should we. When those in power leverage their privilege to thrive at the expense of others, God gets angry and so should we. When violence tears apart families at the border and shoots down children in our schools, God gets angry and so should we. Those kinds of anger can play an important role in creating the change that is needed to bring God’s Kingdom to fruition.
But as far as I can tell, that’s not the anger that Jesus is talking about in today’s passage. The anger that Jesus is talking about here is the kind of anger that festers within a community, the kind of anger that inevitably happens when a group of people live together as a family, a congregation, or a community. This is the kind of anger when we lash out with harsh, violent words. This is the kind of anger that is rooted not in justice but in selfishness. This is the kind of anger that happens when we fail to listen to one another and see the humanity in each other.
And you and I live in a country where that anger seems to be coming at us like a tsunami. We see it in the news. We see it on our social media. We see it our politics, in our workplaces, in our homes, and, yes, even in our congregations. Anger is being weaponized in ways that are making us do horrible, horrible things.
And I think Jesus knew the threat anger of this kind posed, because he spoke of it in very serious terms. Hear again what he had to say:
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”
Jesus was trying to build a community of faith. You and I, here in this congregation, are a continuation of that very community. Jesus knew that festering anger would be the single largest threat to the community of love that he was planting. Jesus knew that anger that goes unacknowledged will remain unresolved and then manifest itself in violent ways that hurt people.
Mr. Rogers wrote a wonderful song in 1968 that deals with naming and claiming your anger. It’s called “What Do You Do with the Mad that You Feel?” In fact, he recited the words of this song in congress in 1969 to convince lawmakers to continue funding children’s programming on PBS.
What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong
And nothing you do seems very right?
What do you do? Do you punch a bag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a game of tag?
Or see how fast you go?
It's great to be able to stop
When you've planned a thing that's wrong
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song:
I can stop when I want to
Can stop when I wish
I can stop, stop, stop any time
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can
For a girl can be someday a woman
And a boy can be someday a man.
A friend of mine, Tom Junod, is a journalist who was befriended by Fred Rogers during final years of Fred’s life. I contacted Tom a few days ago and told him that I was using this song in today’s sermon and asked if he’d be willing to share his thoughts on the song within the context of his relationship with Fred and the context of the current political climate. This is what Tom shared with me:
“The most powerful thing Mister Rogers did with his anger was acknowledge it. Saints aren’t supposed to be angry. But of course Fred never claimed to be a saint, and therefore owned his anger and spent his life training it for a positive purpose. It’s what still strikes me most about his song “The Mad You Feel” — when he sang it, you know he felt it. You know that nothing human was alien to him. There are many places where we can find God — in the light, in the dark, in the silence, in the voice of conscience that speaks from the silence. But Fred was a person who found God in the messiest of human emotions, and made it his mission to teach us how to deal with them, both as children and as adults. Of course, he didn’t come out and say that this was his ordained purpose — he was, after all, a secular figure. But his great gift was to be able to find the divine in his work for children, and find children at the heart of his work for the divine. What did “you are special?” mean but that God loves you? And what did the lyrics of “The Mad You Feel?” mean but that even our scariest feelings are acceptable to God, if we can just figure out what to do with them? We live in such an angry world now, a world given over to anger consecrated in red-faced tweets and Facebook posts. How I wish we would listen to Fred, and pound some clay instead, or bang the lowest notes on a piano. And how I wish that someone loved our angry president the way that Fred loved us.”
I’m grateful for these words because they remind me that God loves us in the messiness of our lives and the messiness of our emotions and that God walks with us in our struggles. Remember that story in the Book of Genesis when Cain is seething with anger at his brother Abel? Cain’s anger is driving him mad and he contemplates violence against his brother. But before he acts on it, God stops Cain and talks with him about his anger. God tells Cain that he has a choice. He can choose to master his anger and find others ways to deal with it, ways that don’t resort to violence. As Mister Rogers would say, he can stop when he wants to, stop when he wishes, he can stop, stop, stop any time.
Of course, you and I know that Cain didn’t choose the peaceful path. But you and I can. I wonder what would happen if we learned from Mister Rogers and greeted anger not with violence but with curiosity. My therapist, Jenny, has encouraged me to be curious about my anger. And because of that curiosity, I’ve come to the realization that much of my anger is rooted in my tendency to be impatient. Now, although I’m just coming to this realization, my wife Tricia tells me that she’s known this for quite some time and she’s not sure what took me so long to figure it out! But all this is to say that curiosity can be a powerful tool when we find ourselves consumed by the intensity of our God-given emotions. What if we “practiced the pause” to “stop, stop, stop when we’ve planned something wrong” and asked ourselves some questions?
Is my anger rooted in justice or fear?
If it’s the latter, what am I afraid of?
Is the way that I’m considering expressing my anger going to hurt others or myself?
What ways can I own and process this anger before it leads to violent words or actions?
Once I’ve processed that anger in a healthy way, how can I be in relationship with the person or persons with whom I’m angry?
How can this anger be an opportunity for me to grow?
Curiosity can be a powerful antidote to rage. It’s something that I’m working on. And it’s something that I hope you’ll work on as well. Jesus - like Fred Rogers - was a relentless prophet challenging us do better, to be kinder, and to love ourselves and one another with outrageous grace.
So, friends, what do you do with the mad that you feel, when you feel so mad you could bite? Let us ask ourselves that question as frequently as anger make an appearance. And let us never lack the courage to answer that question with ways that heal the world, and ourselves.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s children, say: Amen.