2023 09 24 Sermon
Dealing with Anger
Pentecost 17 A
Jonah 3:10-4:11; Matthew 20:1-16
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Last Sunday we heard about St. Peter asking Jesus: “How many times should I forgive someone who sins against me? As many as 7 times?” Jesus responds: “Not 7 times but 77 times!” and then he tells the parable of the unforgiving slave, who has a huge debt forgiven when he pleads for mercy from his king, but then he refuses to forgive a fellow slave who owes him a much smaller debt. In this parable Jesus is teaching about how, as Christians, God calls us to make forgiveness into our way of life.
In today’s readings we hear about one of the consequences of not being able to forgive, and that is anger—the kind of anger that takes over and prevents you from living as the person God created you to be. Of course it’s not only an inability to forgive that can draw us into anger; and our scripture readings today explore what happens when we either hold onto or release our anger.
Take Jonah, for example. Like most prophets, he was reluctant to accept his calling from God—and actually keeps trying to do the opposite of what God wants him to do. “Go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it” the Lord says to him, “for their wickedness has come up before me.” What did Jonah do? He promptly got on a boat bound for Tarshish—a city in completely the opposite direction! Why would God want to send Jonah to Ninevah, and why would Jonah want to avoid it? Because Ninevah was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. In 722 BC, Assyria defeated the kingdom of Israel and forced many of its people in exile. Assyria was the sworn enemy of Israel. Jonah hated them, and was angry for what they had done to his homeland and people. Of course he was angry! This was a great injustice. So this story explores how to deal with injustice and anger in a way that doesn’t ignore the wrong that has been committed, but that is ultimately healing for both parties.
Well, when Jonah finally and with much drama makes it to Ninevah, he doesn’t want to preach the Lord’s message. But he reluctantly enters the city, and in a bid to undermine his own efforts, preaches an eight-word-sermon. He hopes he’ll be ignored by these people he hates, because if he speaks up they might actually listen, and repent, and then turn to God for mercy. And what’s more, Jonah knows—both from the Bible and from his own life experience—that God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” This is God’s character, God’s nature, the way God acts towards anyone who turns toward him in faith—not just those who have always had an active life of faith, or who have always tried to live according to God’s commandments. This is God’s character towards everyone.
Despite Jonah’s best efforts to fail, his message makes it all the way to the king of Ninevah, who decrees that the whole city shall repent, and turn to God, and turn away from their evil and violent ways. “Who knows?” the king says, “God may have mercy on us so that we do not perish.” Well, now Jonah is really angry, so he prays for the Lord to just strike him dead “for it is better for me to die than to live.” And God replies, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Is that what’s best for you? Does it really do you any good? And Jonah answers, “Yes!” My anger is righteous anger! You know exactly who those Assyrians are and what they’ve done!
Notice that God does not get angry at Jonah in return. God knows that Jonah has suffered because of the Ninevahites, and it is natural for him to be angry; it’s also right that Jonah should be honest with God. God simply responds by nudging Jonah to see that his righteous anger is mostly punishing himself. He can’t undo to wrong the Ninevahites have done, but he can choose to move forward in a way that is more life-giving for himself. And with the message he preached, he can invite the Ninevahites to begin righting the wrongs they had done, and for them to choose a way forward that is more life-giving for themselves, as well. This is the way God works: to bring not punitive justice. God doesn’t just want to go around punishing people. God wants restorative justice in the world. Redemption. God is all about breaking the cycles that people keep using to hate one another and seek revenge and commit violence upon each other.
Jonah teaches that if you give in to your anger and let it consume you, it can end up destroying you. It’s like in the Star Wars movies, Darth Vader (the villain) tries to get Luke Skywalker (the hero) to join him on the “dark side” by encouraging him to “give into your hate, Luke.” This is the struggle Luke has—whether to give in and turn to the dark side and destroy his true self, or let go of his anger and fulfill his true heroic destiny.
Turning now to today’s gospel, we hear the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, where we see jealousy and envy at work (which can easily feed into anger). The vineyard owner hires some laborers at 9 in the morning, hires others at noon, some others at 3 o’clock, and finally a few more at 5 in the evening. At the end of the work day, he pays all of them equally with “the usual daily wage” regardless of how many hours they worked! If you’re one of the 5:00 hires, you are thrilled. If you’ve worked all day you are “grumbling against the landowner” because he “has made them equal to us.” Like the story of Jonah, this shows us how God in his goodness is actually not fair. But God is something much better: Generous. Gracious. Merciful.
Once again, God’s true character is revealed, this time through the words of the landowner who says to the laborers: “I am doing you no wrong. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Or as it literally says in the Greek: Is your eye evil because I am good? Are you giving me the evil eye because I’m good?)
Through this parable, Jesus is giving us another key for how to not let anger consume you—and that is to cultivate contentment. To not define myself over against someone else whom I perceive to be better than me, or to have something that I lack, or who has gotten something that I think they don’t deserve. (This is what the all-day-long laborers in the parable were doing; they were defining themselves over against the workers who only worked an hour.) Instead, I can be content and enjoy life when I learn how to appreciate the good that I have right now, and find joy in those blessings.
For the laborers in the parable, gaining contentment could have been as simple as realizing: “Man, I wish I had been lucky enough to be paid a whole day’s wage for working only one hour. But let me count my blessings. I woke up this morning! I went to the marketplace and someone hired me. I had the physical and mental ability to put in a full day’s work. Now I get to go home to my family!” Cultivating contentment doesn’t mean being satisfied with injustice, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to improve your situation or the world tomorrow. But you can find satisfaction in life today as you give thanks and rejoice in God’s blessings—and then you can allow others to give thanks and rejoice in the different (and perhaps even better) blessings they have received.
Everybody has the opportunity to grow into becoming the full person God created you to be, because God’s character of generosity, grace, and mercy is open to all—even to those whom we think don’t deserve it; even to you if you think you don’t deserve it. We see God’s character most profoundly in Jesus Christ, who did not let anger at the injustices done to him consume him, but instead willingly went to the cross to take the sins of the world upon himself on our behalf, and offered forgiveness in return. And in rising from the tomb, Jesus opened the way for us to know the contentment of true and abundant life in God, in this world and in the world to come. Amen.