SERMONS 

Where Love and Anger Meet: Anger as a Tool for Change

Let me get right to the point. Today I am going to talk about anger. Sometimes we forget about anger when we come to church, perhaps it is something that religion has forgotten. In fact, sometimes the church teaches us that as religious and spiritual people we are not supposed to get angry. Have you ever noticed this? Yes, usually in church we talk a lot more about love, compassion and peace.

And, of course it is easier to talk about love and peace, these words are soothing words, they have a calming affect, whereas anger, even just the world triggers anxiety. Even talking about it today with all of you triggers some fear in me (but I am working on that). The word anger triggers unsettling emotions, because it is connected with hate and violence. It can be uncomfortable when people let their anger show, because so often when this happens it means people are out of control. We usually think of anger as being out of control, at least I usually do.

But I am trying to work on this, and become more comfortable with anger. For, there is a paradox to anger, as there are two sides to love and peace. Christian theologian Paul Tillich explains that love without power is sentimentality.[1] Love can be a motive force that inspires us to work for good in the world, for the issues that we care about, but love with out power, which Tillich defines as the ability to act, is empty. It brings us no where closer to a world where love is primary.

Nevertheless, I throw my hat in with those who see love as the goal and compassion the purpose in building a world that reflects our principles. But where is the motivation to act? What gives us the energy for action. So if love is the goal, and compassion the purpose, what is the motivation to act?

There is a story in this book I have been reading, Cold Anger by Mary Beth Rogers. It is about Industrial Areas Foundation organizer Ernesto Cortes and his work in Texas to organize the poor and supposedly powerless people. In the book, the author relates the story of a conversation between a minister involved in social justice work and Ernesto Cortes. Cortes is trying to understand the passion and drive behind this minister’s work.

He asks the minister about his children and the minister explains how his 6-year-old son had meningitis as an infant and from that is now unable to talk or dress himself. The minister talks about his feelings of powerlessness, saying, “I am angry. And I have to wrestle with the fact that this happened to me. I don’t like this feeling. I’ve got to channel this feeling into something constructive.” When Cortes asks, “who do you get angry with?” the minister responds the power structures…the corporations…. Cortes says what do you mean?! The corporations didn’t give your child meningitis, when I was a child and my sister died, I didn’t get angry with corporations, I got angry with God.

The minister agrees he has anger with God, but then he talks about how he was lucky, I had insurance, he says. Now, when I go with other families to the hospital with their children, and they don’t have any money, that’s when I get really angry with the structures and the politicians. Cortes then says, “Well, pastor, anger gives you energy.” [2]

Anger is a reaction to events and circumstances where we have been wronged, or feel we have been wronged. Anger is an important emotion, because it emerges from things and people we care about, it emerges because of the love we have for ourselves. Sometimes there is a person or a societal structure to blame, and sometimes, as in this minister’s story, there is not. All the same, the anger that results from a painful experience can be the fire that ignites our compassion for others, and motivates our work in the world.

The paradox of anger is lies in the other possible outcomes of this story. The legacy of teaching that anger is bad feeds a cycle of either denying our own anger, which can cause it to burst out finally in uncontrolled and destructive ways, or we turn it inward leading to self destruction and complacency. When we resign our anger to hopelessness and the feeling of powerlessness, it becomes destructive to others and ourselves around us.

Imagine if this minister did not allow himself to be angry at God, and instead of channeling his anger into productive work, tried to force it into submission. Without a productive use, it would still emerge, bursting out against himself, his family and child, even his congregation. It is the cycle of the boss who unleashes his anger at an employee who goes home and kicks the dog, or worse. It is misdirected and uncontrolled anger.

On Friday night, I saw the movie, Notorious C.H.O., stand-up comedian Margaret Cho’s movie. Now, I am not recommending this movie to you unless you are already familiar with and enjoy her work, but in it, she talks about her own battles against self-destruction. She talks about how much she abhors fashion magazines, flipping through them makes her feel bad, they have these images of what women are, what beauty is, and looking at them makes her feel like a fat imposter of a woman. I share her anger.

Expressing this anger outwardly to educate others is a positive channel, but before arriving at this place, she turned that anger inward, into self hate, eating disorders, substance abuse, destruction so great it nearly killed her.

When we try to squelch the fire of our anger because of our own fear of it, or because we buy into the idea that anger is bad, the anger ends up sucking all our energy for positive work and just feeds complacency for the world, and violence in our lives.

What the minister in the story and Margaret Cho have is what Ernesto Cortes calls Cold Anger, it is a fire that does not consume, anger that is not out of control and burning hot. Cold Anger motivates; it is the fire of our commitment. The story of Moses and the burning bush from the Book of Exodus is a great image of this motivating energy. Moses sees this bush burning, but the flames do not consume the bush, it burns without destroying, and from that flame comes the voice of God, perhaps it is the voice of Moses’ own heart and compassion, “I hear the cries of my people.” His anger over the suffering of his people, this fire in his belly, leads him back to Egypt to save his people from their bondage.

Where our anger meets our love for ourselves and for each other, in this place we can harness the energy of our passion and channel it into our work—making our work a ministry and a commitment in the world.

I myself am in the middle of this process. Perhaps we are always somewhere in the middle of this process.

Now, I am not saying all of this so that you can all get mad at each other and have justification for it from the pulpit, or from me. I am not saying this to open up uncontrolled anger in this group. I share this thought because anger can be such a powerful motivating tool for action in the world. If we can find and articulate our passion, rising from our experiences of wrong doing and anger and channel that into work that responds to injustice in the world, then we find our energy for this work almost unending. First, we have to find that fire in our belly, and keep it cold so we can use it.

So, I want to know if and why you are angry. I what to know why you are angry. I want to share why I am angry.

I am angry, angry about several things. I am angry about how difficult it is for so many of us to feel good about ourselves. I am angry that media and societal structures make it so difficult for women, people of color, men, children, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, people, poor people, honest people, people of integrity to feel good about themselves. I am angry because I have such a hard time holding on to self-esteem amidst the barrage of images telling me what a woman is. To tell you the truth, getting in touch with this anger makes it feel hot.

But, in remembering these sources of anger, I also remember why I chose to enter ministry. I remember that I felt lucky growing up, I had a church community and friends that were a part of it that made my struggle to maintain my self-worth and self-love possible. And when I see people who do not have these resources, and who are not given messages that support their worth, I still get angry, and I know again my passion to build and maintain communities that offer the love and encouragement, strength of character and self-respect I found at the church where I grew up.

We have so many opportunities for work in this community, work with in the church and work outside the church, and finding a place where your passion and our hunger meet is a way for us all to make a difference.

Footnotes

1. Paul Tillich, Love, Power and Justice. Oxford University Press, 1954, pp 48-53; 67-71. Ernesto Cortes summarizes Tillich’s point in Cold Anger, p.46.

2. Mary Beth Rogers, Cold Anger: A Story of Faith and Power Politics. Copyright Mary Beth Rogers, 1990, pp. 53-54.