Anger

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. To help his son with this problem, the boy’s father gave him a bag of nails. “Every time you get angry and want to lash out,” the father said, “hammer a nail into our fence out back.”

The boy nodded his head and agreed. Challenge accepted.

The first day the boy drove 37 nails into the fence. To be honest, it felt kind of good to the boy, channeling all that aggression onto something like that. At least at first. But the emotional reprieve never lasted long. More feelings of anger soon set in. So back to the fence he went. The boy quickly realized the hammer was heavy; driving nails hard work.

Even worse, this new activity took up more and more of his energy each day.

Wanting to free up time to do all the things little boys enjoy, like running, laughing, dancing in the rain, the boy learned, ever so slowly, to better deal with his strong emotions and not lash out.

Many suns came up, many suns went down, hours turned to days then to weeks. The boy, it seems, was changing. The more he learned, the less he hammered. It was easier, the boy discovered, to work through big feelings than to drive those nails deep into the fence.

Then one day came when the boy didn’t feel the need to pick up the hammer at all. Proud of his progress, he excitedly ran to tell his father.

“That’s great,” dad replied, excited by the news. “But those nails really shouldn’t be in the fence. Why don’t you go and pull them out?” Again, the boy agreed. This undoing of his hammering took time. In fact, the boy found removing nails to be even harder work than driving them in. Finally, after much effort, he was able to tell his father all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.”

The little boy then understood how powerful his words were. He looked up at his father and said, “I hope you can forgive me father for the holes I put in you.”

“Of course I can,” said the father. “Now let’s get to fixing this fence, my son. Mending fences is a two-person job. Let’s repair the damage done. Let’s do so, together.”

It was then, that the real work, of repairing what had been broken, began.

Costly, Common
That story* describes one way to deal with anger, pointing it outward as a weapon designed to harm. Another way is to bottle it up, keep things to yourself, letting it become a part of you. When we hold on to unresolved anger, and are unwilling to forgive, it hurts not others, but us.

A recent Mayo Clinic article shares what is at stake. Holding on to anger –

• Seeps into other relationships
• Limits our ability to enjoy the present
• Increases feelings of depression
• Decreases feelings of connection with others
• Causes our life to lack purpose
• Has the potential to cause us loads of physical harm

Yuck. That, too, is less than ideal. Anyone want to sign up for these symptoms?

Amazon.com currently lists more than fifty thousand books that touch on the subject of anger. The much more enjoyable topic of love clocks in only a bit higher, at seventy thousand books. While we infinitely value the latter – yeah love – it seems we need an awful lot of help working through the former.

While preparing this message I got phone call from one of our members, who wanted to talk about exactly this. He expressed a growing frustration over the spread of the Delta variant, how it didn’t have to be this way if more people had taken the vaccine and masking seriously, and had valued communal good over individual freedoms. I couldn’t help but agree. As a result of these frustrations he’s felt feelings bubbling up from within he can only describe as outright rage.

And because of this rage his angina is acting up, making his heart beat faster than it should. We spoke of the importance of staying in conversation, resourcing, finding healthy ways to release, and the need to forgive others who, speaking candidly, we both struggle to truly understand. At a minimum just to help us be physically more well. This is the here and now for him, and me, possibly you.

Wisdom
The Ephesians author writes something in chapter 4 about this oft-maligned feeling of anger that just might surprise.

Be angry, the text says. Be angry. With that the author confesses feelings of anger are –

• Natural
• Common
• Not going away, any time soon

Be angry. It’s worth sitting with that simple two-word statement some.

Anger isn’t something scripture minimalizes, avoids, or ignores.

Whether we like it or not, sooner or later, feelings of anger within us are going to come up. The question becomes what happens then.
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We know, hopefully, lashing out isn’t the answer. The boy who hammered nails in a fence, now in need of mending, is a good reminder of that. And holding anger in no better, decreasing our physical and mental health as it does.

Instead, scripture presents a third way. We are to speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. While reflecting on this text I couldn’t help but be reminded of a conversation, now three decades old, that describes how this third way works.

Rift
In high school I have this vivid memory of a conflict between me and a friend, Kathrin. I remember being pretty upset. And was keeping those feelings bottled up inside. All day long we passed each other in the hallways, avoiding eye contact.

Knowing something had come between us, as I walked from one classroom to the next, Kathrin approached me, quoting Ephesians 4. “You know,” she said, “scripture says we shouldn’t let the sun go down on a disagreement. We really need to talk about this.”

I remember being kind of impressed. This was not the typical public-school conversation my teenage self was used to. It couldn’t have been easy for her. It seemed brave.

I also remember not really wanting to talk to her about it. Stewing in my own juices a bit longer? Yeah, that was more my thing. It was tempting to hold on to that anger some more and decline her request. I considered the option. But deep down I had a sense Kathrin was right. We should probably talk. It was time for me, in that moment I decided, even if just a little, to grow up.

So we talked.
We reconciled.
We are friends to this day.

And for the life of me I can’t remember what it was that had come between us. But you know what? The details of the conflict don’t really matter much anymore. For the fence had been mended. Healing was now complete.

Redux
Today’s Ephesians 4 text uses language that, like anger, we don’t often dwell on. The devil makes an appearance, as does stealing, evil, bitterness, wrath, slander, malice. Again, yuck. Who wants to slog through life with any of that?

Instead, we are offered a better way, a chance to leave all that behind. Claimed as a beloved child of God, in the waters of our baptism we have been made clean, guided by the light of Christ, being remade into a new creation. It is this new creation within that offers so very much more than the chaos our world often deals.

As a new creation we are asked to put away that junk drawer collection of human nature – the mudslinging, bitterness, and malice – setting it aside, for good.

We are called, instead to live into our identity as Christ followers by imitating our creator. We are called to live in love. We can do that by –

Mending fences,
Working honestly,
Building up,
Being kind,
Forgiving.

Just as Christ has forgiven us.

When conflict arises within community – it does, and it will – we may be tempted to follow the ways of our old selves, resorting to –

Screaming,
Slander,
Gossip.

Speaking ill of others, behind their backs, attempting to tear one another down.

Or perhaps we’re more inclined to bottle our anger up, keep it inside, causing physical, mental, spiritual harm.

Christ asks us to follow a third way. A way that speaks the truth, in love, to others. Be angry. But do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Instead, go to the other person, listen, learn, seek to understand.

Release anger.
Forgive.

For it is only then, when we put down our hammer and nails, that we can become imitators of God. It is then, while mending the fences we’ve damaged, doing so together, it is then when our ultimate healing can truly, and completely, begin. Amen.