Angry words, oh let them never…

You didn’t know that when you clicked on this blog, you would be entering a confessional.

But here you are, about to take my confession.

Here it is: I often feel an urge to punish and shame people who are “out loud” with opinions I believe to be wrong.

I fight that urge so hard that it hurts.

Imagine my misery every time I scroll through social media.

Sometimes, it takes everything I have to hold back the rage I feel.

Why hold it back? Why not let my fury flag fly?

Mostly this Bible verse:

“…for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:20).

I can’t think of a time in my life that the free flow of my raw anger did any good for anyone else or for me. Even when my anger was justified.

One summer in college, I served as the summer youth minister for a Church of Christ congregation in Mississippi. The youth group had about 20 teenagers in it. About half were boys and half were girls.

The boys were just what you expect teenaged boys to be. Every time the youth group got together, the boys tried to outdo each other at goofing off and showing off. I didn’t try too hard to stop it. I was only three or four years older than most of them and the “goof-off” still shouted loudly in me.

Bible study was the one time that I tried to get the boys to control themselves. I wanted them to be serious about learning “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Gospel of John 14:6).

I didn’t get much sleep that summer and I worked really hard every day. By early August, I was getting worn out. I was starting to think about the end of summer and saying goodbye to people who felt like family to me. I had so much I still wanted to share with the teens as time was running out.

I put a lot of time into preparing one of the last Bible studies that I would lead for the youth group. In that Bible study, I wanted to share some things that were personal and precious to me.

When the night of the Bible study came, 20 teenagers sat in a circle in one of the classrooms at the church building. From the moment the boys came in, I could tell they were feeling rowdy. Especially Samuel. He seemed like he shot straight out of a can of Mountain Dew.

Samuel and two of the other boys would not stop fooling around. I tried to ignore it, but I could feel my annoyance thickening into anger. Samuel had been acting up a lot lately at other youth activities. Just a week or two before my “very special Bible class,” he farted loudly in one of our youth group prayer times. My patience with him was running on “E”.

About halfway through the class, I was in the middle of sharing the most personal part of the lesson. I saw Samuel fooling around again.

My normal response to goofing off in class would be to ask the kid to go take a walk. He could come back when he was over the heebie-jeebies.

But not on this night. I erupted.

In front of all of his friends, I tore into Samuel. After I told him what an immature, self-centered pain in the ass he was, I kicked him out of class and told him not to come back.

Do you know what happened?

He didn’t come back. Ever. I didn’t see Samuel for the rest of that summer.

That was a random Wednesday night almost 23 years ago and I have a lump in my throat writing about it.

Was Samuel in the wrong for fooling around in class?

Yes.

Did he have a long record of distracting the kids in the youth group?

Yes.

Was Samuel inconsiderate and disrespectful of me?

Yes.

Did all of Samuel’s wrongs make it right for me to punish and shame him in front of his friends?

I suppose an old-timer who had to go out and “cut his own switch” would say that Samuel got what he deserved.

But what good did my anger do for Samuel?

What good did it do for the kids who heard and saw it?

What good did it do for the body of Christ?

What good did it do for the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

What good did it do for me?

“…for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:20).

Since that night, I have come to believe that the Christ chose to be broken so that all people and all things may come back together. The Christ did not choose to be broken so that broken people could be broken more. While the world was in the act of using sharp metal and sharp words to break his body into pieces, the Christ prayed “forgive them for they know not what they do” (Gospel of Luke 23:34). Or: “While these people are breaking me apart, God, put us all back together again!”

The will of God is not that humanity be broken into smaller and smaller pieces; it is for humanity to be put back together into “one new humanity…making peace” (Ephesians 2:15).

I grew up in a Christian clan that spoke of “righteous anger” and “tough love.” I think we kind of enjoyed verses like 1 Corinthians 5:5, in which the author told a church of Christ to give a man over to Satan “for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.” People who stepped out of line needed to “get what they deserved” if they were to have any chance of getting right again.

I knew too many Christians who seemed happy to be the ones to dish out those “just deserts.”

In 45 years with the church of Christ, I cannot think of a single time that anger, punishment, or shame led to healing and restoration of either persons or relationships.

I saw firsthand how my own “righteous anger” and “tough love” drove Samuel away so that he never came back.

I think the way we respond to our anger–even anger that is justified–reveals a lot about whose will is in control of our hearts.

The will of God is always forgiving, healing, mending, reconciling, restoring.

Perhaps the best picture of God’s discipline is the story of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke 15:11-32. In that story, the Father did not send the son away; he let the son go his own way and suffer the consequences of his own choices. But the Father kept his eye on him the whole time. He never let him out of his heart. He watched the road every day, hoping and praying that his son would come back to him.

As soon as the son turned his eyes toward home, the Father ran most of the distance to throw his arms around him and give him the shirt off his back. The prodigal son was correct when he told the Father that he no longer deserved to be a son; but it was the Father’s will to restore his sonship even though he didn’t deserve it.

There were no lectures from the Father. No conditions. No demands for apology or paying back in full. No probationary period.

The will of God is for all of his children to be together at home. Even his children who are clearly in the wrong and deserve to be cut off.

Parents with difficult children understand this.

If we choose to be angry and to let that anger punish and shame others–even others who are clearly in the wrong–we are acting out our own will. We are no longer expressing the will of God. We are no longer working for the righteousness of God.

This is why Christians must “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) before we speak. The first spirit we must test is our own.

I do this every time I want to react to someone on social media.

I am not saying that we should not say that we think something is wrong, but the way we say it says a lot about the spirit in our hearts. If it is the Spirit of God, we will speak with love and an open, welcoming posture. The reason we speak will not be to cast people away, but to draw them close. Even if they are enemies (Gospel of Matthew 5:44). This is the Way.

Here is an example.

I feel a very strong resentment for people who seem to say that the only way I can be a faithful Christian and good American is to believe in Donald Trump and to follow him. This false choice stirs up a lot of anger in me.

Some of my Sunday school teachers–the people who raised me in the Christian faith–seem to be some of the strongest voices for this point of view. I feel strong reaction rising in me when they post what amounts to ultimatums: Stand with Donald Trump or stand for the darkness. There is no other way, truth, or life than the one Donald Trump represents.

I want to say with as much clarity as I can that I think they are wrong. I believe they are deceived. I believe they are supporting something that will do grave damage both to the church of Christ and to the country they love.

I admit that several times a day, I start tapping out Facebook posts that express my thoughts in a way that I know would do harm to those I target.

As Abraham Lincoln often wrote angry letters and put them away in a drawer, I find that I need to get my anger off my chest by writing things I never intend to publish or send.

I may know that I am right, but I also know that the will of God is not about “right and wrong”; it is about being together in love.

So I must subject myself to the discipline of God and test the spirits before I say or write one thing that could break a relationship that the Christ was broken to mend. I must do the hard work of asking how I might tell the truth in a way that draws enemies and opponents near. We can only do the will of God if we are closing the distance between us, not opening it wider.

I think that, for many Christians, we have a basic misunderstanding about what God is trying to do “with all this.” The more I read the Gospels, the more I see that God is erasing the borders and throwing open the gates (Revelation 21:25) so that anyone and everyone can be part of the family. This is opposite what my Christian clan taught me when I was growing up. According to the teaching I received as a child, God is drawing a circle tighter and tighter around the “true believers” who are “pure.” My Christian family of origin gave me a picture of the kingdom of God that is always closing in tighter and tighter. I grew up believing the church of Christ to be a fortress that we defend with higher walls and more lethal weapons.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the opposite of what I learned. The kingdom of God is always expanding outward and taking all comers–even the people who are still trying to figure out what they believe and the ones who could only be called “pure” in the sense that they mean well. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not building a fortress to keep the good guys in and the bad guys out; it is more like the Big Bang–life and love exploding and flinging themselves in every direction…even to the dark unknown.

God is not keeping people out of a shrinking fortress; his love is growing outward so that people find themselves in the kingdom of God no matter where or who they are.

So the choice about how to speak to people really comes from what we believe to be true about God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we believe it is all about who is “in” and who is “out” based on “purity tests,” then we are likely to excuse and justify our anger toward those who don’t meet the purity standards. They deserve the punishment and shame we give them.

But if we believe the story of the kingdom of God is that everyone is in by the grace of God through Jesus Christ (and it is just a matter of choosing to know it and learn to live like it), we place our anger under discipline and testing before we speak. We believe our words must work God’s will. Our words must bring people together.

I think that, right now, the church of Christ needs to be a safe place for enemies to draw near to each other and restore their mutual commitment to will of God. The only thing on which we need to agree is that the point of the Gospel is to make “one new humanity” out of us (Ephesians 2:15). We can allow that understanding of the Gospel to flavor our actions, thoughts, and words toward each other. If we agree on this one thing, it gives us a lot of room to disagree on other matters without those things become reasons to separate. We can join each other in professing our faith that the Spirit of God will work the will of God in us if we turn toward each other. We can tell the truth without being afraid.

I don’t know how the church of Christ will arrange itself to become that safe place that supports fruitful dialogue among enemies.

I do know that if we don’t try, we are failing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I also know that, while the church of Christ tries to figure it out, each individual Christian has a responsibility to the will of God. Which means each individual Christian has a responsibility to carefully choose what he or she speaks or writes. Every Christian must consider who will hear or read her words and express “only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29).

My experience with Samuel 23 years ago haunts me. I know what my anger–even when it is justified–can do. It can break the body of Christ. It can push away a person that God is trying to draw near.

As Christians in America, we have a responsibility to the kingdom and will of God. That means we have a responsibility to our enemies. We must not parrot the anger or slander that media and political figures shout at each other. They do not speak for God. They do not speak the language of the Spirit. The proof is in how they break apart and divide. The proof is in how the more they talk, the less of God’s righteousness we see in the world.

You and I have the power to change this. I hope we will together.

Grace and peace.