BY JASON SCHIFO
I don’t know if you have noticed, but things around us are feeling awfully divided lately. This person believes this thing, that group believes that thing. It seems like every day there is more and more to drive us apart rather than bring us together.
And every crevice and corner we see increasing hatred, bitterness, and division. Lines are being drawn by groups and tribes, gathering together around issues rather than people, seems to be trumping unity.
Now, it’s not like there isn’t a lot to be angry about. The world seems like a powder keg for anger. Watching the news or reading the paper these days feels like walking across a floor filled with my son’s legos screaming, ”YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!”
I am not going to go for easy applause by naming the things that make us angry and bitter. You already know the issues that cause you to become angry and say, “those people!”, and then to rally around “Your people” – those who embrace and agree with whatever you are angry about.
And then we have more anger, more bitterness, and more division. And in doing so move farther from the unity. Each one of us is complicit in either a move towards unity or one towards division.
As with all things, the Bible isn’t silent on this. Romans 12:18 says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” But how can we possibly live peaceably with all when we’re all so angry? We will get to that…
Ephesians 4:26-27 says, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.”
But wait, Jason, the Bible just said that I do get to “be angry,”
Yes, it did, but that isn’t all that it says.
The Bible says, “be angry” because we all have these emotions and to deny these emotions denies what it means to be human, and the Bible never denies our humanity. We all get angry. But it doesn’t leave us there. It wants to tell us what to do with that anger.
First, it tells us not to sin.
What is sin? Well, we teach our AWANA Clubs kids that sin is: Anything that we think, say, or do that disobeys God. What did God tell us to do that sin would lead us to disobey?
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus is asked what the most important thing is, and He says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” The most important thing is to love God and to love others.
Often when we talk about sin we think about stealing, murder, infidelity, immorality; all most heinous examples. But the sins the Bible is leading us towards are the ones we seem to find ourselves practicing most often.
Ephesians 5:4 says, “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place”, and Ephesians 5:29 says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths.”
The Bible gives us a warning not to let our anger and bitterness degenerate into sin; things like filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, and corrupting talk that would come out of our mouths. In our modern context, I might want to add, and out of our keyboards and onto social media.
There are commands on how we express our anger and there is also a strict time limit. You do get to be angry because you are human, but you don’t get to stay angry. The Bible says “And don’t sin by letting anger control you and Don’t go to bed angry” (Ephesians 4:26).
When we harbor anger and bitterness in our heart, we do the work of division, by sowing discord. If God’s mercies are indeed new every day, and the Bible says they are, then why would we carry our anger, bitterness, and resentment into each day in ever increasing amounts?
But what do we do about injustice? Because injustice makes us angry.
This is so important, but we need to acknowledge what has subtly happened. That as we have addressed injustice, and the things that make us angry, we have become experts at getting others angry with us.
The problem is that if our motivation for justice is anger and bitterness, if and when we get justice we will still be left with anger and bitterness. And this is incompatible with the life that we are called to live together.
Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Conversely, and imagine this, if our motivation is love then when we get justice we are left with love. We are not left angry, divided and bitter, but united in something greater: in love.
A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to travel to Atlanta, Georgia to the Zacharias Center. There I had the opportunity to meet Reverend Justice Okoronkwo and Pastor Hassan John from Jos, in northern Nigeria. There Hassan John told a story…
“My church had been repeatedly attacked by local factions from the terrorist group of Boko Haram. We had been bombed, shot at, some members killed, and even I have a $700 bounty on his head.”
“Finally I reached my breaking point. I was beside myself, did not know what to do with my anger. So I called a man of the church and told him that I needed to get an AK-47. If Boko Haram had the AK-47, then I needed one to protect my church! The man told me he could get one, but that it would cost roughly $1,000. With scarce extra money, I struggled with how to get the money.”
“A few days later I was sitting outside the church thinking again about the AK-47, when I saw a little Muslim girl selling peanuts. I called to her and asked, “Daughter, why are you not in school?” The girl responded, “My mother is unable to pay the fees for school.”
“I asked her where her mother was, and the girl motioned to me and started off for her home as I followed. But as she entered the Muslim section of the village, I being a Christian, started to become very fearful and concerned. Things became more tense as the local Imam, suspect of my presence in the village, approached us.”
“I told the Imam that I wanted to speak to this girl’s mother to find out why she was not in school. The Imam agreed but continued to follow us as we went to her home. Once there, her mother confirmed to me that indeed their family along with many other Muslim families in the village were unable to pay the fees for school. Without thinking much, I committed to pay the fees for the girl to attend school. First her, then others and now currently over a hundred.
“Sometime later, our church was gathered to worship, when suddenly there was a commotion outside. A man burst through the doors yelling that we were going to be attacked. I ran out the doors and there I saw that same Imam that had followed us into the village, holding down the young man who was coming to attack the church.”
“I was confused, and after they took the youth away, the Imam approached me and said, “Hassan, because of the kindness that you showed our women and children no harm will come to your church.”
“With tears in my eyes I realized that in my anger and bitterness I wanted an AK-47, but in that moment I realized that I had a far greater power to combat evil and injustice – Love.”
The problem with getting angry for one another is that it hinders our ability to love one another. And when we stop loving one another, we stop building one another up, and then we stop living for one another.
I think it’s always a good day when you can end with the Beatles…
“All you need is love” – Love is the answer.
