Lord, help me to be angry

This week, I have been praying that I may learn how to be angry. 

Recently, my daughter Bethany’s friend Natalie asked me if, should someone do something bad to a friend, I’d be angry. I answered her honestly: ‘I don’t know. I can imagine myself being numb, and deeply sad, but angry? I’m not sure.’

‘Well,’ said Natalie (slightly embarrassed at correcting someone almost four times her age) ‘It’s nice that you don’t get angry, but don’t you think there are some situations where it’s right to be angry?’ And of course, she’s quite correct.

At church last Sunday each verse of one of the songs began ‘Take us.’ In singing, we were inviting God to take us in our imagination to symbolic places which powerfully reflect aspects of Christian faith. Take us, for example, to the river ‘flowing with grace’; take us to heaven itself to hear the cry that ‘mercy has triumphed over judgement.’

It occurred to me that there are journeys God wants to take us on as individuals. Journeys across the street or across the world. Inner journeys, on which we discover more about ourselves and our destinies. Intellectual and spiritual journeys as we explore faith more deeply. Journeys which begin when we say ‘take me’ – with all the reassurance of those words that we do not travel alone. But does God do journeys into anger?

I remembered Ralph McTell’s powerful song Streets of London. The singer addresses someone whose life is basically OK but who has been complaining that they feel lonely and down. ‘Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London.’ There, they see cameos of desperately sad, impoverished people, ignored and abandoned, the tragic inhabitants of the capital’s streets. ‘I’ll show you something to make you change your mind.’

The response McTell expects from his listener is probably gratitude – gratitude that his or her life is so much better than the lives of those whose living room is a London street. But it seems to me that anger is an equally appropriate response.

Why are people living like this? Why are we, as a society, as religious groups, as individuals not making more of a difference in the lives of those who suffer?

Anger is an appropriate response to so many issues – the futility of war, the destructiveness of terrorism, the pervasiveness of an economic system which treats us simply as producers and consumers, global inequalities, the scandal of malnourished children in the heart of Africa, the misuse of power in high places.

Are we numb and sad, but not angry? Or not yet even sad, because the problems seem too immense for us to grapple with and for sanity’s sake, we’ve shut them out? Do we assume Christians must be gentle, sweet, forgiving, and not knowing what to do with our anger, pretend it doesn’t exist?

Well, gentle Jesus could do anger impressively when necessary – notably in the Temple when he was infuriated that the religious leaders were making a business out of faith. God does wrath impressively too, angry at the bad stuff we do, and the way it messes up our lives and the lives of others.

The anger of God is not that eye-popping, indisciplined, irrational raging springing from lack of self-control (of which, despite what Natalie thinks, I am very occasionally guilty when I’m stressed out.) This destructive raging is the brother of hatred.

The anger we need is focussed, controlled rage which walks hand in hand with love, love for both oppressor and oppressed, love which sees both as victims while not absolving the oppressor from blame. This is the anger which gives us resolve and strength, the imperative to work for change, through serving, not seeking power, through loving, not wielding violence.

And we’ll address not just global issues, but issues in our own communities which leave people wounded, oppressed and heartbroken. And we’ll be aware both of those whose suffering is obvious, and those who know they are fortunate, but feel only emptiness.

I realise that the seeds of everything wrong in the world produce shoots in my own heart. How can I stand up, in anger working for change, without being a hypocrite? Only if daily I am taken to a place where I hear that cry of mercy, forgiveness and healing. Forgiven and healed through the death and life of Jesus Christians want the whole world to find the same mercy and wholeness.

Take me. The God of mercy takes us into the streets our communities, the streets of the world, agents of change announcing in word and action to all who despair ‘Let me show you something to make you change your mind.’

Lord, help me to be angry.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News 18th October 2012)