Anger Management - Jesus style

Where I live, it’s not uncommon to hear about murder on the news, pretty much every day. Someone’s always shooting or stabbing or otherwise committing the act, in one way or another. Somehow, someone will always find a way to murder someone else.  It’s a fact of life. Oh, and for all you gun-haters out there, if guns are taken away, knives, clubs, rocks, pillows, rope, fists…will be used in place of the guns. The fact is, people will always kill other people. Sometimes out of anger, sometimes by accident, sometimes out of revenge, sometimes by self-defense.

In church today, the Pastor talked about murder.  Sounds like an unlikely topic, doesn’t it?  Exodus 20:13 is the 6^th commandment, “ Thou shall not commit murder”. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day interpreted this commandment literally, as had been done for quite a long time. In fact, ever since the commandments were handed down to Moses, by God Himself. However, Jesus wanted to teach them a new way to think about murder. He wanted them to think sort of ‘proactively’ about murder; to understand that murder begins in the heart through anger and unforgiveness. A simple concept, yet difficult for me to wrap my heard around. What Jesus was saying, is that to hold anger & unforgiveness in the heart is to commit the murder of someone’s character. Wow, that’s serious. Point taken.

Let’s talk about motive. What causes us to be angry an unforgiving? Is it because someone has wronged or offended us? Is it because of a certain situation? Are we angry at the situation and not the person? Being angry at something is not the same as being angry at someone. Hoping to not sound cliché here, but remember Jesus got pretty angry with the moneychangers, driving them out of the temple with a whip! He was angry with what they were doing, not with the people themselves.

How about revenge? Revenge is a nasty thing. It’s what the world wants us to seek, which should tell us that it’s bad, in and of itself.  We’re taught by our parents at an early age not to seek it. Yet every day, we’re tempted to dig it up from its grave, and stand on it, in some proud effort to find justice for the hurt or offense we’ve just experienced. In Romans 12, Paul tells us to ‘live peaceably with all men’.  And then he tells us to not seek revenge for ourselves, but to let God handle that. That’s an interesting concept in today’s world.

The board of Directors of GRC could easily seek revenge on blogger Pamela Geller and the former pastors of GRC. Geller posted a story on her blog stating the board members were being indicted for embezzlement, mail tampering, and wiretapping…..laughable at the least. No indictment has been handed out, and the accusations are completely false. Lorenz said Brian Smith, former Administrator of GRC, was a disgruntled former employee. That came after Smith, in a sworn statement, accused Lorenz of ignoring advice to contact the authorities of Rifqa Bary’s whereabouts. Lorenz said Smith was a liar, in spite of the fact that investigators have said they’ve found so many lies within Lorenz’s side of the story. Smith has voluntarily taken a polygraph, and was found to be telling the truth.

All of this could cause one to be angry at the people, and want to seek revenge on them.  Not so, with the GRC board, and Smith.  Angry at the situation they were put in? Yes, without a doubt! Angry at the people? No. Sad for them? Yes. Forgiven them? Yes.  Prayed for them? Yes, for a while. Revenge? Out of the question.

Matthew 5:21-22 says:

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…

I’m still working on the ‘without a cause’ part. I’m not quite sure what that means. Seems to me there’s a cause to be angry. Understanding will come in time.