“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”
It is one thing to murder someone, to wantonly and mercilessly take a life. We instinctively know that is wrong. But anger? I’m not saying it’s good, but what are we to make of Jesus’ statement? Many people struggle with anger in their lives. Is it the occasional flareup? Rage? Has it become a habit? Or maybe one day you look in the mirror and silently wonder, “When did I become an angry person?”
We wonder “Is it ever okay to feel this way?” Is this anger righteous or a sign of failure or sin? When we ask such questions, the next step might be to ask “what would Jesus do?” What comes to mind is Jesus who heals, forgives, and welcomes – not someone who has a meltdown and loses control or someone who stews over something said or done. But Scripture is clear. There are occasions when Jesus gets angry.
Let me give you some examples of Jesus’ anger and see if there something to be learned
- Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath while religious leaders watch, hoping to accuse him. “He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart…” (Mark 3:1-6).
- The oft cited overturning of the merchants’ tables in the Temple area
- The disciples try to prevent children from approaching Jesus. “When Jesus saw this he became indignant…” (Mark 10:13-16).
- In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus pronounced “woes” upon the scribes and Pharisees when they corrupted true worship or misrepresented what God desires.
- In those same Gospels anger expressed as sorrow as Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and her fate.
- …and other examples.
Of course, there are lots of instances when things are done to Jesus that if they happened to me, I’d be angry. Just because you don’t like what I said does not mean you can throw me off the edge of a steep hill. That’s what the people of Nazareth tried. Jesus did not get angry. He just walked away.
All this should lead us to ask the question: how is Jesus’ anger different from our anger? And, how are we to reconcile all this with Jesus’ teaching into today’s gospel: “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”
Anger is a common emotion that everyone experiences at some point or another in life. Certain situations can trigger different types of anger and leave you experiencing anything from a minor annoyance to full-blown rage. At one level anger is physiological. There is a flood of stress hormones causing the heart to beat faster, increasing blood flow to the muscles and organs. There is a rise in blood pressure and other effects. Anger emerges in stressful situations, when you’re frustrated, feel you’ve been attacked or disrespected or when you are being treated unfairly. At the root of many angry feelings is a sense of powerlessness like when we are unable to correct or improve a situation: a traffic jam, a job loss, a relationship breakup, a chronic illness. It is in those moments that our frustration, sadness, letdown, and other negative emotions often converge into anger. Sound familiar?
Anger that lashes outward is generally sinful and usually begins with the self: I have been insulted, I don’t have control, I feel threatened. Are any of those the beginning points of Jesus’ anger? No. Jesus’ anger is never about himself. Jesus is not angered by insult, rejection, or misunderstanding. He absorbs those without retaliation. Instead, his anger begins in righteousness: this situation is wrong, someone is being diminished, or love is being denied. He is angry when mercy is blocked, when the vulnerable are excluded, when people are being misled in the name of God, when people are burdened rather than freed. His anger rises not because he has been offended, but because someone else is being harmed.
The spiritual question, then, is not “Do I feel anger?” It is “What does my anger serve?” Is your anger redemptive in nature? Does it move you toward truth, mercy, and courage? Can you express it in love? Does it lead you outward to protect, to speak, to act, to intercede? Can you remain steadfast when the cause of your anger remains unmoved and unchanged? Will you persevere? This is not an anger subject to judgment.
Or does anger move you toward resentment, control, and withdrawal? Anger that turns inward feeding pride, fear, bitterness, self-justification, disappointment is liable to judgment.
The question the Gospel places before us is not, “Do we ever feel anger?” It is, “What does our anger reveal about our love?”
Anger that leads us toward hardness of heart, exclusion, or self-protection – as the Chinese proverb predicts: a moment of anger leads to a 1,000 days of sorrow.
Jesus teaches us that anger, purified by love, can become a force for good. It can name what must change. It can defend the vulnerable. It can clear space for healing to occur. But righteous anger must always remain connected to humility and prayer. Once anger detaches from love, once it begins to justify harm, it ceases to be holy.
In the first reading, Sirach tells us: “Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.” So it is with anger. It is always a choice. Will you allow anger to lead you to judgments? Or will anger lead us toward mercy, justice, and deeper faithfulness – a sign that love is alive within us.
When anger arises within you, breathe deeply and choose well.
The anger of the LORD blazes against his people, he stretches out his hand to strike them; The mountains quake, their corpses shall be like refuse in the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned back, his hand is still outstretched. (Isaiah 5:25)
During the school dances, the slow ballads would arrive and wooohooo! You got to slow dance… real close. The sisters would literally come over with a 12-inch ruler, but it between you and your dance partner, gently smile, and say “Leave room for the Holy Spirit.”
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22). Yikes! What are we supposed to do with such dire warnings? Where is the unconditional love we’d much rather hear about? This sounds like it’s chock full of threats by a God that expected too much of us. I mean, come on, I haven’t murdered anyone! Sure, I have experienced anger at times and with even with people I love. But, hey, it happens. “It’s not like anyone has died!” 
I am not normally given to posting op-ed pieces from online sources. But there was an op-ed piece that caught my attention, more specifically, this:
And well do you know, my excellent brother, how, in the midst of such offenses, we must watch lest hatred of any one gain a hold upon the heart, and so not only hinder us from praying to God with the door of our chamber closed, but also shut the door against God Himself; for hatred of another insidiously creeps upon us, while no one who is angry considers his anger to be unjust. For anger habitually cherished against any one becomes hatred, since the sweetness which is mingled with what appears to be righteous anger makes us detain it longer than we ought in the vessel, until the whole is soured, and the vessel itself is spoiled. Wherefore it is much better for us to forbear from anger, even when one has given us just occasion for it, than, beginning with what seems just anger against any one, to fall, through this occult tendency of passion, into hating him. (St. Augustine’s “Letter to Profuturus” (Letter 38))
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