I’m as mad as hell. Should I feel guilty about it?

Not all anger is the same:

Anger can be a vague, generalized feeling

• It can be occasioned by a specific set of circumstances
• It can arise out of the disparity between what we want and what is
• (And what we want can be a healthy, good thing to want…and it might not be)
• It can arise out of the disparity between what is and what should be
• (And we can be wrong or right about what should be)

We typically mishandle anger

• By acting out of it unreflectively
• Or by repressing it

And for that reason we have a lot of alternative vocabulary for anger

• And we tend to talk about some people as having a temper which (while no doubt true)
• Obscures the fact that we all get angry

The reason we mishandle anger lies with:

• Our general discomfort with emotion
• Negative associations with angry behavior
• And negative associations with conflict

The cleansing of the Temple is an excellent passage to study in this connection

• Because it shows Jesus having an emotion that we do not associate with God
• And it points to a fundamental truth:

Anger is not only appropriate at times, it can be a good and necessary thing

Anger can signal…

• Clarity
• Resolve
• The need to act

The question, of course, is what helps us to measure the appropriateness of our anger

• The answer lies in noting the difference in our motives
• In noting the difference between self-serving and other-serving anger
• The difference between ego, pique and something larger

That’s where the cleansing of the Temple fits in…

• Jesus embodies the appropriate manifestation of anger
• Rooted in the things of God

There is a message in anger like that

• Don’t be afraid of it
• Listen to it