Pastor's
Weekly Sermon
Meditation “The Red-Eyed Monster”
This is the season of monsters. They’re all around us at Halloween time: mummies, vampires, and things that go bump in the night. If we like movie monsters, there are a lot to choose from: King Kong, Godzilla, Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster. Sometimes we laugh at them, like the creatures in “Men in Black;” and sometimes they scare the pants off us, like the alien horror in the movie “Alien.” But we can’t get away from them, especially during this season of the year. Now, monsters are nothing new. Throughout history, people have imagined monsters as the cause of things that frightened them. The sea, for example, in ancient Israelite lore, was the home of the chaos monster named Leviathan, which no human being could control. Later on, Leviathan was joined by leathery-winged dragons, fearsome giants, and the Kraken, a giant sea serpent that could drag whole ships down to the ocean bottom. Eventually, people realized that monsters could be part of their character; and they imagined human vices as monsters. In the play Othello, Shakespeare called jealousy the green-eyed monster, an emotion that can lead to dreadful behavior. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy,” the character Iago says. “It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” In Shakespeare’s play, jealousy is the downfall of the hero Othello, who kills first his wife and then himself because he has been duped into believing that his wife has been unfaithful to him.
As powerful as jealousy is, though, there is another emotion that is more powerful still: the red-eyed monster of anger. If anger were visualized as a monster, it might have red eyes that glow with passion, powerful claws to grip its victim, and leathery wings to fly from one person to another. Anger seems to have our whole country in the grip of its claws today. Which of us isn’t angry about something right now? There are certainly lots of things to be angry about! You might be angry at the people who refuse to wear a mask and put others at risk for the COVID virus; or you might be angry at the people who insist that you wear a mask, threatening what they see as your civil rights. You might be angry at the actions of our government; or you might be angry at the people who are protesting against the government. The Democrats are angry at the Republicans, the Republicans are angry at the Democrats and we’re all angry at the COVID virus that has completely disrupted our lives.
As odd as it may sound for me to say it, there is nothing wrong with anger in itself. We all get angry at situations that we think are unfair. Job got hopping mad when he lost everything he had; and we get mad, too, when we look around and say to ourselves, “This isn’t right! Things shouldn’t be this way!” The trouble is that when anger takes over, we lose control of ourselves. The very first instance of anger in the Bible took place not long after Adam and Eve had been expelled from the Garden of Eden. You heard that story just a few minutes ago. Cain was angry because he thought that God was being unfair to him. Did you notice that God never told him that his anger was wrong? God told him to watch out, because if his anger took over, things would go from bad to worse. “If you do not do what is right,” God warned Cain, “sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must master it.” We know the end of the story. Cain’s anger did indeed get the better of him, and he murdered his brother Abel in cold blood.
I’m going to get scientific for just a minute. The emotion of anger causes what scientists call a “fight or flight” response. It makes us want to run away, to escape what makes us angry; or we want to take action. Running away works if you are being threatened by a bear. These days, though, renegade bears don’t usually make us angry. We can’t escape the things that make us angry today; so we turn to violence: violent thoughts, violent words, and sometimes even violent actions. 19th century American politician Robert Green Ingersoll said that “Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.” Anger makes us do things that we would never, ever do under normal circumstances! But we’re angry, right? We HAVE to do SOMETHING! And therein lies the problem. What do we do with the anger that all of us feel? I’m going to suggest a three-fold approach to anger: recognize it; name it; and use it as power for change.
We need to begin by recognizing our anger; and that isn’t as easy as it sounds. Lots of people don’t even realize that they are angry! “Oh, no,” they say, “I’m not mad. Everything is fine!” Of course, everything isn’t fine at all. When we push our anger under the surface, it doesn’t go away at all. In fact, it can burst out as physical conditions: depression, high blood pressure, or digestive problems. Suppressed anger can even lead to a heart attack or a stroke. So let’s be honest about it. We’re all angry about something – every single one of us.
That leads to the next question: “What are we angry about?” After we’ve recognized our anger, we need to name it. There are all kinds of things to be angry about these days; and I’m just going to mention some of them. The biggies, of course, are the COVID virus and the political situation. I’ve already mentioned those; they’re old news these days. But other problems that you consider to be smaller may actually be causing you more anger than these big issues! Do you have a neighbor whose cat insists on digging in your petunias? Do you have a co-worker who isn’t pulling his share of the load? And how is your family doing? Do you have a relative who is a real jerk? Maybe you’re angry about issues that arise over the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas cause more anger in our society than any other time of the year! Relatives you don’t especially like insist on visiting; visitors cause more work for their host than they probably should; and disagreements over politics and religion get out of hand. Anger? We practically swim in it during the holidays! It’s OK to be angry! I’ll say it again: we get angry when we feel that a situation is unfair. So, now that we’ve recognized it and we’ve named it, what do we do about it?
We have all kinds of healthy options for dealing with that red-eyed monster. Some people cope with their anger by exercising. I’m a great one for walking – just walking. Walking on the bike path can get rid of some of the physical tension that is part and parcel of anger. Other people concentrate on a hobby. Focusing on something else can help to defuse the anger. It even helps just to talk about it! Find a good friend who won’t judge you, and spill your feelings. Talk about that anger! Just talking about it will help to lessen some of its effects.
But there is something else that we can do, something that is very biblical. We can do what Jesus did when he was angry. He did what he could to change the situation. A man with leprosy once came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus answered, “I am willing! Be clean!” and he cured the man of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:2-3) Now, none of us are Jesus; and we can’t do all the things that Jesus could do. There are some situations that we just can’t fix. But there are others that we can help to change. Many doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and therapists have chosen medical careers because of a desire to help people. They were angry that people died needlessly, and they did what they could in response.
Jesus did something else, too. He named the people who were responsible for the situation. In Matthew 23:13-32, Jesus condemned the Jewish religious leaders for their emphasis on rituals that actually kept people away from the God they were trying to worship! “Woe to you,” Jesus proclaimed over and over and over again, saying, in effect, “This isn’t right! It needs to change!” We can do that, too. We can call out people whose behavior oppresses others. We probably won’t choose to do it on a soapbox in the middle of the square, but we can do it on Facebook, through letters to the editor, by contacting our local, state, and national representatives, and in the voting booth. Speaking out is a great way to deal with anger. Near the end of the musical “Ragtime,” the character Coalhouse, who is full of anger at the injustices that he has suffered, sings about the effect that speaking out can have. “Proclaim it from your pulpit,” he says, “in your classroom, with your pen. Teach every child to raise his voice; and then, my brothers, then will justice be demanded by ten million righteous men!” Words are powerful; and when we are angry at injustice, they have to potential to change the world.
Anger doesn’t go away by itself. Besides, as soon as we get rid of one reason to be angry, another will pop up in its place. There are as many reasons to be angry as there are mushrooms in a spring forest! But when we recognize our anger, name it, and take action to change the situation, our anger can be a force for good. When the red-eyed monster threatens to overwhelm us, let’s do what Jesus did – speak out and take action. We never know what might happen when we do. We might even help to make the world a better place.
This is the season of monsters. They’re all around us at Halloween time: mummies, vampires, and things that go bump in the night. If we like movie monsters, there are a lot to choose from: King Kong, Godzilla, Dracula, and Frankenstein’s monster. Sometimes we laugh at them, like the creatures in “Men in Black;” and sometimes they scare the pants off us, like the alien horror in the movie “Alien.” But we can’t get away from them, especially during this season of the year. Now, monsters are nothing new. Throughout history, people have imagined monsters as the cause of things that frightened them. The sea, for example, in ancient Israelite lore, was the home of the chaos monster named Leviathan, which no human being could control. Later on, Leviathan was joined by leathery-winged dragons, fearsome giants, and the Kraken, a giant sea serpent that could drag whole ships down to the ocean bottom. Eventually, people realized that monsters could be part of their character; and they imagined human vices as monsters. In the play Othello, Shakespeare called jealousy the green-eyed monster, an emotion that can lead to dreadful behavior. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy,” the character Iago says. “It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” In Shakespeare’s play, jealousy is the downfall of the hero Othello, who kills first his wife and then himself because he has been duped into believing that his wife has been unfaithful to him.
As powerful as jealousy is, though, there is another emotion that is more powerful still: the red-eyed monster of anger. If anger were visualized as a monster, it might have red eyes that glow with passion, powerful claws to grip its victim, and leathery wings to fly from one person to another. Anger seems to have our whole country in the grip of its claws today. Which of us isn’t angry about something right now? There are certainly lots of things to be angry about! You might be angry at the people who refuse to wear a mask and put others at risk for the COVID virus; or you might be angry at the people who insist that you wear a mask, threatening what they see as your civil rights. You might be angry at the actions of our government; or you might be angry at the people who are protesting against the government. The Democrats are angry at the Republicans, the Republicans are angry at the Democrats and we’re all angry at the COVID virus that has completely disrupted our lives.
As odd as it may sound for me to say it, there is nothing wrong with anger in itself. We all get angry at situations that we think are unfair. Job got hopping mad when he lost everything he had; and we get mad, too, when we look around and say to ourselves, “This isn’t right! Things shouldn’t be this way!” The trouble is that when anger takes over, we lose control of ourselves. The very first instance of anger in the Bible took place not long after Adam and Eve had been expelled from the Garden of Eden. You heard that story just a few minutes ago. Cain was angry because he thought that God was being unfair to him. Did you notice that God never told him that his anger was wrong? God told him to watch out, because if his anger took over, things would go from bad to worse. “If you do not do what is right,” God warned Cain, “sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you, but you must master it.” We know the end of the story. Cain’s anger did indeed get the better of him, and he murdered his brother Abel in cold blood.
I’m going to get scientific for just a minute. The emotion of anger causes what scientists call a “fight or flight” response. It makes us want to run away, to escape what makes us angry; or we want to take action. Running away works if you are being threatened by a bear. These days, though, renegade bears don’t usually make us angry. We can’t escape the things that make us angry today; so we turn to violence: violent thoughts, violent words, and sometimes even violent actions. 19th century American politician Robert Green Ingersoll said that “Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.” Anger makes us do things that we would never, ever do under normal circumstances! But we’re angry, right? We HAVE to do SOMETHING! And therein lies the problem. What do we do with the anger that all of us feel? I’m going to suggest a three-fold approach to anger: recognize it; name it; and use it as power for change.
We need to begin by recognizing our anger; and that isn’t as easy as it sounds. Lots of people don’t even realize that they are angry! “Oh, no,” they say, “I’m not mad. Everything is fine!” Of course, everything isn’t fine at all. When we push our anger under the surface, it doesn’t go away at all. In fact, it can burst out as physical conditions: depression, high blood pressure, or digestive problems. Suppressed anger can even lead to a heart attack or a stroke. So let’s be honest about it. We’re all angry about something – every single one of us.
That leads to the next question: “What are we angry about?” After we’ve recognized our anger, we need to name it. There are all kinds of things to be angry about these days; and I’m just going to mention some of them. The biggies, of course, are the COVID virus and the political situation. I’ve already mentioned those; they’re old news these days. But other problems that you consider to be smaller may actually be causing you more anger than these big issues! Do you have a neighbor whose cat insists on digging in your petunias? Do you have a co-worker who isn’t pulling his share of the load? And how is your family doing? Do you have a relative who is a real jerk? Maybe you’re angry about issues that arise over the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas cause more anger in our society than any other time of the year! Relatives you don’t especially like insist on visiting; visitors cause more work for their host than they probably should; and disagreements over politics and religion get out of hand. Anger? We practically swim in it during the holidays! It’s OK to be angry! I’ll say it again: we get angry when we feel that a situation is unfair. So, now that we’ve recognized it and we’ve named it, what do we do about it?
We have all kinds of healthy options for dealing with that red-eyed monster. Some people cope with their anger by exercising. I’m a great one for walking – just walking. Walking on the bike path can get rid of some of the physical tension that is part and parcel of anger. Other people concentrate on a hobby. Focusing on something else can help to defuse the anger. It even helps just to talk about it! Find a good friend who won’t judge you, and spill your feelings. Talk about that anger! Just talking about it will help to lessen some of its effects.
But there is something else that we can do, something that is very biblical. We can do what Jesus did when he was angry. He did what he could to change the situation. A man with leprosy once came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus answered, “I am willing! Be clean!” and he cured the man of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:2-3) Now, none of us are Jesus; and we can’t do all the things that Jesus could do. There are some situations that we just can’t fix. But there are others that we can help to change. Many doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and therapists have chosen medical careers because of a desire to help people. They were angry that people died needlessly, and they did what they could in response.
Jesus did something else, too. He named the people who were responsible for the situation. In Matthew 23:13-32, Jesus condemned the Jewish religious leaders for their emphasis on rituals that actually kept people away from the God they were trying to worship! “Woe to you,” Jesus proclaimed over and over and over again, saying, in effect, “This isn’t right! It needs to change!” We can do that, too. We can call out people whose behavior oppresses others. We probably won’t choose to do it on a soapbox in the middle of the square, but we can do it on Facebook, through letters to the editor, by contacting our local, state, and national representatives, and in the voting booth. Speaking out is a great way to deal with anger. Near the end of the musical “Ragtime,” the character Coalhouse, who is full of anger at the injustices that he has suffered, sings about the effect that speaking out can have. “Proclaim it from your pulpit,” he says, “in your classroom, with your pen. Teach every child to raise his voice; and then, my brothers, then will justice be demanded by ten million righteous men!” Words are powerful; and when we are angry at injustice, they have to potential to change the world.
Anger doesn’t go away by itself. Besides, as soon as we get rid of one reason to be angry, another will pop up in its place. There are as many reasons to be angry as there are mushrooms in a spring forest! But when we recognize our anger, name it, and take action to change the situation, our anger can be a force for good. When the red-eyed monster threatens to overwhelm us, let’s do what Jesus did – speak out and take action. We never know what might happen when we do. We might even help to make the world a better place.
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