Sometimes Anger Is Okay

It has been fun for me to share with you some of the "Things Mama Taught Me." I have to tell you, though, that she was wrong about some things. She taught me (not so much verbally as by the way she conducted herself) that being angry is not okay. Sunday School and church and a conservative Christian college soundly reaffirmed that idea. Only in relatively recent years—say, the last decade or so—have I learned that sometimes anger is not only okay, but is clearly the appropriate human response to injustice or mistreatment. It would have been better if, instead of never to be angry, my mother had taught me how to be angry.

Mama was wrong about anger because she herself had been not correctly taught. She was the product of her parents' teaching and her religious instruction just as I am. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions render Psalm 4:4, "Be ye angry, and sin not," which apparently is how the Apostle Paul understood the verse, quoting it in his letter to the Ephesians. (4:26) Then why did Paul instruct the believers in verse 31 of the same chapter to "put away anger"? Looking at the Greek words—I don't read Greek, but I have a good concordance—I can see that the two words translated "anger" mean something different. The first, used in verse 26, is becoming provoked or exasperated. The second is much stronger: violent passion, implying punishment; vengeance; wrath. Modern versions express the dissimilarity well:

"Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. . . Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk." (MSG)

"And don’t sin by letting anger control you . . . Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior." (NLT)

There is an anger that usually produces sin: when it is without reason, when it is quickly stirred, when it exceeds appropriate bounds, when it produces bad effects in words or actions, or when it continues unreasonably long--not to mention a "sin" I may not so quickly recognize, that is, the wrong against myself if I carry repressed fury in my heart. All kinds of physical ailments can be triggered or exacerbated when anger becomes the controlling emotion.

That last sentence holds an important key. Anger is an emotion. It is possible to feel it and then decide to let go of it. We may be justifiably angry, we may "deserve" to feel angry, and we may just want to stay angry! But at some point, for our own spiritual, emotional, and physical health, we must learn to let go. During an angry time of my own, a wise friend reminded me that "Resentment [anger] is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." (Malachy McCourt, Irish-American author and actor) We may have every right to be angry, but that doesn't give us the right to be cruel to others or to injure ourselves.

MaryMartha
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Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message. Copyright © 2003 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture quotation marked NLT is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com