Village Shepherd

Life can be difficult for children. Children have to learn how to behave, how to become social beings who are able to live in harmony with other people. When we begin life as babies, the whole world necessarily revolves around us. A baby's needs are paramount, and adults must respond to those needs if the baby is to survive. Babies make their needs known by crying, or rather, by bawling and wailing and screaming!

As babies become toddlers, they must learn that most difficult lesson, that actually not all life revolves around them. They are not, after all, the centre of the universe. No wonder the terrible twos are full of tantrums, for toddlers are beginning to learn about social interaction.

Many children learn through various disciplinary measures, that anger must be kept in check. If the disciplinary measures have been appropriate, children learn that lesson quite quickly and become pleasant, sociable people. But sometimes, disciplinary measures may not be entirely appropriate. Some children are disciplined too harshly and some children aren't disciplined enough, and since all children are different, it can be very difficult indeed for parents to get it exactly right.

This means that some children grow up unable ever to display anger because they've been taught that anger is terribly wrong, and some children grow up continuing to throw tantrums for the rest of their life, because they've learned that tantrums continue to produce the results they want. Other children, sadly, have such a terrible childhood that they grow up as habitually angry people.

What does Christianity say about anger? Many children who grow up in Christian families, grow up believing that anger is wrong and must never be shown. They grow up believing that Christians must always be nice.

To some extent this is right. Anger is scary and powerful and can damage relationships beyond repair. And people who are "nice" are much more lovable than those who aren't "nice". But constant niceness leads to a very bland Christianity and inclines towards hypocrisy, something which Jesus abhorred, although I don't recall Jesus ever saying much about anger.

Hypocrisy is wrong because it's pretence. We pretend to be something or to feel something on the outside, which we don't actually feel on the inside. Jesus was well aware that this militates against God. It blocks the God within us from reaching us. The God within acts upon the person we are right now, not upon the person we like to think we are, or the person we'd like to be. If we're unable to acknowledge the person we really are deep inside, then it's very difficult for the God within to reach us because it's as though we build a solid wall around the real "me". The more of a mask we wear to the outside world, the more difficult it is for us to be aware of what we're really like deep down inside.

But to be real, to be genuinely the same outside as inside, requires considerable risk. We have to risk that if we show our true emotions, we won't necessarily be rejected by the whole of humanity. And we also have to risk that we won't be rejected by God when God sees what we're really like. Of course, God already knows what we're really like and doesn't reject us, but we like to kid ourselves that God hears and sees what we want God to hear and see.

Allowing yourself to show anger requires huge courage if you've been brought up to believe that anger is sinful. I don't mean the sort of explosion over which we have no control, because that just happens, but allowing an angry reaction to be seen. For many Christians, that angry reaction is just too risky because it cause us to be rejected, and therefore it's swallowed and hidden as we smile and nod and mouth agreeable words.

Another problem with that is that by denying expression to our true feelings we create a kind of internal pressure cooker, where we increase and increase and increase the pressure until eventually there's an explosion. Often more damage is done by an explosion than by taking the risk of allowing anger to be seen at an earlier stage, and so reducing the internal pressure.

In today's reading from the letter to the Ephesians, St Paul says, "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil."

When we're angry but pretend we're not, anger usually lingers on. The sun often goes down on that sort of anger. So how can we be angry but not leave room for the devil? Perhaps the answer is to allow ourselves to show anger as soon as we feel it. This doesn't necessarily mean a huge outburst, but can be a quiet response of clear disagreement. As soon we feel we've said what we need to say and have been heard, anger usually dissipates and we're able to have a reasonable conversation and sort out our differences.

But anger which is expressed as accusation or verbal abuse or a terrifying outburst, usually frightens the other person so much that it closes any possibility of a reasonable conversation and relationships break down.

We then find ourselves in the situation which St Paul addresses later in this passage when he says, "Let no evil talk come out of your mouths," and "Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you."

Anger which is expressed wrongly, or anger which is repressed and explodes later, leads to evil talk and bitterness and wrath and wrangling and slander and malice. These are not ways in which Christians should behave. But we can only be kind to one another, tenderhearted and forgiving if we have the courage to become real and express in unthreatening ways what we really feel deep inside.

And when we learn how to do that and begin to practise it regularly, then we become imitators of God, beloved children, who live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. And living like that is a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.