The Blessing of Anger
by Rev. Scott Clark
San Francisco Theological Seminary Chaplain and Associate Dean of Student Life
Mark 3:1-10
On Ash Wednesday, I wrote about a Franciscan benediction that begins, “May God bless us with discomfort.” The benediction’s second blessing goes like this: “May God bless us with anger.”
“May God bless us with anger
at injustice, oppression, and the exploitation of peoples,
so that we might work for
justice, freedom, and peace.”
I’ve never been very comfortable with anger – the anger of others, my own, or God’s. With regard to human anger, I have often experienced the anger of others and my own anger as something that harms and hurts. With regard to the anger of God . . . well, quite candidly, to this day I am not able to get my mind and heart around the many references throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, and some in the New Testament, to what is translated as the anger or wrath of God. (And I can’t and won’t try to tackle the whole of that in this devotion.)
But in today’s Scripture, Jesus is angry. They are in the worship place, and there is a man with a maimed hand in need of healing. Jesus asks them, “What is lawful on the Sabbath – to do good, or to do evil; to save life or to kill?” And “they remain silent” – “they” being the religious leaders, or maybe everyone in the room. They remain silent. No healing today. And the text tells us that “Jesus looked at them in anger, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts.” Jesus is angry at harm and hurt and at hardened hearts. And out of that anger, Jesus heals the man.
In this text, anger is God’s firm and insistent stance against all that would do us harm. In this text, anger is God’s firm and insistent stance at all the ways that we harm and hurt each other. It is anger at harm and hurt – it is anger at injustice, oppression, and the exploitation of peoples. This anger does not lash out in harm or hurt. No, this anger stands against all harm and hurt and then flows forth in healing – it flows forth in life-risking work for justice – it flows forth in compassion and the enlivening of stubborn, hardened hearts.
May God bless us with this kind of anger. And may the blessing of anger lead us to change our ways so that we will then help heal the hurt and harm in the world.
