Got A Whole Lot Of Reasons To Be Mad

One of our favorite family bands is called the Avett Brothers. They’re a pretty famous band at this point (especially in indie/folk circles) and have a song called “Ain’t No Man.” In the latter part of the song, Scott Avett sings

You got to go somewhere, ain’t that true? Not a whole lot of time for me or you. Got a whole lot of reasons to be mad. Let’s not pick one

I don’t know about you these days, but I can relate to the part that we “got a whole lot of reasons to be mad…let’s not pick one!”

Thankfully, today’s readings focus on feelings – and especially anger!

In the first reading from Ezekiel 18, God is speaking to the people through the prophet. God says that if someone who does evil turns their life around, the evil gets forgotten. But if a virtuous person turns to evil ways, none of the virtue will be remembered. As if anticipating our response God says,  “You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” but goes on to ask, “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”

I always find it helpful with a reading like this one to see what comes before and after it for context. In this case, what comes before is describing a scenario where a person lives a virtuous life (obeys all the commandments), has a child who lives a sinful life (breaks all the commandments) and their child then lives a virtuous life. The passage is essentially asking if there is any accumulated virtue or sin from the parents. And Ezekiel 18 says, “Nope…everybody is responsible for their own behavior.” And then we hear the reading from today. 

What we hear right after our selection for the day is that each person will be judged according to their own actions (and not those of anyone else – current or past). Then God says that we should, thus, repent and renew our hearts and spirits so that our offenses are not our downfall.

No matter how we feel about it, God is saying that actions have consequences, and that the person doing the action is the one who bears the spiritual consequences of those actions. We don’t get to “store up” credit by doing a bunch of good stuff which then lets us get away with some bad stuff.

Everything matters, and what matters most to God are those who repent (turn their lives and hearts around) and keep returning to God.

It is a continual process, and if it bothers us that God is so generous and forgiving, well, I guess we just have to get used to it!

Which brings us to the gospel from Matthew 5. In this and subsequent passages, Jesus is saying his famous, “You have heard it said…but I say…” statements. In these he challenges conventional wisdom and offers a new paradigm for his hearers.

In today’s reading he says, “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with [another] will be liable to judgment.”

What I see happening in this passage is two-fold: (1) A teacher like Jesus knows that a lot of people are not going to have committed the sin of murder and, thus, would feel justified in their anger and hatred and (2) A teacher like Jesus knows that something like anger is a toxin that can lead to so many other harmful things (like murder) so he seeks to address it.

Is he saying we are not allowed to get angry? Of course not.

What he is pointing to, however, is what happens when anger (and its emotional residue) remains in our heart and is not released. 

We see this at the individual level and at the collective level.

I know that I have appreciated the work of Buddhist teacher Lama Rod Owens in his book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger. Lama Rod describes having a very complicated relationship with anger – especially being Black-bodied person in the United States – where his anger was a constant reality for him. I often think of James Baldwin’s famous quote back in 1961 that being a conscious Black person in America leaves one in a “constant state of rage.”

People from other marginalized groups may feel something similar.

Lama Rod said that he had to learn a path between anger suppression (which led to physical/health issues and depression), anger avoidance (to not make others uncomfortable or afraid) and overt anger expression (which sometimes led to harm in his relationships).

A lot of us probably grew up with complicated relationships to anger. We may have grown up in a context where it was suppressed or avoided. Or we may have grown up in a context where anger was explosive and destructive. But as the passage from Ezekiel reminds us, no matter what came before us we are responsible for our own relationship to anger.

I would imagine that Jesus would agree with Lama Rod when he says that he needed to learn to identify and name the anger he felt because, “if I don’t see it, if I don’t notice it, then I start reacting to it subconsciously, and that’s where harming begins for myself and for others…”

Lama Rod is clear, he gets angry with injustice. He gets angry with mistreatment. And sometimes he says that “even if it’s not legitimate” and coming from an ego fixation he still wants to give his anger space because it is pointing to something (often a deeper hurt or sadness).

I suspect that Jesus knew this too.

After his teaching on anger, Jesus tells his disciples that “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” But the Kin-dom of Heaven is not some far and distant place. It is right now, and Jesus was trying to teach his followers to live freely in the present.

He saw the Scribes and Pharisees carrying many forms of destructive anger – anger that they could not own. Anger that they projected out. Anger that kept them rigid and fixated on small details. Anger that would eventually turn to hatred. And he saw that they were not free.

The righteousness (not “rightness”) he wanted for his disciples was a freedom that let them move through this world in a way that (as Lama Rod says), “Instead of suffering consuming me. I wanted to consume the suffering.”

This is a liberatory practice indeed.

Paying attention to our anger is an important step in our spiritual lives. Learning what to do with it is just as important.

Oh, and the final verse of the Avett Brothers’ song “Ain’t No Man,” goes like this:

I live in a room at the top of the stairs
Got my windows wide open and nobody cares
And I got no choice but to get right up
When the sun comes through

May we be free enough to do the same – not getting stuck in our emotions – but able to “get right up when the sun comes through.”