| "Holy anger. Many people claim it. But few really have it. Anger over evil, injustice, falsehood, abuse, neglect, warmongering, fear-mongering, racism, classism-anger fills the air the world around, but little of it is genuinely holy. Why, during just the first two weeks of February, in so-called defense of the sacred temples of Angkor, Cambodians rioted against Thais. In so-called defense of the dignity of Islam, Muslim pilgrims to Mecca castigated America. And in so-called defense of "goodness" against "an axis of evil," our own government is continuing to urge, "Bomb, bomb Iraq." Holy anger. Many claim it. But ever so few genuinely have it. Naaman, for example, did not. But Jesus did. Naaman, as depicted in our Old Testament lesson, was a strong, proud, accomplished warrior, the ranking general of his nation's armed forces, an honored and well-rewarded member of Syria's ruling elite, a man accustomed to adulation from commoners and to the riveted attention of all he encountered. But now he was loathe to leave the confines of his home and to endure people's stares, stares filled with fear and condemnation. You see, he had leprosy, and his repulsive skin disease had made him one who was unclean, one who was defiled and defiling, one who was to be shunned. How low the mighty Naaman had fallen! And he was now filled with self-pity, and with anger at the injustice of people's rejection of him, an anger he must have believed to be holy. Everyone in Naaman's household knew about his shameful disease. Yet it was one of the lowliest of his servants-a recently arrived Israelite serving girl, a trophy of war, a foreign slave-it was she who intervened sympathetically to help him. Out of pity, she whispered to her mistress, Naaman's wife, that there was in Israel a prophet who possessed healing powers. If only the master would go to him, then he could be healed and restored to his position of prominence. This serving girl's message of hope was passed on to Naaman and, with the blessing of the Syrian king, he set out for Israel. After some delay and confusion in the court of the Israelite king, Naaman at last arrived at the humble house of the prophet Elisha-Naaman together with his entourage of horses and chariots and an enormous treasure to offer in exchange for healing: silver and gold, and many luxurious garments. But when Naaman arrived, the prophet Elisha didn't even come out of his house to greet this mighty commander in person. Instead, he simply sent out a servant to convey to Naaman this message: "Go a day's journey down to the River Jordan, and there bathe seven times. Your flesh will be restored, and you will once again become clean and undefiled." Well, Naaman responded to this message by stomping off in rage. Now, he must have considered this anger of his to be a righteous indignation. For had not even this healer, by refusing to come outside his house, continued people's unjust practice of shunning him? Had not even this prophet, this supposedly holy man, refused unjustly to encounter him directly, to behold his afflicted face, to touch his diseased skin? But Naaman's anger was, you see, taking control of him and leading him to lash out at the very person who was trying to help him. Yet once again, it was quite marginal characters who intervened sympathetically to rescue the self-pitying Naaman and to point him toward wholeness. Servants suggested to Naaman that he might as well try the simple river-remedy prescribed by the prophet since there was nothing at all to be lost by doing so. By suggesting this, the servants were in effect advising Naaman that he should stop letting his anger take possession of him, that he should take control of his anger. You see, out-of-control anger, anger that controls us rather than being controlled by us-such anger can never be holy anger. Still, Naaman the commander actually did heed his servants. Naaman did overcome his anger, which had risen more out of self-pity than out of righteous indignation, and he went to the Jordan River, where he immersed himself seven times. Thereupon he was healed. He was restored to wholeness by the power of God. Now, a genuine injustice had been done to Naaman. In his state of illness, most of those around him had shunned and ostracized him. They had refused him both comfort and consolation and hope for renewed wholeness. But Naaman had lost control of his anger. Through self-pity, his anger had taken possession of him and had also become so overlaid with suspicion and hatred that he had mistaken Elisha's prescription for healing for yet one more display of people's contempt. So Naaman's anger was not truly holy. But Jesus's anger was. And so, we come to this morning's Second Lesson, Mark's account of Jesus and the leper. Now, you may have wondered earlier why I read a translation of this lesson different from the one in your pew Bibles. Well, here I need to digress just a bit to explain something technical but important. You see, the ancient manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark that lie behind all of our modern translations testify to the existence in early Christianity of two different versions of this story, two different understandings of what emotion it was that was being felt and displayed by Jesus in this episode. According to one set of ancient manuscripts (the set followed by the translation in your pew Bibles), when the leper approached Jesus and knelt before him begging for healing, Jesus was moved with pity and for that reason chose to touch him and proclaim him clean. But the translation that I read follows the quite different reading found in a second set of ancient manuscripts of Mark. According to this set, when the leper approached Jesus and knelt before him begging for healing, Jesus was moved by anger and for that reason chose to touch him and proclaim him clean. Well, which set of manuscripts reflects Mark's original intent? Was Mark depicting a sympathetic, empathetic, compassionate Jesus moved by the leper's suffering to heal him? Or was Mark depicting an angry Jesus moved to touch and heal the man by rage? And if the latter, what was it anyway that was making Jesus so very angry? As you know, we modern Christians are much more accustomed to speaking of a compassionate Christ than we are of an angry Christ. Perhaps that's because we're more comfortable with acts of charity and loving kindness than we are with acts of prophecy and social criticism. Well, ancient Christians were also more accustomed to speaking of a compassionate Christ than of an angry Christ, which makes it much more likely that some scribe copying a manuscript of Mark took it upon himself to replace the word depicting Jesus's anger with a "better" word, a word depicting Jesus's compassion-it's that that's more likely than the other way around. In other words, it is harder to imagine that a copyist made Jesus "angry" where he wasn't already than it is to imagine that a copyist made Jesus "compassionate" where he wasn't already. So by one of the ordinary criteria used by biblical scholars to establish which of two variant readings is the more likely, Jesus's "anger" proves to be "the more difficult reading" in this passage and therefore the one more likely to be original to Mark. So in this episode Jesus was hopping mad, incensed. But why, and at what? Many scholarly articles have been written on this, but let's cut to the chase. Jesus was outraged at the priestly system of purity, a system that had claimed this man as a victim by branding him "unclean." First, according to this system anyone who had a skin disease was unclean contagiously and therefore had to be physically marginalized-that is, bodily removed from the community. For through touch, that person's uncleanness would certainly be passed along and spread to everyone contacted. And second, according to this system, only a priest had the authority to pronounce a leper cured and clean, a process that required the offering of costly sacrifices-a system that invited exploitation. So, in this morning's passage, Jesus was angry, angry at the evilness of this system. and his intent was to break through the many barriers society had erected around lepers. First, Jesus went beyond that which even the prophet Elisha had done. He healed this leper by touching him directly. By doing so, Jesus sought to make clear to all that this man was not really impure, that he could be touched without fear of contagion, that he ought not to have been cast out. And second, Jesus took it upon himself to proclaim this man clean. He deliberately usurped the traditional authority of the priests. Jesus's touching the man and proclaiming him clean was a bold act of holy anger aimed directly against the purity apparatus controlled by the priests. I have called Jesus's anger at this system "holy" anger, and I've done that for several reasons. I invite you now to listen closely, for the following are, I believe, the principal attributes that set "holy" anger quite apart from "ordinary" anger. First, Jesus's anger was not in control of him; he was in control of it. His anger was fueled by emotion, but not controlled by it. And his anger could therefore be holy. Second, Jesus's anger was aimed not at protecting his own self- interest but rather at overcoming injustice, at putting an end to unnecessary suffering, at re-forming the circumstances of human existence, conforming them ever closer to God's will. And his anger was therefore holy. Third, Jesus's anger, Jesus's righteous indignation at the system, did not embrace and advocate violence or hatred toward persons. His anger respected the preciousness of all of God's children. And it was therefore holy. Fourth, Jesus's anger aimed not at punishing or destroying his human enemies, but at bringing good out of evil by means of actions rooted in agonized love-most notably his own unresisting death on the cross. Therefore Jesus's anger was holy Yes, Jesus showed us by his own example the nature of a truly "holy" anger, and he showed us those things that distinguish holy anger from every false pretender. The Princeton philosopher and theologian Cornel West maintains that great leadership is marked by what he calls "authentic" anger, which is, I believe, what I have been calling "holy" anger. West goes on to say (as quoted on the cover of your bulletin): "… what stood out most strikingly about Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer was that they were almost always visibly upset about the condition of black America.… [A]nd this anger fueled their boldness and defiance." Now, the kind of anger about which West is here speaking and which people like Jesus and Martin and Fannie manifested in their lives-that kind of anger is a healthy anger, what I have called a "holy" anger, a justified indignation, an altogether appropriate response to injustice, an anger rooted not in vengeance but in love, an anger impelling society to necessary changes without recourse to violence, or vengeance, or hatred. In summary, holy anger is fueled by emotion but not controlled by it. Holy anger seeks to overcome injustice and put an end to unnecessary suffering. Holy anger respects the preciousness of all God's children and is not overlaid by violence or hatred. And holy anger aims not at punishing or destroying enemies but, through actions rooted in agonized love, at bringing good out of evil. It is this kind of anger-holy anger, Jesus's anger-and no false pretenders to it such as those angers we see all too frequently-yes, it is genuinely holy anger that we as followers of Christ are called to express. Let us pray: Amen |
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