Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. August 29, 2021. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges

 

James 1:17-27

Sometimes I wrestle with Scripture. Like when I come upon places in the Bible where it says, “Do not fear” or  “Do not worry” and I think, “Yeah, if it was only that easy.” Just saying it doesn’t make it so. You can tell me all day long not to be afraid or not to worry, but given certain circumstances - a health crisis, a crumbling relationship, a global pandemic, things like that - I am very capable of feeling fear or waking up at night with worry. Simply telling me not to fear or not to worry is about as effective as telling me to turn purple and grow a tail. It’s just not going to happen.

 Take our reading today from the book of James. If you’ve ever heard the saying, “faith without works is dead,” you can thank James for that. This book is all about putting your faith into action, as we heard in the exhortation, “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers.” All well and good. And something I imagine we can all get on board with. But when we get down to the nitty gritty, like the part where we are specifically instructed to, “be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” That may prove more of a challenge. Now it’s one thing to be told to be quick to listen. I imagine a lot of us could do better on that front. It’s fine to tell me to be slow to speak. I certainly have some room to grow in that area. But even though I’m not a particularly angry person, I tend to bristle when scripture tells me how I am supposed to feel. This is where the wrestling comes in. The Bible doesn’t get to decide how I feel. I don’t even always get to decide how I feel. How I feel is how I feel. That’s what feelings are, right?

 And when it comes to feeling anger we all have our stories which are often shaped by our childhood experiences. Maybe yours was the family that expressed anger too much and it was continually present in your home. Or maybe your family was afraid of anger and you never learned how to express it properly. Many of us struggle with anger in one way or another, but I don’t think avoiding anger altogether is the right move. Jesus got angry, you know, so angry at one point in the Gospels that he turned over the money changers' tables. And besides, James doesn’t say you should never get anger. It says you should be slow to anger.

 So what is anger anyway? Now I’m sure there are as many definitions out there. But in my own life, anger comes up most often when what is doesn’t line up with what ought to be. When someone cuts me off in traffic instead of following the rules of the road. I can get a little angry. Because what is does not line up with what ought to be. When I kindly ask a family member multiple times to empty the dishwasher and it doesn’t get done, I vent frustration because, again, what is does not line up with what ought to be. Perhaps you can think of something that riles you up? Could it be that it’s because what is does not line up with what ought to be?

Now these are rather silly, small things. But there are other things that are much bigger. Like when people work 40+ hours a week and can’t make ends meet, let alone support a family. Or when churches exclude people, as if it were the church’s job to be God’s bouncer, people get angry. And as we take in all the news about Afghanistan, after twenty years of tremendous sacrifice and investment and still chaos and death reign for the people there, anger is an understandable response. I think things like that, where we recognize injustice, where innocent suffer, that this is supposed to make us angry. It makes us angry because what is definitely does not line up with what ought to be.

 We are told to be slow to anger because, I believe, God wants us to be angry about the right things. Being inconvenienced is not the same thing as being marginalized. One of the overall messages of the Bible is that we are to look out for one another. To do as Jesus commanded. Love God and love others. And a big part of loving others is finding the places where what is does not line up with what ought to be - and when we do find those places anger is a tool and a fuel that God can use to get us to do something about so that, to use the words of James, we can “produce God’s righteousness.”

 But how do we really know? Anger so easily becomes self-righteous rather than God righteous. The practical book of James offers us a check. Ask yourself: have you been quick to listen? Slow to speak? Has your anger come about slowly, deliberately, and upon reflection? Does your anger have a direction? Does it face outward, towards the needs of others rather than your own comfort? Does your anger cause you to act in ways of love rather than in self-defense? 

 It is this type of anger, or really energy, is the type that God can work with in order to bring about God’s will in this world - justice, peace, mercy, forgiveness, love - the kind of world where what is actually lines up with what ought to be. Practicing the discipline of being quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger is one practical way of how we can be a part of making God’s Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. But this is no easy task. Just saying it doesn’t make it so. Context is key. And the context here is love. As James says, You must understand this, my beloved. Being God’s beloved is the context for all of our lives. And the love that dwells in us through the Holy Spirit is always seeking to fill us with life and life and desiring to flow out with life and love so that others might know they are beloved as well. As we surrender to God’s love we grow in our ability to be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger - our faith becomes more and more alive. We become doers of the word and not merely hearers. And we will be blessed in our doing.