We start our sermon series based on clips from the West Wing today by looking at the theme of revenge. President Bartlet is angry; his doctor has been shot down in the Middle East together with some other American service personnel. Bartlet takes this as an affront to both America and to him personally. Not only is he angry, but he has the ability to wreak dreadful, terrible revenge. He has more power than any other person on earth. He is expected to retaliate; if he doesn't he is seen as weak and will find that public opinion turns against him. Yet at the same time we know that Bartlet is a committed Roman Catholic Christian. He knows what the Bible teaches about revenge and would have known today's Scripture passage well. It's hard for him.
Our Own Desire for Revenge
Many of us have been hurt too by people we love and also hurt by people we don't know. Hopefully we haven't had to endure the pain of a friend being murdered, but we know the pains of betrayal and hurt. We can think of the endings of relationships where we have been betrayed, rejection from family and friends when they found out who we really are or what we really think. We remember the bitterness of being discriminated against, shouted at in the street or laughed at - not always behind our backs. Many of us know the pain of being betrayed by the Church - the one institution which is based on unconditional love so often tells us we are not wanted. Last week at Pride person after person came and chatted to me and told me of their experiences of pain and betrayal from other churches; one lesbian couple have stopped attending their Anglican church because they were told that they needed to be healed or have demons thrown out of them; others had got out of the church before they were thrown out.
And then some of us have been hurt in other, deeper, more insidious ways. We may have come from dysfunctional or abusive families or relationships. We may have experienced abuse in any of its many varied ways.
Of course this pain, betrayal, humiliation and abuse affects us in many different ways. The common theme is that we get angry; we can get angry with the person, people or institution that has hurt us. We can get angry with ourselves for allowing ourselves to become vulnerable. We can be angry with that partner or family member who rejected us. We can be angry at those who hurt us or those who failed to stop the hurt happening.
Bartlet in our clip is angry at the injustice of his doctor, a new father, being shot down with other Americans. He is angry at the senselessness of terrorism and is angry at his own impotence in being unable to stop this happening.
Our own anger and pain can lead us to want revenge. Sometimes I think this is better than when our anger is turned in on ourselves and results in depression and disillusion. When we turn the anger in on ourselves we end up battling with feelings of depression and self-loathing and this is never healthy. The problem is that when we let the anger loose we can end up wanting, dreaming and plotting revenge! Which, as they say in that other great American export, Star Trek, is a dish best served cold!
So how do we manage to steer between the two problems of turning anger in on itself and giving in to the desire for revenge. How do we manage to live the type of life that Paul urges us to pursue in our reading?
Healthy Anger
For me it is about recognising that anger is not wrong. Many of us grow up feeling very guilty about expressing anger. We are taught that anger is wrong - it is either not Christian or not British!
I am always interested to talk church politics with my German colleagues; they get so heated and so emotional that it is quite alarming. Yet they are not threatening schism or mayhem, they are just venting their anger. For Germans this is natural and healthy; for the British it is rather alarming. We just don't do things like that! Many of us were taught that anger is wrong, and we just know we can't express anger at those close to us. Many families thrive on making sure that their weaker more vulnerable members stay weak and vulnerable by suppressing their anger. It is as if they know that if we let our anger out then everything will forever change. Yet we learn, from quite a young age, to keep the anger under control, to suppress it and hope that the feelings pass.
Of course they don't. And so many in our community lose themselves in drink, drugs or inappropriate sexual encounters to deal with their feelings of low self worth which come from suppression.
So for me the first thing in how we live without the desire for revenge is to develop a healthy attitude to anger. We need to realise that anger is not wrong; it's a natural healthy emotion. Scripture no where says that anger is wrong - just that we should not let the "sun go down on our anger". If you have ever tried to go to sleep when angry you will realise why!
It's what we do with our anger that is the key thing. Bartlet's anger has run away with him and he wishes to remove some terrorists from the earth in a disproportionate revenge attack that the chiefs of the military need to talk him out of. We can let our anger run amok - either within us or outside us in revenge - or we can learn to express anger in a healthy way.
This may mean expressing anger at the person who has made us angry - and be ready to listen to a response. It means being in touch with our emotions and not burying our feelings where they can do more harm. It means realising that anger is a great energy of change.
The second thing is to take the anger to God. The psalms are full of prayers of people who are angry. There is much we can and should be angry about - injustice, oppression, the way our country treats asylum seekers, prejudice, war, hunger and so much else. Just as we take these situations and emotions to God so we can take our own feelings of anger and our own desires for revenge to God.
This starts a healing journey. We don't just ask God to take these feelings away, but to help us grow and develop through them, to be given the strength to change ourselves and our world into the Kingdom of God where every tear, even tears of anger, are wiped away.
Will you pray with me?
Loving God,
We thank you for the complexity of our emotions
We
thank you for the anger we have at injustice,
For how our anger can help us
change your world.
Help us to always be able to express our feelings to
you,
Help us not to suppress our feelings, but to let them go into your
embrace.
Help us to use our anger in positive ways,
Not for revenge, but
for change.
This we pray in the name of the one who angrily
Evicted the
money changers from the Temple,
Your Son, our Saviour,
Jesus
Christ.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.