Anger

A Sermon by Rev. Jong-Ui Lee 

         You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’  ‘But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment’” (Matt. 5:21-22).

         Are you angry with the unplowed roads?  Are you angry with unfair treatment you have received?  Are you angry with your co-worker?  Anger is one of the frequent and strong emotions we often experience.  There are various causes that trigger our anger.  Yet, whatever causes it, it is an unpleasant and negative emotion.  The state of anger, especially if it gets out of control, leads to many physical, relational, and spiritual problems.  Though anger is mostly negative, it is often used in the Word as a common adjective that modifies the Divine actions.  The Lord often appears to be angry with the evil people or at their sins.  Do those descriptions justify our aggressive and enraged behaviors? 

         Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure and of antagonism.  It is an emotion “subjectively experienced as an aroused state of antagonism toward someone or something perceived to be the source of an aversive event” (Encyclopedia of Psychology).  Anger seems to be aroused when a person’s safety, freedom, and rights are attacked or threatened.  However, these are the external appearance of our love because we are what we love, and our love is our life.  So strictly speaking, anger is aroused when our love and the delight of our lives are attacked. 

         The Writings teach us that “Anger is the general emotion that results from anything

which gets in the way of self-love and its desires.  In the world of evil spirits this is perceived plainly…Anything that is unfavorable to self-love and the love of the world arouses opposition, which manifests itself in anger” (AC 357).  The defintion of anger that is given in the Heavenly Doctrines sounds negative, but in psychology anger is considered normal and even a healthy human emotion.

         According to psychology there are different types of anger; among these there are two good kinds.  The first form of anger, named “hasty and sudden anger” is connected to the impulse for self-preservation.  It is shared between humans and animals and occurs when tormented or trapped.  The second type of anger is named “settled and deliberate” anger-it is a reaction to perceived deliberate harm doing or unfair treatment by others (Wikepedia). 

         These two types seem to have some positive function in this strong feeling because it gives us a warning about present and potential dangers and risks.  Anger often leads us to an impulsive or aggressive state in our minds and behaviors; then it develops to some defensive and protective measures.  So when we are attacked or threatened, we come to fight for our safety and survival.  In this respect, it is a useful emotion.  In our reading this morning, the Lord prohibited us from being angry.  It is said, “…whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.”  It sounds as though it is okay to be angry when we have a legitimate reason.

         However, anger turns to be destructive and harmful when it becomes aggressive and outside of acceptable boundaries.  It impairs a person’s rational judgment, cognitive capability and self-control; thus an angry person cannot think appropriately, analyze the situation, and control his behaviors.  The Writings describe the impairment caused by anger likewise, “When those loves are attacked fire breaks out of the will into the understanding and produces a flame there.  This flame is what is called anger.  This is why a person is said to flare up, blaze up, and be inflamed, when he is angry.  This flame assails the truths and forms of good present in the understanding and not only hides them but also consumes them.  Furthermore, and this is an arcanum, when that evil fire bursts out of the will into the understanding part of the mind, this part is closed above and opened below, that is, closed where it looks towards heaven and opened where it looks towards hell” (AC 9144:2). 

         Because of the ill nature of anger, anger is often associated with temptations, the last judgment, and the nature of the universal hell in the Word.  These states are the opposite of charity and goodness; thus another definition of anger is departing or receding from charity and consequently hatred (AC 357; AC 1010).  Then we may wonder why “angry” is a common adjective that modifies the Lord’s Divine operation in the Scripture. 

         The Lord never curses anyone, is never angry with anyone, never leads anyone into temptation, never casts anyone into hell, and never punishes anyone because such cruel attributes and fearful images cannot exist or cannot come from the fountain of mercy, peace, and goodness.  This misunderstanding is acquired in the general concept from the literal sense of the Word based on the idea that the Lord governs and rules every single thing in the universe including leading the evil to good through temptations and punishments.  This general understanding needs to be formed first in time.

         The Lord appears to everyone according to his or her quality-to celestial angels as the bright Sun, to spiritual angels as the Moon.  His appearance was like devouring fire and thick smoke on Mount Sinai before the children of Israel because of their evils and falsities (AC 1861:15).  That is to say, the person ruled by evil is the one who is filled with indignation, anger, and wrath, in addition to which he sets himself against what is good and true.  So the

anger turns a person away from the Lord and His attributes. 

         The attribution to Jehovah of punishment which comes as a result of evil is due to the appearance.  Various places elsewhere in the Word call the final period of the Church and its destruction ‘the day of Jehovah’s anger.’  By the Divine law all evil is attended with the penalty, and this is very clear in the other life where the evil and the penalty adhere together; for as soon as an infernal spirit does evil more than usual, punishing spirits are at hand and punish the evil spirit (AC 5798:4, 5).

         Considering the Lord’s merciful nature far from anger, most of us may wonder about an occasion in the temple on Palm Sunday.  The Lord was so determined and aggressive that He drove out all those merchants in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves (Mt.21:12).  This synoptic description of the Lord’s dynamic act in the Gospel cannot be a mere description but what really happened.  Such an impulsive action is from His flame, which is pure and holy, and is called zeal but not anger.

          Divine zeal is of the Divine love, and is for the salvation of men.  The Lord’s zeal in itself is love and compassion – it is seen by them as anger - for when the Lord in love and mercy protects His own in heaven.  When the evil are angry with the good, they endeavor to destroy those who are good, plunging into the Divine sphere where the good are placed.  This causes them to experience torments like those suffered in hell.  As a consequence of this they attribute wrath and anger, and also all evil, to the Divine, when in fact there is no anger whatever in the Divine, nor any evil whatever, only pure forbearance and mercy (AC 8875). 

         The angels have no anger in them even when their love is assaulted, but they have zeal.  This zeal appears to be anger in an external form and is called anger in the Word, but inwardly it is nothing but charity, goodness, and clemency.  Zeal does not, like anger, chase after the one who kindled the flame.  Contrary to zeal, anger inwardly conceals in itself hatred and revenge, which are the hellish loves; therefore it persists and is rarely extinguished.  This is why anger belongs to those who are in love of self and of the world; while zeal belongs to those who are in love to the Lord and in love towards the neighbor (AE 693:2).

         We read in Arcana Coelestia, “Truly spiritual indignation does not originate at all, and celestial still less so, in the anger of the natural man but in the inner heart of zeal.  To outward appearance such zeal looks like anger, but inwardly it is neither anger nor even indignation expressing anger, but a kind of sorrow coupled with a wish that something should not be, and more inwardly still a kind of vague displeasure that interrupts heavenly delight because what is good and true does not exist in another” (AC 3909:2).

         Destructive and aggressive anger closes heaven and opens hell within us.  In this respect anger, an ancient wise man said, “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger” (Buddha).  We know what is meant by these words from our own experiences.  Anger is accompanied by physiological and biological phenomena.  When we get angry, our heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of our energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline (Controlling Anger).

         Because of this destructive nature of anger we like to lash out at the person or the object.  Actually there is a myth that it is good to let it all hang out.  Is it really good for our mental health?  Psychologists now say that this is a dangerous myth.  Some people use this theory as a license to hurt others.  Research has found that “letting it rip” with anger actually escalates anger and aggression and does nothing to help you resolve the situation (Controlling Anger).  Thus when we are angry we’d better treat it properly.  Lashing out is wrong spiritually, psychologically, physically, and socially because it would hurt our neighbors as well as

ourselves as a result our Lord. 

         Unfortunately, anger is a strong and common emotion we often experience.  It is aroused by external stimuli from a person or an incident, and it can be also caused by our characteristic and dispositional traits.  Some people are more prone to be angry and more intense than other people.  They have a low tolerance for frustration and annoyance.  Actually some children are born more irritable and easily angered.  Researchers say that a number of things can cause this touchy tendency such as genetic, physiological, and environmental reasons.

         Although the Lord is often described as an angry God, it is only an appearance.  It is the Lord’s repugnance against evils and falsities or the inner reflection of the evil in those wicked people.  The Lord cannot be angry because such hellish attribute doesn’t exist in His merciful essence.  Even angels do not have any angry emotion, but an altogether different kind, which is not the expression of anger but of zeal, which holds nothing evil in it.

         The Lord’s angry outlook had some use in it because it gave the children of Israel a clear and stern message.  Such a fearful image helped them behave and be in order.  Parents give a stern look to children to convey a strong disapproval of their misbehaviors.  It is useful in our conjugial love.  A wise and chaste wife can look at her husband with an austere countenance, can speak to him in sharp tone, and can be angry with him (CL 294:4).  Her anger and these dissimulations have a wise purpose.  These zealous acts are certainly effective; hopefully we, husbands, don’t get that look that often! 

         As the Lord and His angels in heaven cannot be angry, we should have zeal from our heavenly resources for justice, corrections of wrong practices, and communication of our unsatisfactory feelings without any hatred and revenge.  Nevertheless, it is so true that there are annoying people, foul systems, and indignant incidets that make us inflamed.  We just cannot avoid them.  Perhaps we may like to suppress our strong emotion, but suppressed anger is very dangerous because it can turn inward and cause hypertension, high blood pressure or depression.  Suppresed anger can also develop a cynical and critical attitude.  We should neither lash out nor suppress it.  What we can do is to change our response to an annoying person and object, and we need to convert that powerful emotion into constructive zeal.

         First, we need to cultivate charity because those who possess genuine charity are equppied with zeal for good.  Second, we’d better stay away from the deluge of evils and falsities from hell because which ignite our selfish flame when our natural loves are hurt.  The Writngs teach us that “when a person is kept within the sphere emanating from the life he has received through regeneration from the Lord he is completely outside such a deluge.  He is so to speak in a calm and sunny, cheerful and happy place, and so is far removed from annoyance, anger, unpeacefulness, evil desires, and the like” (AC 5725:2).  Third, we can take practical measures; we cna take a deep breath at the moment, try to visualize a good image, and try to relax our muscles and minds. 

         Though anger is a strong emotion that might flame us, it can be useful as long as we convert its content from selfishness, revenge, and hated into charity, justice, and benefit.  When it becomes heavenly zeal, we can redirect it toward a useful and heavenly purpose.  We read, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret-it only causes harm” (Ps.37:8).  Amen.

Lessons: Exodus 19:17-25; Matthew 5:20-26; AC 357