Sermon: March 15, 2009
“Challenges and Responses”
Romans 12:3-13 and John 2: 13-22 

Let us pray.

                         Of those adult Americans who want to work one out of every ten is unemployed and the number is rising. The S&P 500 is down more than 40% from its high -- less than 18 months ago.   Universities, big corporations, small family businesses, and vital non-profits, including churches, are being forced to make extraordinarily difficult expense cuts and retrenchments. And then there are the recently unmasked crooks and charlatans who -- exhibiting unbridled and unimaginable gall -- have defrauded thousands. 

I for one am extraordinarily angry. Why -- perhaps because what has happened seems so unfair. Most of those who have been harmed bear little, if any, responsibility for their fate. When one of the financial giants eliminates a division -- the hundreds laid off are not at fault. The same is true of the part-time worker laid off by the small insurance agency. Most of these folks now looking for work are very able and hardworking and had nothing to do with the financial trouble that has befallen their former employers. When the endowment of a University or a church goes down by more than a third, the institution has been the victim of an unprecedented financial reversal -- the dimensions of which could not reasonably have been anticipated. There is -- except for those few crooks and charlatans -- no one to hold responsible and that, I think, contributes to the anger. Our lack of control over the source of our troubles is at the heart of our anger.

            But is anger ever a truly productive reaction? Frederick Buechner says this about anger:  

                        Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun.
                        To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances
                        long past, to roll over on your tongue the prospect of bitter
                        confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome
                        morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you
                        giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.[1]  

Wow, that sounds pretty good to me.  Certainly, one can hear echoes of this feast in the interviews of Madoff’s victims who declare that 150 years of imprisonment isn’t enough for this 70-year-old villain. Visions of unspeakable punishments doubtless lurk in the angry imaginations of those victims. But Buechner goes on to remind us that

The chief drawback [of anger] is that what you are wolfing
down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.[2]  

So perhaps anger is not good or productive after all – but self-indulgent. This week I was privileged to read an excerpt from Jessica Gingrich’s blog written from India where she is studying. Recently, she had the opportunity to hear the Dalai Lama and to talk with exiled Tibetans living in India. Jessica wrote movingly of the capacity of these gentle folk to talk about and to treat the Chinese without rancor and anger despite the fact that they invaded Tibet and have oppressed, enslaved and killed its people for generations. Quite simply these devout Buddhists have rejected a meal of anger and replaced it with the sweet morsel of acceptance and understanding. I was stopped short when I read this and challenged to ask myself about my own anger and frustration. Shouldn’t I be more tolerant and understanding?

            And then there is today’s passage from the gospel of John. What do we see but a Jesus who made a wipe to physically drive the moneychangers and the animal sellers out of the Temple. What is going on? Is this the loving Son of Man who gives himself for us? Is this the Jesus who urges us to the turn the other cheek?  What is going on in this scene?

Though this event has often been understood as Jesus’ angry reaction to fraud and theft, there is no evidence of either here. The animal sellers were at the Temple because the pilgrims coming to the Passover could not bring their own animals to sacrifice. Animal sacrifice was an essential element of the Passover in those days and so the devout had to buy them in Jerusalem. These merchants were simply providing a needed service. The same is true of the moneychangers. Each pilgrim was required to make a contribution to the Temple. But Roman coins could not be used because they included the image of the Emperor depicted as a god. A devout Jew would be violating one of the Ten Commandments to use such money.  The moneychangers took Roman money and changed it into local coinage that was acceptable. There is nothing about these enterprises that is inherently bad or any evidence that they were done fraudulently. No, what Jesus is indignant about is the conversion of the Temple -- God’s house -- into a market. He had no objection to markets -- just not in the Temple. They were, for Jesus, the symbol of a bigger problem that the house of God had become a place to do commerce and to meet people not to worship Yahweh.

Understood this way, I think it clear that what Jesus is exhibiting is not anger as Buechner describes it and as we commonly think about it. There is nothing here in Jesus’ actions that smacks of personal retribution. Rather what Jesus exhibits is righteous indignation. It is a passionate response to injustice and unfairness. It is not about getting even or getting ahead. Anger is a self-centered emotion by which we seek to regain control. But it never works. How often in the moments after we have lashed out in anger are we ashamed and feel unsatisfied because it hasn’t changed anything. Think of the cycles of violence in the world – in the Middle East, in Africa, or among gangs in the inner city -- all are fueled by anger and the desire to get even or for revenge.

            There is a difference between seeking justice from Madoff and gratuitous imposition of punishment. Those thousands who Madoff has injured – are within their rights to seek restitution and just punishment. But they also should pursue and support the revitalization of our regulatory system -- that would be the healthy and productive way to redirect their anger.  Though it feels so good at times -- anger is self destructive and corrosive. That is not what God intends for us his beloved creation.  Perhaps, it is time to redirect our anger from those incompetents and selfish individuals in charge and to seeking the renewal of our shared goals of happiness, justice and peace for all.

            There is another response to the present economy and financial woes I worry about – an epidemic of self doubt and the erosion of self worth. We live in a world in which we are too often defined by what we do. In talking with people who are out of work or anxiously looking over their shoulder for a pink slip, I hear an undercurrent of worry and of internal questions being silently spoken; “Am I not good enough”, “who am I without a job.” At one time I chaired the partner compensation committee at my old law firm. This committee was charged with determining the compensation of the 110 partners. We took the task very seriously. We interviewed every partner and poured over massive amounts of data to fairly determine the compensation of each partner for the coming year. No matter what we did some partners were inevitably disappointed. A few went into a tailspin. The question was never one of money – everyone was well paid. It was about worth – how can I get paid less than x, I am as valuable as she is. The problem was that they saw their self value as defined by their compensation and their job. Of course making a living is important; we have responsibilities—mortgagees and tuitions to pay and living expenses to meet. It matters that we have job and that we get paid fairly. But we are not ultimately defined by our job or our compensation. Our value is as beloved children of God. Does God love the 600 plus billionaires in the world more than the homeless in Mt. Kisco? I don’t think so. Indeed, it is the billionaires who should perhaps be asking the question.  We are not the out of work contractor, the unemployed engineer or the laid off investment banker. Each of us is the beloved child of God. Let none of us ever forget that and let us in this church insure that each member of this community never forgets that.

            One final point. There is a common underlying cause to these two reactions – anger and self-doubt. Both stem from an acute sense that we are not in charge of our own life. Isn’t that what really bothers us now? Certainly for me it is the many uncertainties that lie before me that make me angry and make me question my ability to make a difference.  Reinhold Niebuhr has said that we sin because we try to wrest certainty from uncertainty by placing our self-interest and ourselves at the center of the world. In that sense it is right to think of anger as a sin because it reflects our doomed attempt to gain control – to lash back in an attempt to put ourselves back at the center. Self-doubt also arises because -- despite our best efforts to make life go our way -- we fail and that devastates us. 

Our present world situation has made clear the reality that we simply do not and cannot control the basic flow of life. There are a number of ways to respond to that reality. We can deny it – push it to the back and continue as before seeking to create control and inevitably getting angry and then hurt when we fail. Or we can embrace the essence of faith. What does that mean? It means accepting that life is in many ways a mystery. The unexpected happens.

            Faith is not about what we get from God.  Instead it is about what God is? The world is beyond our control but not God’s. Faith means that we trust in a loving God to oversee a world that is ultimately meaningful, just and loving, albeit in ways we don’t understand and on a schedule that is beyond us. You might ask what help is faith? It isn’t going to prevent bad things from happening to good people. But faith can free us from pointless destructive anger and from being devalued by the expectations of our culture.  Being a teacher is simply no less valuable than being surgeon though our society compensates the latter more highly than the former. We are not defined by these external indicia. One is not a lesser human being and less worthy or beloved because he or she is out of work. Faith liberates us to live life confidently -- free from anger and self-doubt.  

            Henri Nouwen, the gifted monk and theologian, tells a story called   With Clenched Fists. It is the story of a deeply troubled woman who would not unclench her fist that held a small coin.  “It was as though she would lose her very self along with the coin. If they deprived her of that last possession, she would have nothing more and be nothing more. That was her fear.” What faith challenges us to do is to open our fists and give up our last coin  -- anger, grudges, the things we are afraid of.  In doing so we will be enriched in immeasurable ways. Amen