Emily Lyons

Dear Friends,

When I begin drafting a Daily Bread reflection, I usually start with a theme that stands out to me from the lectionary readings for the day. For today’s readings, I was drawn to write about Jesus’ anger in these verses from Matthew, but figuring out exactly what I wanted to say has been a struggle.

I think the challenge is that in our culture we have a contradictory relationship to anger. Sometimes we dismiss legitimate expressions of anger as irrational or excessive, and sometimes we make excuses for inappropriate and even violent expressions of anger.

God’s anger has been weaponized against so many of us and has been used so often to rationalize hatred and bigotry. Is it any wonder that so many people have given up on Christianity when this has been their experience?

For those of us who don’t believe in using God’s anger to threaten people whose views or way of living we don’t approve of, our impulse might be to downplay Jesus’ anger, or gloss over it entirely. But the fact is, sometimes Jesus does get angry. If we take our belief in him seriously, we have to take his anger seriously.

Jesus calls the Pharisees evil and the brood of vipers. But we can’t explain away his anger as being directed at the “bad guys” of the Gospels. There’s danger in this kind of thinking; it’s the same logic fundamentalists use to justify their intolerance toward their ideological opponents, who they paint as enemies of God. In any case, Jesus’ anger is not directed only at the Pharisees. Rather, he is angry because “an evil and adulterous generation” has refused to hear the word of God.

If we take Jesus’ anger seriously, we must allow that we also belong to “an evil and adulterous generation.” This does not mean that we need to be full of fear and guilt and shame. Neither does it mean that we should condemn and attack our neighbors.

So what should we do? How should we respond to God’s anger? Psalm 30:11 seems like a good place to start.

Hear O Lord, and have mercy upon me. O Lord, be my helper.

In Christ,

—Emily