Episode Transcript  

One

Liable to Judgment

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gives abundant life. The thief who steals and destroys is not only the devil, but also the self-destructive habits that rob us of life: self-reliance, worry, resentment, endless distraction and, oh how about Anger. 

Do you remember when Jesus says, in the sermon on the mount, “Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment”? 

That’s scary, isn’t it. If you are angry with someone else, you’re going to get in trouble with God for it.

So, who do you get angry with? 

St. John Cassian, who died in the fifth century, warns about the sin of anger – what it does to the soul. Here’s how he introduces it:

“The deadly poison of anger must be utterly expelled from the inmost recesses of our soul. For so long as it lodges in our hearts and blinds the eyes of the soul with its baleful darkness, we can neither acquire right judgment and discretion, nor gain the insight which springs from an honest gaze, nor attain maturity of counsel; nor can we be partakers of life, or retain righteousness, or even have the capacity for spiritual and true light.”

Got that? If you have anger in your soul, you have no insight, no prudence, nor clarity, no spiritual life, no righteousness, and no life.

That counts for any anger. Whether the open, freak-out anger, or the passive-aggressive anger, which, as Cassian says, the anger that makes you not speak to other people with ordinary politeness, or pleasantness. 

So here’s a very fundamental question: why do we get angry with other people, and what can we do to counteract that impulse?

Two

When Someone is an Obstacle to what you want

There are basically two reasons that cause us to get angry at other people. 

We get angry with people when they threaten what we want.

And we get angry at people when they threaten what we are.

Anger in itself is not bad. Anger is a kind of emotional energy to help us overcome obstacles to our goals. That’s what it is. And when someone is standing in the way of our goals, it happens naturally that our anger is directed at them.

We might get angry at someone for a fairly superficial reason. 

Maybe they’re not letting us merge. Maybe they’re making an already long work-meeting even longer and we want to get home. Maybe it’s someone we live with who messes up the house and we like living in a clean environment.

But sometimes it’s more nuanced than that. 

Maybe what we really want is for our child to succeed – but they’re stupid choices are getting in the way of that goal.

Maybe what we really want is to have a good relationship with a spouse or one of our kids or someone we want to be friends with – but every time we try to reach out the other person puts up a wall of some kind.

These are good goals – success and deep friendship others. So why shouldn’t we get angry when they perversely block those goals?

Three

Threatening what you Are: When Someone disrespects you

So, as I’ve said, the first reason we get angry is when someone is an obstacle to a goal, a threat to what we want. 

And secondly, we get even angrier when someone threatens what we are. 

We get angry when we’re disrespected, especially when it’s an area where we feel vulnerable. 

At this point, anger isn’t about overcoming obstacles – it’s about defending ourselves – that is why we get defensive – it’s a sense of psychological self-preservation. 

Our egos are like cornered animals. They snarl, or – depending on our defense mechanisms – go all the way into our shells. 

And who could blame us? Isn’t it natural to defend ourselves from aggressors? When people insult us, dismiss us, disrespect us, commit some injustice - isn’t self-preservation a legitimate response?

Four

What do you want? What do you want to be?

The fact is, a Christian isn’t allowed to respond to obstacles or insults the same way as everyone else. 

We’re not allowed to act with sinful anger, to respond with aggression or passive-aggression the way other people can. 

Because a Christian is supposed to have different goals and a different sense of self relative to everyone else. 

A Christian is supposed to be detached from every goal except for one – intimacy with Jesus Christ, sharing in the infinite goodness of God, the limitlessness of God.

Every other goal we’re supposed to be detached from. Even the end of a tedious, pointless meeting. Even the success of our children. Even reciprocally enriching relationships with the people in our lives.

We’re supposed to put the goal of possessing the infinite perfect and everlasting goodness of God first. 

Which means, as St. John Cassian says, that we’re allowed to get angry at our sins, and nothing else. 

Only our sins are completely under our control. 

Only our own sins are obstacles to our holiness. 

Everything else we should be able to let go of peacefully. Because everything else is a non-essential.

And we’re supposed to have a different sense of identity and self-worth. One that can’t be threatened. 

Our sense of self-worth isn’t supposed to be based on human respect, or the things we think we’re good at. 

It’s supposed to be based on the conviction that we are children of God and we’re loved by Him. 

And being humiliated and disrespected by others is the best opportunity for solidifying that conviction – reminding ourselves that our value comes only from God’s love. 

Which is why Jesus says that we’re blessed when we’re scorned and treated with contempt. That contempt is the motive force that propels us deeper into the love of the Lord.

Five

What do you need to be detached from?

Anger at your neighbor comes from being too attached to certain goals, too attached to certain relationships, and too attached to certain ideas about ourselves.

So as a resolution, pick one of those, and figure out a practice to detach.

If you’re too attached to a certain concrete goal, spend the day thinking about how it will be fine if that goal doesn’t end up materializing. All you need is to possess God. If you have Him you have everything.

If you’re too attached to a certain relationship, spend the day thinking about how it will be fine if that relationship is never perfectly smooth in this life. There’s all of eternity in heaven for you and that person to hang out in perfect harmony. The Person I need is God. 

If you’re too attached to a certain image of yourself, remember that it’s okay if people think you’re negligible. You are! After all, the only thing you’ve contributed to the world – apart from God’s gifts – are your sins. Same as everybody else. 

But God loves you, so it doesn’t matter. So what do you have to be defensive about?

Dear Mother of God, please give us detachment (meekness) and humility instead of anger. Remove anger at our brothers, that we may not be liable to judgment, but may enter the Kingdom of God with the peace that comes from Your Son. Amen. 

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