A Reflection for 11 Pentecost (Proper 14) All Saints’ Church, Southern
Shores, NC August 9, 2015 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Quaking
From today’s selection from the Letter to the
Ephesians, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and do not make room for the devil.” The writer begins by quoting the first
part of Psalm 4:4; “Be angry and do not sin” from the Septuagint translation of
the Hebrew Testament into Greek. The Rabbis who knew Hebrew did not say that it
was alright to be angry, but as Biblical Scholar, Robert Alter, suggests in his
translation of The Book of Psalms: “The auditors of the poem were exhorted to
tremble as an act of conscience that will dissuade them from forms of
transgression, then commune with themselves in the solitude of their beds and
speak no more.” Or, as he translates it:
“Quake and do not offend. /Speak in your hearts and be still. Selah”
The meaning of the word “Selah” is unknown, but it
is used 71 times in 33 Psalms, and many interpreters used it as an instruction
to wait a minute and think about what has just been said. We see that theme
repeated in the Psalm for today where “My soul waits for the LORD* more than
watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning/ O Israel, wait
for the LORD* for with the LORD there is mercy.” When we are in the darkness of our anger,
hoping for the Divine Light, waiting is the only way that mercy can grow so
that we might feed on the bread of heaven, referred to in John’s Gospel for
today, instead of the salty tears of bitterness. Anger that we sit on destroys
us and the people we are with.
My understanding is that anger is usually
connected to another feeling because anger is easy to get to, but if you can
find out what feeling the anger hides, then the anger will have no reason for
being. Anger then is a choice we make for it never stands alone. For instance,
suppose as a teenage boy I get angry because my girlfriend is talking to a boy
and I think she is flirting with him. If I express my feeling of anger, then I
will blame her behavior for my anger and, lashing out at her, I will drive her
away. However, if the anger is covering a deeper feeling, one of which I am
ashamed, such as fear based on my own feelings of worthlessness and insecurity,
or the powerlessness of not being in control of other people, then I have to
come to grips with claiming those feelings and can deal with them instead of
projecting my fears onto her.
The story behind the Hebrew Testament lesson for
today is a story of living with anger and dying with it. It is the story of
Absalom, the second oldest son of David. He has an older half-brother, Amnon,
who is the heir to the throne, and Absalom would only become the heir to the
King if something were to happen to Amnon. It comes to pass that Amnon thinks
that he has fallen in great love with his half-sister Tamar, Absalom’s full
sister, and he wants to have sex with her. He and a friend work out a plan for
Amnon to go to bed and act sick and tell David that the only way he could ever
get better is for Tamar to fix him some special cakes and for him to eat them
out of her dainty little hand. David, ever the doting but distant father, hears
about it and orders Tamar to feed Amnon. She, being a good daughter, goes into
Amnon’s bedroom and when she refuses his advances, he rapes her.
 |
| Absalom and Tamar by Guercino |
After the
rape, he is disgusted with her for refusing and, instead of marrying her and
saving her reputation, he has his friend throw her out of the house into the
street and bolts the door. Amnon has a choice between shame or anger and he
chooses anger, because anger seems easier to live with.
Tamar runs to Absalom and tells him what happened.
Absalom sits on his anger, which grows deeper when David does nothing except
get angry, because that is the way David is with his sons. He will give them
anything they want but time and guidance. David chooses to get angry because it
is easier than doing a fearless and searching moral inventory of his own failings.
Absalom sits on his anger for several years as Tamar
lives in Absalom’s house with his wife and children, and then he arranges an
ambush to kill Amnon. Amnon is killed and Absalom runs away to his
father-in-law’s kingdom and is in exile for several years. Remember, he is now
the direct heir to the throne. Joab, the slimy nephew of David, knowing that
Absalom is the heir, decides to try to get close to Absalom and get David to
allow Absalom to come back.
David allows him to return, but will not allow him
to come into the Royal presence. David holds on to his anger, but for Absalom
it is hard to tell the difference between sullen anger and neglect. That does
not come out like Joab would want, so he starts to avoid Absalom. Absalom gets
angry with Joab and gets his attention by burning fields of Joab’s crops. So
Joab is blackmailed into urging David to give Absalom one more chance. When
someone is convinced of the “righteousness of their anger”, they become more
arrogant in what they think are their “justified” responses. What they call
“justice” is actually revenge for them not being in control of other people’s
actions.
Absalom is allowed to return and starts acting like
he is the “King-in-waiting”, driving chariots through town with his beautiful
long hair streaming behind him, with a squadron of guards running alongside
him. That hair of his is so long and lovingly taken care of that, according to
the writer, when he would get his hair trimmed once a year, the sweepings would
weigh five pounds. Absalom, still sitting on his anger, starts to secretly put
David down to undermine David’s rule and gather support to overthrow David. He
sneaks off to Hebron, which has been resentful since David moved the capital to
Jerusalem, and Absalom has himself anointed as King and raises a revolt. David
retreats from Jerusalem to gather up troops, but he gives orders that Absalom
is not to be harmed.
Absalom marches into Jerusalem and symbolically rides a
mule through the city as the symbol of being God’s chosen King. We will see
that same symbol ten centuries later when Jesus rides into Jerusalem. Absalom wants to humiliate David and so he rapes all
of David’s concubines in front of the cheering crowds of supporters. All of
this anger building up over the years explodes in an orgy of revenge.
 |
| Death of Absalom by Gustave Dore |
Absalom’s
generals urge him to one particular plan of action to defeat David, but
Absalom’s arrogance leads him and his troops to defeat, and on a headlong
retreat through the woods, the mule he is riding goes under low-hanging
branches of a tree where his beautiful, thick, full, and long hair gets caught
and tangled, and he hangs suspended in the air. Joab’s armor bearers come
across him and, on Joab’s order, kill Absalom because he knows that David, even
now, would convince himself that “boys will be boys” and take Absalom back in. Joab
shows he is still angry about the field that Absalom burned. Anger always
breeds anger in return.
The way to break the cycle is to quake and ask for
help to turn the anger over to the Power greater than ourselves so that we,
together with God, turn it into a blessing for others. Today we will be
blessing the playground, Maddie’s Place, for The All Saints School which opens
next week. Maddie’s death was an obscenity as it was a result of what a six
year old survivor, referring to the shooter, called “a very angry man”. It was
almost three years ago that this “very
angry man” lashed out his revenge on whoever was around. The playground is an
attempt to turn that obscenity into an opportunity to bless other children. Our faith is based on the example two thousand
years ago when a young man was the victim of the anger of a troubled people
lashing out and hanging him on a cross to die. Jesus took that anger and
converted it into love, to be made a blessing for us.
Quaking
(poem)
Anger
is a friend of mine
Who,
I inviting from time
to
time, comes and snuggles
while
in my heart struggles
with
revenge in pipe dreams
of
sending dark lurid beams
shining
darker bitterness
into
the noisy wilderness
of
my supposed old hurts,
making
the pain so worse.
I
should pull up welcoming
mats
when she is a coming.
But
I am afraid to be alone
opening
up times to atone.
Suppose
we spent the times,
reading
between those lines?
Would
I miss that old might
shouting
that I was so right?
Anger can no longer caressing
be
transfigured into a blessing?
No comments:
Post a Comment