Angry for Jesus - But NOT AT THE POOR!!!

Daily(ish) Blogging in Lent 2016 - Day Ten

Why anger? Isn’t that unhealthy? How is that loving? How is that Christian? 

These are questions often raised by people of faith and people of good will when some find out that the process of activation (the process of helping people with values to act in accord with those values) often begins with another question, this one:

What makes you angry? 

Can you remember the first time you felt powerless? Helpless? At risk? Out of control? Threatened? Take a minute. If you’re ready. Some of us aren’t. Some of us can’t just yet. Many of us repress these feelings. We fold them away, way into the back of our brains. In effect, we’ve forgotten them. Or, rather, we can’t recall them. We don’t re-member them. But they are still with us. We carry them in our members. They are a part of our body, our brain, our spirit. Folded up, tucked away. Swept under the rug deep inside our spirits, these forgotten memories shape our actions, our attitudes, our perceptions of the world. They shape who we are, and what we will become.

Can you remember?

When we are ready, we mine for these memories. As we descend into the depths, we need a lantern. One of the best lights for the journey, one of the best ways of shedding light on those things buried deep, deep, deep, deep, deeeeeeep (echo, echo, echo) within… is anger. The emotion. 

Anger. 

Yes. Anger. 

Because anger happens in our brain when our body is rendered powerless. Anger indicates that something has gone wrong. Like pain when you stub your toe. When children are disciplined unjustly by adults, they respond in anger. Good. "It's not fair!" When a child feels her toys are being pilfered or abused: anger. When a teen is bullied. "He took my lunch money." When the teacher is racist, sexist, homophobic. When a "boyfriend" manipulates, threatens, hits. When the weak are controlled by the strong, the powerless exploited and abused… How else are we to respond? 

Good organizers will tell you, “In the face of injustice, anger is the proper emotional response.” 

They’re correct. 

Can you remember? 

Vítor Westhelle once said that we have crosses “in and around us.” (Scandalous God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007, xi). 

We’ve experienced a bit of crucifixion. 

It remains in us. 

We live in a world, a society, and an economic system that produces crosses. Often, for profit. We live in a world that crucifies. Continued crucifixion creates demand for more production. More crosses. We bleed.  

Can you remember?

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If we don’t mine for our own memories, uncover our personal trauma, our powerlessness, our oppressions; if we do not dig up our own crosses and stare them down and call them what they are, some dangerous things can happen. 

One dangerous thing: we can begin to think that because we have scars, we are sick. That we are the problem. If we don’t name our cross, we will simply believe, scarred and broken, that there just must be something wrong with us. We must be sick, insane, disturbed. We become our scars alone.   

Rubem Alves once said that neuroses are not always signs that a person is sick. Rather, they’re an indication that we live in a world organized in such a way that it prevents life, and life abundant (John 10:10). Neuroses are signs that our will to thrive is frustrated. 

The sun is blocked. We don’t know in which direction we should grow. 

Our mind is attempting to adapt. It gets creative. 

Neuroses. 

We are not sick. The system is sick. Our bodies show signs and symptoms when their potential for life is repressed. It is repressed by the system. The system is oppressive and repressive (Tomorrow’s Child, Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2009 Edition,122). 

As a result, we carry scars. We carry crosses. 

Can you remember? What makes you angry? 

Dr. King said something similar.  He spoke of a mental health field that defined a person “sane” when/if that person became “well adjusted.” But why would we want to adjust to a system that is sick? That is murderous? A system that produced, utilizes, and profits from crosses? Dr. King called for the formation of an International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment. He said, “I never intend to become adjusted.” (1966 Ware Lecture: Don’t Sleep Through The Revolution)

King was a prophet. 

Can you remember?

Another dangerous thing: if we don’t dig up our crosses, our oppressions, our way-back-whens, our anger might get displaced, lead us astray. Like sheep. Rather than tracing our anger to our cross, our oppression, our early intuitions about what injustice and oppression are; rather than understanding that our cross was constructed by one more powerful than us, and produced by a system larger than us, if we don’t start mining… 

If we don’t start mining, we start blaming one another. We start blaming those weaker than us! Silly! They don't make the crosses! We accuse the poor and the vulnerable, and all the others Jesus spent time with as being “the real problem.” What a mistake! And a dangerous one! And then we use our anger to build bigger crosses, stronger crosses, crosses that can crucify again and again and again. We become well-adjusted to the system of crucifixion. 

We don't become our scars. Instead, we reproduce them. 

This is a dangerous thing. 

Can you remember? 

Of course Dr. King was right! Of course Rubem Alves knew a deep spiritual truth! Of course Dr. Westhelle is right to name a cross what it is. Can we? Of course becoming well-adjusted is not salvation! Not redemption. Certainly not deliverance from anything, anyone. No. Well-Adjustment is the Fall. Paradise is not yet. 

We pray, “Thy Kingdom Come.” (Matthew 6:10) 

We plea, “Be not conformed to this word.” “Be transformed.” (Romans 12)

And we get angry. 

Can you remember?

Anger about crosses, this is the beginning of hope. And hope empowered, embodied, enacted, is struggle, movement, change. 

Anger about crosses, this is the beginning of solidarity. Of building an ethic together out of our shared places of oppression. Understanding power and abuse, responding in Love. 

Love in public is justice. 

Can you remember?

We use our anger to dig up our crosses. We expose them. 

There is no cross measuring contest. Please. 

There is no “My cross is bigger than yours.” Useless. 

Rather, starting from our anger, uncovering our cross, we can begin together, from the crucifixion site. 

From Golgotha, we revolt. 

Together. 

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When Jesus was on the cross, one criminal begged him. Another derided him. The guard stood there and watched him die. The women and John mourned. What could they do? Powerless. Helpless. 

If only they knew that his cross was theirs! If only we knew that the crucifixions would continue until the New Reign arrives. 

“Thy Kingdom Come.”  “On earth as it is...”  

If only they knew what Jesus had told them. If only they could remember.

Can you remember?

“The Kingdom of God is among you, within you.” 

If only they could remember...

Can you remember? 

...that they could rise up against the crosses against crucifixion, and give birth to a world that already reigns within, a world, a reign where none are left hanging from a tree. 

If only they weren’t helpless, powerless, crucified. 

If only they had been angry, together. 

If only they had acted on that anger in Love. 

What a Christian thing that could have been...

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Can you remember? What makes you angry?