Jesus did it once.
“Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found people selling cattle, sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple…. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”
The narrative doesn’t say he was angry. In fact, none of the gospel writers mention Jesus’ mood, attitude, or disposition. He may have been angry, or righteously indignant, or irritated. Or just doing his job … of making the temple in Jerusalem a house of prayer for all people.
I feel like overturning tables.
But I confess it is because I am angry. I didn’t want to admit that until I gathered today with my weekly prayer circle. One by one almost everybody in the group made some version of this confession. I am angry.
About what?
About friends and family, somebodies and nobodies, saints and sinners shrugging off the single most important thing anybody in American needs to do this year: get a vaccine.
We had this pandemic beat. The Republican administration developed the vaccine and the Democratic administration distributed it throughout the country. The majority hurried to protect ourselves and our neighbors with the quick and easy skin prick.
Deaths in the tens of thousands declined to deaths in the tens. Victory was within sight. Even the President said so.
Then: people began to say no: no to the vaccine, no to the virus, no to the pandemic, no to the doctors, no to anybody in a place of authority. Slowly the numbers began to climb. Now, thousands of people are sick, and hundreds are dying.
I am angry that people are dying because others refuse to get the vaccine.
I am angry that people who know better are filling the airways with the nonsense of non-compliance.
My U S Congressman (who shall go unnamed, but he represents North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District) has been tweeting … like this:
“Most American just want freedom and to be left alone. The rest, however, must ruin it for everyone.”
“You can’t be pro-mask mandate and pro-freedom at the same time.”
“North Carolinians shouldn’t have to be vaccinated to live their lives”
“I didn’t run for Congress to sit back and allow tyrants to destroy our country. I will NOT back down!”
My private irritation at this public buffoonery finally found its voice.
“You sound like a self-centered teenager, always squeaking about your rights but unaware of your responsibilities. Grow up. Get a vaccine. Wear a mask. Support those trying to help people.”
I wanted to sign that Tweet: Jesus
I didn’t; but I think it is the kind of thing Jesus would Tweet (and I am sure he would be a world class Tweeter).
Later, I felt remorseful. Not for my emotions, not for Tweeting—but for disparaging teenagers in my Tweet. Actually, the teenagers I know have more common sense and more citizenship—and more Christian sensibility—than any of these public people who are simply trying to appease (it seems to me) one single man, the man we drove out of the White House last year.
Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
If getting a vaccine—poked twice in the right arm—will prevent my neighbor from getting sick with the virus, then getting a vaccine is an act of love. It is obedience to the command of Christ. It is fulfilling the law and the prophets. It is following Jesus. It is, indeed, loving God.
Which raises the question: is it permissible to get angry on the way to loving God, following Jesus, and helping neighbors?
The Bible doesn’t say. But it does say this: “Be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down upon your wrath.” That’s Paul the Apostle writing some wisdom to the Christian people in Ephesus. A long time ago. Which leads me to think they had a situation very similar to ours.
Regardless, I have my prayer circle to thank for helping me release the anger I’ve been hoarding and allowing the sun to go down this evening without casting a single shadow on my unacceptable emotions.
(August 2021)
