Angry Jesus #2
My takeaways from the many excellent comments I received
In my last post, I asked for help with my difficulty in figuring out what I could learn about anger from Jesus’s example. I received many thoughtful comments that encouraged me to deepen my inquiry. I love the discussion this has generated!
Before diving in, it may be helpful for the reader to know the biases of the writer.
I’m pragmatic. I’m more interested in the behaviors that ideas and beliefs engender rather than debating competing truth claims. One atheist might understand that since there is no transcendent dimension to life, we must strive to bring kindness to one another. Another atheist might conclude that nothing matters, and therefore there’s no purpose in striving to be kind to one another. Same belief, different results.
I am interested in mining the fields of philosophy, psychology, and religion to learn about how to relate to anger. My examination turned to Jesus because he’s an influential religious teacher. I’m not interested in talking anyone into, or out of, beliefs about Jesus. I’m interested in exploring what might be learned about anger from Jesus’s teachings and example.
That said, I want to be up-front that for me, Jesus is not a personal savior. If he were, I would approach these texts differently. I would assume that Jesus’s anger was appropriate instead of asking, without a pre-determined conclusion, whether Jesus’s anger was appropriate. Again, I don’t think one approach is inherently better than another. I’m pragmatic.
Why was Jesus angry?
In my last post, I wrote about Jesus overturning tables and driving people out of the Temple precincts with a whip.1 I asked for help figuring out what made Jesus so angry. As Jesus said “Ask and you shall receive!”2
Here is a summary of the responses I have received so far (apologies in advance if I overlooked or misrepresented someone’s comment):
Jesus was angry because:
The decorum in the Temple precinct was inappropriate. Instead of an atmosphere of reverence, there was the atmosphere of a marketplace.
The money changers engaged in unfair business practices
He objected to the sacrificial system itself. The system was flawed because:
Not everyone could afford it;
Jews had greater access than Gentiles to the performance of the rituals;
People didn’t need to offer sacrifices to be forgiven. Forgiveness was already given. Paying money to access forgiveness was offensive to Jesus.
As is often the case for most of us, something else in his life was making Jesus angry. The anger he displayed in the Temple was misplaced.
Jesus wasn’t angry. His behavior served a pedagogical purpose and wasn’t motivated by anger.
Reconsidering Jesus’s anger
Maybe Jesus’s anger was misplaced. It would be hard for us to know. Maybe Jesus wasn’t angry. But it sure looks as if he was. As I wrote in an earlier post, the idea that what looks like anger is actually a pedagogical technique just trades one problem for another.
Anger can be a signal that something isn’t right. Readers’ comments helped re-direct my attention from the scene in the Temple to the areas of Jesus’s concerns. The question flips from “What made Jesus angry?” to “What did Jesus care about?” or phrased differently, “What things did Jesus think were worth getting upset about?”
Most readers used the larger context of Jesus’s life to infer something about his behavior in the Temple. Jesus cared about injustice, exclusion, breaking down barriers between people and God, and about the poor. Since we know he had these concerns, it makes sense that he was angry because, for example, the money-changers had unfair business practices (injustice), or the poor and the Gentiles didn’t have equal access (exclusion and the poor), or because the sacrificial system itself served as a barrier between the people and God.
Here's my concern with this approach. Justifying Jesus’s anger requires a negative judgment of people who may not deserve it. What if the money-changers were ethically scrupulous in their business dealings and Jesus’s objection was their role in the Temple ritual? What if the poor weren’t excluded from the ritual, but Jesus didn’t like the exchange rate being charged?3 What if different access for Jews and Gentiles to the Temple ritual was accepted as appropriate by all involved, including Jesus?4 What if Jesus had no objection to the forgiveness rituals the Temple offered but saw that the money-changers were engaged in unethical business practices?
Someone may indeed be the villain. But I may be attributing the villainy incorrectly.
I appreciate commenters re-directing the focus to Jesus’s concerns. It makes sense that one or more of these concerns was at the root of Jesus’s anger at the Temple. But I still don’t know which, if any of these concerns, made Jesus so angry that he overturned tables and ran people off with a whip. Jesus was angry at something, but to make sense of his anger, I must make someone the villain of the story.
I don’t doubt that for Jesus, there was a villain. The Temple ritual was often critiqued within Israelite society, there was frequent emphasis on the need to do more for the poor, and so on. Yet without clarity about what, exactly, Jesus’s concern was, I hesitate to place blame where it doesn’t belong.
I said earlier that my starting point is the question, “Is there something I can learn?” Thanks to comments from readers, for me, the answer is yes. The learning includes a renewed reminder of the important concerns Jesus expressed in his teachings. It also includes the reminder that we don’t always get clear answers.
And maybe that’s okay. As one commenter put it:
Perhaps the Godliest thing is not to figure out the “right” answer, but to be spacious enough to hold all of the unanswered questions and complexity in awareness.5
I enjoy learning. But I enjoy learning with others even more. I want to thank all those who took the time to share their thoughts with me. It’s nice to be in conversation with you all.
John 2:14-15
Matthew 7:7
The rules governing sacrifices made accommodations for financial disparities. See, for example, Leviticus 14:21: “If, however, he is poor and his means are insufficient, he shall take one male lamb for a guilt offering, to be elevated in expiation for him, one-tenth of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in for a meal offering, and a log of oil.” Elevating the lamb meant it wouldn’t be sacrificed and therefore wouldn’t require the same financial burden. Still, it’s possible Jesus didn’t think these accommodations were sufficient or appropriate.
I’ve been to Catholic churches when communion was offered. I didn’t participate in the ritual. Doing so wouldn’t have brought me closer to God. If Gentiles wanted to join ancient Israelite society, they could make that choice. See for example Exodus 12:48: “If a stranger who dwells with you would offer the passover to YHWH, all his males must be circumcised; then he shall be admitted to offer it; he shall then be as a citizen of the country.”
Jesus was human. Maybe that's all there is to it.
The spirit of your whole inquiry has that spaciousness. I appreciate the thoughtfulness you bring to life!