Dear reader,
I need your help with this one.
In this series on anger, I’ve been able to learn from different sources. From the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, I learned that we often get angry at the wrong things, and we stay angry even when it doesn’t help us. On the other hand, she says that anger can sometimes serve as an important signal that something should change. Once we take appropriate actions to bring about the desired change, the anger is no longer useful. At that point, she says we would be best served by dropping the anger and using our energy for more constructive purposes.1
From Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I learned that if anger is causing unconstructive behaviors, there are ways to manage it.2 From Nonviolent Communication, I learned that although I am prone to think my anger is caused by the behavior of others, at the root of my anger lie unmet needs.3 From Internal Family Systems, I learned how to listen to and honor the voices of my angry parts without allowing them to take over.4
When I moved to learning from religious sources on anger, I began with the Hebrew Bible. From the Book of Esther, I learned there is a complicated relationship between anger and personal agency.5 When I examined God’s anger in the Hebrew Bible, I learned God sometimes gets inappropriately angry at status wounds and is capable of terrible overreactions. I concluded that God has an anger problem. God also cares deeply about people and how we behave towards one another. In the Hebrew Bible, there’s an interesting relationship between caring and anger. Because of this relationship, love can act as a useful antidote to anger.6
I next turned to the life of the Buddha. We saw that Buddha’s teachings on anger
Beware of the anger of the tongue, and control thy tongue! Beware of the anger of the mind, and control thy mind!7
didn’t always align with his behavior. I suggested that Buddhist teachings on impermanence should be applied to the state of enlightenment. The Buddha was capable of having a bad day.8
But now, when I turn to Jesus and the New Testament, I’m only confused. I’m unable to draw positive inferences or negative ones. If you can shed any light on my confusion, please leave a comment below.
What Jesus says and what Jesus does
Repeating a pattern we’ve seen in other religious texts, Jesus isn’t a big fan of anger. Here’s what he said about anger in his famous Sermon on the Mount:
You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, “Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.
You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.9
According to Jesus, being angry is tantamount to murder. And we should give in to someone who hits us or comes to take our possessions.
The four gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) tell the story of Jesus’s life and teachings. Some stories are found in only one of the gospels. Some stories are repeated in all four. The story of Jesus overturning tables at the Temple is found in all four. The most dramatic of the tellings is found in John. This is the only version in which Jesus uses a whip.
In the Temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the Temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.10
When I see someone chasing people around with a whip and overturning tables, my assumption is that the person is angry.
Why was Jesus angry?
In Matthew Mark, and Luke, Jesus accuses the money changers of turning the Temple into a “den of robbers.” In John, the whipping version, he says they have made the Temple into a “house of trade.” “House of trade” is a milder accusation than “den of robbers,” yet it’s only in John that Jesus wields the whip.
Neither of these accusations tell me why Jesus was angry.
“There were money changers in the Temple precincts” is kind of like saying “there were waiters in the restaurant.” Of course there were.
Coins often carried an image of the ruler, which contradicted the Jewish law against making an image. There was no penalty for using those coins, but a coin that was contrary to Jewish law couldn’t be used to purchase animals for the sacrificial rituals. There was a special currency used for this purpose.
If you came to the Temple hoping to offer a sacrifice, you would need to purchase an animal that had been judged appropriate for the ritual. These animals were for sale within the Temple precincts. If you had Roman coins (which were widely used at the time) you would change your Roman money for the Temple currency and then use the Temple money to purchase an animal for sacrifice.
Did Jesus think the exchange rate being offered was unfair? Did he object to the entire Temple ritual? Did he think the laws that required a different coinage were wrong? Was there something else happening at the Temple that he didn’t like? We aren’t told.
When examining anger in the Hebrew Bible and Buddhism, we’ve seen that teachers didn’t always follow their own teachings.11 That seems to be the case with Jesus as well. Anger may be tantamount to murder, but it appears Jesus was angry. And I have no idea why.
Do as I say and as I do
Moreover, there’s a new idea that enters the New Testament that isn’t part of the Hebrew Bible.
Be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1)
Imitate me, as I do of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1)
Imitatio dei, the idea that we should imitate God, exists in Jewish sources, but not in the Hebrew Bible. It shows up later.12
If I could tell what Jesus was angry about, maybe I could learn something from his anger, either as a positive example or a negative one. But since the reason for his anger isn’t apparent, I find myself stymied. I don’t understand Jesus’s example. How would someone go about imitating it?
Jesus’s teaching that we will be judged for our anger is also incomprehensible to me. We learned from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett that emotions are a complex mix of physical feelings in our bodies and the thoughts we ascribe to those feelings.13 We have very little control over what we feel. We can exert a bit more control over how we respond to our feelings. And everyone experiences anger. It appears even Jesus experienced anger.
How is it helpful to suggest that we are to be judged for our feelings of anger, which we are bound to experience, and which are largely out of our control?
I get some value from the teaching about turning the other cheek. Pacifism in the face of violence can be a powerful and moral response. But neither Gandhi nor Martin Luther King Jr. taught a pacifism that included the idea that when someone wants to “take your shirt, hand them your coat as well.” Their nonviolent resistance would better be characterized as “when someone takes your shirt, show them the error of their ways and insist that you get your shirt back.”
When it comes to anger, what would Jesus do? I have no idea.
What am I missing?
I wrote about Nussbaum’s approach to anger in my post Getting Smarter About Anger.
See my post Anger Can Be a Problem. But So Can Love. for my thoughts on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy’s approach to anger.
I wrote about the approach of Nonviolent Communication to anger in my post If I Were Not Such a Coward, This Is How I Would Handle My Anger.
I wrote about Internal Family Systems and anger in my post Where Psychology Meets Spirituality.
I wrote three posts examining God’s anger in the Hebrew Bible. Is God’s Anger in the Bible Real?; God is Perfect or Angry. Choose One.; and God Has an Volatile Emotional Life. So Do I.
Dhammapada, chapter 17, verses 232, 233
See my post Angry Buddha for this discussion.
Matthew 5:21-22; 38-40
John 2:14-15
See footnotes six and eight above.
Imitatio dei also shows up in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Jewish writings that talk about imitatio dei start around the time of the New Testament and can be found in the Talmud and other sources.
See footnote two above.
Dan, your uncertainty is beautiful. Perhaps the Godliest thing is not to figure out the "right" answer, but to be spaciousness enough to hold all of the unanswered questions and complexity in awareness?
Here's where I find myself landing on this this morning: fortunately, we will be judged by a Jesus who knows exactly what it's like to have spiritual ideals and human impulses all at once.
From my understanding, the money changers’ tables as well as the people selling animals for sacrifice were all set up in the court of the Gentiles. This was the furthest in that non-Jewish people could enter for worship of Jehovah, but it had been turned into an open air market. Imagine the sounds and smells. It was no longer a place of quiet contemplation or reverence.
Plus those selling and changing money were most likely taking advantage of people who had come to worship.
I believe that Jesus came to restore all people to their Creator regardless of race and I think this story is showing his heart for that purpose. He was upset about the dishonesty and the prevention of worship, and he was angry at the brokenness of our world keeping people from God. But he was about to change all that and this is a foreshadowing—when he died the veil to the Holy Place was torn in two again as a picture allowing everyone access to God.