7UP: Wrath

Text: Matthew 21:33-46
Theme: “7UP: Wrath” (5th in a series)
16th Sunday after Pentecost
October 2, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’[h]?
43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”[i]
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

How’s the weather working for you? After a summer which included a record-setting number of days with stifling temperatures of over a hundred degrees, yesterday’s mid-80s and low humidity was mighty nice. The WeatherBug elite phone app also is forecasting that the rest of this week is going to be mighty nice.

We like it when everything is “mighty nice.” And we’re okay if “mighty nice” begins with the weather. But somewhere in the back of our minds is the thought that Mother Nature isn’t always “mighty nice.” Even with Dopplar radar, Mother Nature can be rather unpredictable. Sometimes it gets very quiet before a storm. All you see is dark clouds gathering. You have no control over what is happening. The thunderheads bunch together; the temperature drops precipitously. Back where I come from, they used to say: “The sky looks angry.” Needless to say, the sky isn’t the only thing that looks – or gets! – angry.

People get angry; groups get angry; workers get angry; employers get angry; nations get angry. Even Jesus Christ – who has been described in one instance of traditional hymnody as “gentle” and “meek and mild” – gets angry. I’ll mention more about that later, but, at this point, I think it important to point out that if anyone’s out looking for a god who is some sort of invisible, benign, and passive force – a kind of “Grandpa” or “Grandma” god, that person is going to be sorely disappointed when they read the Bible.

As with many points in Holy Scripture, God just comes right out and says it. Upon delivery of the Ten Commandments, for example, God says: “I, the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments.”

Dig into the Scriptures to any degree, and one conclusion that is truly inescapable is that God is personal and passionate. If you believe that and can handle that, you’re in for the ride of your life. You’ll discover that all the drama that is out there – fictional, non-fictional, personal, corporate, or otherwise – is actually pretty dull compared to the words, actions, and determinations of the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace! There’s this marvelous picture making the rounds on Facebook. Jesus appears sitting on a park bench talking with a late teenage or twenty-something man. Jesus says: “No, I’m not talking about Twitter. I literally want you to follow me.”

But before you jump right in, would you really want to follow a man who had such a propensity to get mad, to really get angry? Folks, lets contrast something in our minds. Picture Jesus sitting on a grassy hillside with a flowing white robe. He’s gesturing at the lilies of the field scattered in extravagant profusion. He asks you to consider them in their tenderness, vulnerability, and beauty. “Ah, that’s mighty nice,” we might say. Now, advance your mental PowerPoint software to another picture in presentation. You see Jesus sitting alone with a look of grim determination. His teeth are grinding; His jaw is set. Feverishly, He’s working with materials in His hands. Here’s the Bible passage that underscores this mental image; it’s from John chapter two: “When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and other sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said: “Get these out of here! How dare you t urn my Father’s house into a market.”

This is the Jesus we’re not accustomed to hearing about – the Jesus who looks like a prime candidate for an anger-management class. Anger is on the list of the seven deadly sins. Was Jesus, therefore, sinning? No, say Christian theologians of one accord, this was justified anger, righteous anger. Okay.

So now we click on the next slide in our mental PowerPoint presentation and take a look at ourselves when we get angry. Some good questions to ask might include but not be limited to the following: is anger something to be managed? If so, how well do we manage it? Do we manage anger or does anger manage us? When we get angry, what is our rationale? Is it that we felt justified? That’s the popular if not immediate reasoning. Probing further, what kind of actions does anger produce in us? Do we, at first, quiet down – like the calm before a storm – only to blow up later? Do we “lose it” immediately? Do we follow the dictum of “Don’t get mad, get even”? Do we, to use a popular psychological term, “stuff” the anger? The experts today tell us that anger turned inward is depression. Depression, as we noted last week, is in cahoots with sloth. These dadgum deadly sins are starting to appear to be all interconnected. What will deliver us – better yet, who will deliver us – from these sins? “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,” the Bible says. On some days, that’s easier said than done.

There is far more to proclaiming the Gospel than offering suggestions, but I will suggest this much: when you’re angry, at the nearest opportunity, ask yourself why you are angry. Why are you mad? In my own experience, I get mad when I’ve lost patience. I have a real and serious problem with patience. It’s one of the spiritual gifts that I covet the most. The next question is obvious: why am I impatient? The answer is as humbling as it is true. I’m impatient because I’m not getting what I want when I want it. Then I conclude that I’m being selfish, and I get mad at myself. This is a caustic spiritual and mental soup that I’ve gorged myself on for years. I’m sick of it. I’m angry for being angry.

Then I ramp it up even moreso. I start to do something called gunny-sacking. I’m angry at motorists; I’m angry at our politics; I’m angry at our economy; I’m angry at the world; I’m angry at the world; I’m angry at the Presbyterian Church; I’m angry at the terrorists; I’m angry at being taken advantage of; I’m angry at the banks; I’m angry that the neighbor won’t pay his portion of the fence repair bill; I’m angry that I’m getting forgetful; I’m angry that my beloved Cornhuskers got beat so bad last night; I’m angry at others’ success; I’m angry at my own failure; I’m angry at the telephone company; I’m angry that I didn’t save money.

And don‘t stop there! I’m angry at almighty God. Why did my daughters have to be autistic? Why did cancer have to take my mother? Why did cancer take my father-in-law before I had the chance to meet him? Why does alcoholism and chemical dependency destroy so many people? I’m angry at God. I’m angry at myself.
Don’t talk to me about Jesus as an example because then I’ll get angry for having not followed it. Examples make me angry. I’m sick and tired of them.

Instead, show me something else. Show me mercy. Show me forgiveness. Show me love. Show me a God that is strong enough to be present, to hold me, and, most of all, to save me. Show me the Savior who subsumes that anger, and, with His nail-marked hands, has the last word: “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
In the good news of Jesus Christ, we learn that this is the God we have.

Amen.