SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE 26th August, 2001.

Road rage; air rage; supermarket trolley rage; car parking rage
(a woman in England was recently caught on video
ramming someone's car out of the space she believed was hers)
Rage seems to be all the rage these days
but it is nothing new.
Here is Jonah with a bad attack of God rage.

Admittedly he has been through a lot:
a life threatening storm
three days in a whale
a long journey to a strange city
with a message that might not win friends and influence people

Sometimes when we are stressed, tired, frustrated
with unreasonable demands (as we think) upon us
we blow, a fuse goes
what I call the Basil Fawlty syndrome
when the hotel manager switches from his inane grin at the guests
to a towering rage when things go wrong and he can't cope.

Jonah's problem was not so much failure, that things had gone wrong
as actual success, things had gone well, the people had repented
but things hadn't gone as he expected and secretly wanted
and he couldn't cope.
He had wanted the Ninevites to suffer God's judgement:
what did God do? he forgave them Typical!
4.2 'He prayed to the LORD,
"O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home?
That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.
I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
a God who relents from sending calamity."'

The only thing in favour of Jonah here is his honesty:
he tells God what he feels, not what he thinks God would like to hear
Jonah actually is prejudiced against the Ninevites:
he sees them as an enemy of Israel
and history would prove Jonah right to some degree,
but he knows enough about God's compassionate nature
to fear that God will do the unthinkable and love his enemies.
And that makes him cross.
There is of course righteous anger:
bullying, child abuse, pornography, drug dealing, racial prejudice.
These are things that make us angry
and if we are not angry there may be something wrong with us.
Jesus was angry when he threw the traders out of the temple
and when he condemned the hypocrites.
But a lot of our anger is unrighteous.
The Bible says twice (Psalm 4.4 Ephesians 4.26) in your anger do not sin
but our problem is that often when we get angry we get sinful;
we sin in the way we work it out and express it.
Often our anger hurts others and hurts ourselves.
Our anger is destructive and depressive.
Either it makes us lash out in word or action and we harm somebody
or it sinks in unrecognised and unchallenged and infects our own spirit.

The answer to our anger is as it was for Jonah
to tell God, tell God everything
tell him how much you actually hate the Ninevites
how much you resent this gospel that calls us to love our enemies
tell him about those parts of you that delight in wrong doing
tell him about the gap between what you are, what you really think
and what God is.
It's not that we can justify those things by telling God about them
but we cannot deal with them until we bring them into the light
and see how selfish and squalid our motives and attitudes can be
Speak to God and then listen to God.
Hear his question:
'Do you do well to be angry?
Are you right to feel so strongly?'

That was the question God put twice to Jonah
not only when he sulks over the non destruction of Nineveh
but also when he sulks over the withering of his shelter
Jonah had to be shown how inappropriate, how out of scale his attitudes were.
Was it not really absurd:
'Jonah is filled with compassion regarding a mere plant,
yet remains hard hearted towards the entire population of a city.
He shows concern for one small item of God's creation,
yet fails to care for a large mass of people
who, like Jonah himself, were made in the divine image'
(D Alexander)
'Do you do well to be angry?
Are you right to feel so strongly?'
We don't know how Jonah answered that question.
Perhaps the very existence of the story shows
someone humble enough to laugh at himself
and to tell what does not show him in a good light
but with which we can identify
because we all need to hear that question from God:
'Do you do well to be angry?
Are you right to feel so strongly?'

I see lots of angry people in our time
some whom may be angry about the right things but in the wrong way:
anarchist demonstrators in Genoa
reminding us that there is a lot to be angry about
in the way that the world's poor are locked into a system
which benefits a few and traps the many.
That was a right anger expressed in its extremes in a wrong way.
But equally the policeman who shot a demonstrator dead:
was he afraid, probably he was also consumed with anger and frustration
at these lawbreakers who had come to loot his city
Did he do well to be angry in that way?

Or bring it nearer home:
we have a right and passionate concern for peace in this country
we are opposed to violent extremists and those who support them
but what is our attitude to them as people, whatever their views?
I have seen over the years too many 'bigoted moderates'
people who have correct and proper views about peace
but who show by the way that they express these views
that they are actually people who are not at peace in their own lives

But bring it even closer still:
I don't always do well to be angry:
Years ago some minister friends and I were chatting
and someone told me about a mistake a colleague had made.
A simple mistake; he had assumed I was available for pastoral help
while he went on holiday, but he had not checked to make sure I was around.
Now I would have been right to have been concerned,
he should have checked it out,
but I was more than concerned, I blew ...
I indulged in a fit of rage about this man's inefficiency
I was so passionate about it that one friend remarked quietly and wisely
'That's a interesting outburst.
Something else must be happening here to make you so mad.'
Did I do well to be angry? Why did I blow?
The simple answer was
that I did not like this man who had made the mistake, he irritated me.
If we had been on good terms I would have made little or nothing of it
but now I actually rejoiced in his iniquity, I had something on him.
In my anger I sinned, but God graciously used my friend to challenge me
about the inappropriate gap
between the supposed cause of my anger and my reaction.

Do we do well to be angry?
Do we have a fraction of Gods compassion towards people?
People who have done wrong, do you want them to be condemned?
Lads killed joyriding, a former terrorist takes his own life
what's your instant reaction? Serves them right?
A prominent politician caught with his pants down or his hands in the till:
do you want to know more and luxuriate in the details
or do you pray for God to have mercy on him and his family.
'Love does not rejoice in iniquity' says 1 Corinthians 13.
Love does not take delight in wrong doing
but does not some of our reaction to wrong doing
savour of a secret pleasure in it.
I am not talking about a proper concern for justice:
yes we need more righteousness in our society, more fair dealing,
more promise keeping, more truth speaking,
more respect for people, more care for the vulnerable
and that requires appropriate punishment of offenders
but we don't need any self righteousness
that secretly delights in people's downfall
We need more of Gods attitude
'a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love'

And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat
and waited for God to come round to his way of thinking
And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs in their comfortable houses
to come round to his way of thinking and loving.

Quietly, let's allow the Holy Spirit to shine a probing light on our attitudes,
on our long hidden memories,
our sense that we have been badly treated
and also that need to acknowledge that we have treated others badly.

Think of a time when we blew it
on the road, at work, in our homes.
Lord, show us the roots of our anger
if we have done well or badly to be angry,
what really fuelled our emotions
what insecurity or buried guilt drove us to react inappropriately
We confess to you
we say we are sorry for what we did wrong in that situation
we thank you that there is full and free forgiveness in Jesus Christ
and we ask for grace to react in a better way
and if need be for the will to go to someone and ask their forgiveness
for how our unrighteous anger hurt them.

May the Lord direct your hearts
into God's love and Christ's perseverance.
2 Thess.. 3.5