Mark, My Words: September 13, 2020
-
Anger seems to have lately become fashionable. At the simplest level, people get angry and jump on each other for such small mistakes. I don’t start up fast enough at the light, and a guy whizzes around me with an ugly shout (if I’m lucky!). A kid gets a bad grade, and is angry instead of remorseful, so the parents get angry, too: “I’ll give that teacher a piece of my mind!”
But anger is not a private sin; it always destroys someone else, as well as the angry one. You know that superior feeling we get when someone else is wrong? We think we have the power to forgive or keep hating them. But it’s not a choice: “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.”
This past Friday, we remembered the horrific crimes of Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 terrorist hijackers took control of 4 airliners in New York. The 2,819 people who died were citizens of 115 different nations! As hard as it sounds, these atrocities must be forgiven, because “hating back” increases the sum of evil already done. It is remarkable, perhaps, but most of the victims’ families have gone on to do good things for others, and have turned away from vengeance. After 9/11, there was even a 40% increase in people joining the Peace Corps. What a beautiful and ironic symbol!
To be like Christ is to see all people as Christ; and to release anger, we have to want to be like Christ. Our readings today overflow with the idea of finding compassion for wrongdoers, because if we do not forgive them, we cannot be forgiven. We may not get this exactly right in our lifetime. But wouldn’t it be better for us to die trying?