Love and Anger

Matthew 23:18 – “You also say if anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on the altar, they are bound.”

I’ve been thinking about love and anger this morning. Love, because God calls us to love others as ourselves. Anger, because it is completely normal to feel angry at the situation 45 and his administration have created. Angry at them personally. Angry at the Republican senators and congresspeople allowing him to dismantle American democracy. I’m especially angry at McConnell for his lies and deceit, as well as his sneakiness. McConnell would have made a great Pharisee – always making rules for others that he himself doesn’t adhere to.

How can we hope to love people who want to do us harm? How can we get over being angry every damn day? How can we get through this shit?

I was asking these questions this morning. The answer I got was love. Love your God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. Call your representatives out of love not for them, but for the people they are hurting. Join organizations in your area that help out of love for the people they help. Vote out of love for the people who will benefit from the policies you’re voting for. March out of love for the people you’re standing up with. Resist in any way you can out of love for those who will benefit. Because those people are God’s priority.

Love expands our hearts and our worlds. Notice how people in love seem to radiate love around them? However, we cannot be in that hyper-loving state all the time. Love isn’t always beautiful. Love is caring for a sick relative, making coffee for your spouse even though you’re angry, speaking truth to power, standing in solidarity with the marginalized. It takes risks. Acting out of love for God, for others, or for ourselves helps our mental state. We do it for us as much as we do it for others. Love in action increases the amount of love in the world, and that’s never a bad thing.

Anger, on the other hand, grows by devouring us. Acting out of anger keeps its fire alive, consuming us. Anger’s job is to tell us when something is wrong. Once we know what is wrong, its usefulness transforms into destruction. When we continue to dwell on our hurts, anger can easily turn to hate. We are seeing the results of resentments carefully nursed through decades of Republicans telling their base – white, working-class, protestant men – that they deserve more out of life and their problems are caused by those people – taking your jobs, raping your women, getting away with welfare fraud, getting away with sin. Hate motivates their cruel, inhumane policies.

To avoid slipping into hate, we must find a way to get past our anger. Getting past anger first requires us to let it go and accept the situation for what it is. Sometimes that takes a long time. Of course, the next step is to fight to change the injustice. One way to accept our current situation is to stop being surprised every time a ‘white’ person calls 911 on a Black person going about their business. Stop being surprised every time 45 lies. Stop being surprised by the depth of the corruption of this president, his staff, and the Republicans who silently prop him up. They told us who they were a long time ago. Our surprise only muddles our focus.

Like the Pharisees, the Republicans in this administration as well as Fox News commentators live by a double standard. They try to hold others accountable in ways they don’t hold themselves accountable. Holding them accountable is a loving act as well as our job as citizens. It starts by calling out their behavior for what it is. Out of love for those who are hurting, we speak out in any way we can, just as Jesus is doing here.