Christ Church Sermon, Real Jesus: Anger, June 14 2026

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will be up here.

Our scripture reading today is from the

New Testament book of Ephesians 4:26 and

Ephesians 4:26

27. Here are these words. In your anger,

do not sin. Do not let the sun go down

while you are still angry. And do not

let the devil get a foothold.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Statistically, as a society, we have a

problem with anger.

22% of us feel angry almost all of the

time. As much as 26% of all people who

are employed say that they have

experienced frequent anger, verbal

abuse, or being completely ignored by

their co-workers, which amounts to what

they now term office rage.

84% of us are angrier than we were a

generation ago.

And if that's not enough, over 90% of us

admit to driving recklessly at some

point during the year, which probably

means that it's 110% of us are just

holding out, not being willing to admit

that we actually do it. That can lead to

road rage. And there has been a 500%

increase in reported cases of road rage

in the last 10 years. And if all of

those things are making you anxious, I

want to remind you that the last in our

sermon series of real Jesus, the

emotions that Jesus faced, we're going

to be talking about anxiety and that's

next week. So come on back and you can

hear more about what the Bible has to

say about that.

But we are angry about a lot of things.

I was reminded when I was putting the

sermon together of George Castanza from

the sitcom Seinfeld from a long time ago

now. Um, anybody remember George

Castanza's father, Frank, and the

holiday that he created to deal with his

stress? Anybody? Couple of you. Okay,

there we go. Got some hands. Just wanted

to make sure we were connecting. Frank

had grown tired of the stress of the

Christmas holiday. And so, he invented

his own holiday called Festivus as a way

to release the anger and the stress that

he felt about that time of year.

Remember, he set up an aluminum pole

instead of a Christmas tree. And when we

talk about traditions that he had, he uh

created something called airing of the

grievances where he would tell everyone

around the table just how much they had

ticked him off during the past year.

It made for a really funny half an hour

of television, but in reality, many of

us, probably too many of us, are

carrying around that kind of anger like

Frank had, and we don't really know how

to handle it either.

The Bible has something to say about

that. In fact, it has over 500 things to

say about anger through the course of

all 66 books. We're going to focus on

just a few of those verses today,

starting with the verse that Pat just

read to us. Let's hear it again. So,

Ephesians 4:26 and 27 says, "In your

Ephesians 4:26

anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go

down on while you are still angry, and

do not give the devil a foothold."

So, let's break that apart and get to

the heart of what those two verses are

really saying to us. The first thing it

says is in your anger, do not sin. And

what I find immediately striking about

that particular part of that verse is

that it doesn't say not to get angry.

The Bible doesn't promise that when we

find Jesus, we won't ever experience

anger again. What it says is not to let

your anger lead to sin. So in other

words, we have a choice. We can be

people who are controlled by our anger

or we can be people who are in control

of our anger.

Jesus knew how to control his anger. In

the 10th 10th chapter of Mark, we read

about how Jesus got upset at his

disciples. And it says this verses 13-

16. One day some parents brought their

children to Jesus so he could touch and

bless them. But the disciples scolded

the parents for bothering him. When

Jesus saw what was happening, he was

angry with his disciples. He said to

them, "Let the children come to me.

Don't stop them. For the kingdom of God

belongs to those who are like these

children. I tell you the truth. Anyone

who does not receive the kingdom of God

like a child will never enter it." Then

he took the children in his arms and

placed his hands on their heads and

blessed them.

Notice what Jesus did and did not do

when he got angry. He did address the

source of his anger. Anger, the

disciples, who although very

well-meaning, I think kept children from

interacting with and being blessed by

Jesus. He reprimanded the disciples and

he told them how to behave differently.

What he did not do was take the

frustration he had with his disciples

out on the children or their parents.

Instead, he gathered the children to him

and he laid his hands on their heads and

blessed them.

Then there's the example that we all

like to cite when we talk about this

anger that Jesus had and it is the

flipping of the tables in the temple

courts. Listen to that passage in its

entirety from Matthew chapter 21. Jesus

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

entered the temple courts and drove out

all who were buying and selling there.

He overturned the tables of the money

changers and the benches of those

selling doves. It is written, he said to

them, "My house will be called a house

of prayer, but you are making it a den

of robbers."

The blind and the lame came to him at

the temple, and he healed them.

Jesus got angry. Jesus got really angry

at the right people. the people who were

defiling the sacred space of the temple

by practicing shady business deals

within its walls. But then he turned

around and immediately

immediately after that started

ministering to those who needed healing.

Jesus modeled for us that it was okay to

be angry as long as our anger is

controlled and as long as it is directed

where it should be directed.

Today's scripture also tells us that we

should not let the sun go down on our

anger. This is where we get our

modern-day expression, don't go to bed

angry. Biblical scholars, however, don't

believe that Paul, who wrote uh the

scripture today, meant those words

literally, like we need to have all of

our disagreements in life ironed out and

taken care of before we go to sleep at

night. Rather, they think he meant to

imply that anger is just not something

we should ignore, but something we

should deal with sooner rather than

later. so that it does not have time to

fester and become worse than it actually

is.

A couple of times a year, Pastor Chris

and I sit down, we figure out who is

preaching on what dates throughout the

year. And when we talked about who was

preaching this um particular part or

particular parts of this series, I think

that he took a little bit of joy, which

he got to preach on, in the fact that I

had to tackle the subject of anger,

which is not nearly as fun. Little did

he know though how God would work

through that because what neither of us

knew at the time was that this past week

I lived out this scripture. On Wednesday

night I did indeed go to bed angry.

That was the night when the news broke

about the decision that the Southern

Baptist Convention made to permanently

ban women from preaching and teaching.

To this point, they've been requiring

churches who have women in leadership

roles to disaffiliate from the

denomination. And what's happening now

is a movement to have that language,

that ban on women written into their

constitution so that it can never be

revoked. And to be fair, this is just

the first step, what happened this week,

in getting this passed. It actually has

to pass two years in a row for it to be

part of their constitution. So, it will

need to be voted on next year as well.

However, it passed this year with 75% in

favor of the amendment to ban women from

preaching and teaching. And so the odds

are pretty good that it's going to pass

next year.

And I will admit to you that I was

angry.

I was angry on behalf of women who feel

called by God to do this work and are

being told that they cannot because God

doesn't use women in that way. I was

angry because it felt like scripture was

being used to separate us instead of

unite us to discriminate rather than to

celebrate. And to be perfectly honest

with you, I was angry that in 2026 we

still have to have this discussion.

And rather than doing what scripture

said, rather than trying to resolve my

anger through prayer and reading and

studying um the Bible for myself or even

talking to anyone and sharing my

frustration and my anger, I let it

fester and I went to bed angry. I

literally let the sun go down on my

anger. And so, while I am grateful that

I know through my studies that Paul

wasn't being literal, I find a little

bit of irony and a little bit of humor

in the fact that I lived it out in such

a literal way.

But something amazing happened

overnight.

Sometime in the dark hours, God shone

his light into my angry heart, proving

that God is at work changing hearts all

the time, even when we're sleeping.

And when I woke up on Thursday morning,

I wasn't as angry anymore.

To be perfectly honest, it's still not

fully gone because I'm a work in

progress. But when I woke up that

morning, it had largely dissipated that

anger. And the overwhelming feeling that

God had put on my heart in its place was

gratitude.

As I began praying that morning, the

picture that came into my head was one

from our Western Pennsylvania annual

conference that happened on Friday, June

5th. So, less than a week before this

happened with the Southern Baptist

Convention. annual conference for us is

an opportunity for United Methodist

pastors all over Western Pennsylvania to

gather together um with lay leaders in

our denomination and to um de uh to uh

debate legislation to celebrate being a

church and to worship together.

At this year's annual conference, I had

the privilege to stand alongside about

60 other women in front of the whole

gathering as together we celebrated the

70th anniversary of the passage of

legislation that allowed women full

clergy rights in the United Methodist

Church. And what you see on your screen

now [applause]

and what you see on the screen now is a

picture of the women who were present

that day. To be clear, women have been

preachers since we proclaimed the

resurrection of Christ from the dead at

the tomb. And in the Methodist church

since John Wesley founded it back in the

late 1700s, it just took the church a

couple of hundred years to make it

official.

So this past Thursday, after I had been

so angry the night before, that memory

of women joining together in celebration

of callings fulfilled was the first

thing that God brought to my heart and

to my head that morning. And because of

God working in my heart, I went about my

life and my work here that Thursday with

a spirit of gratitude instead of a heart

filled with anger.

Gratitude for women pastors and church

leaders that I got to witness while

growing up who modeled for everyone that

there was a place for women's voices in

church leadership. Gratitude for the

male pastors in my life who have

supported women pastors who have

encouraged us, recognized us, celebrated

us, and never acted as though women's

leadership was less than simply because

of gender.

Gratitude for this church in particular.

It is the place I grew up, the place I

felt called.

Gratitude that in this place we have

almost always had women in leadership

roles, including elders, deacons, and

staff members almost since the formation

of this church.

Gratitude for a denomination that says

that women have the same rights as men

and that we were not created to be

relegated to supportive roles, but

instead created fully in the image of

God to do the work of preaching and

teaching that God has called women to

do.

But most of all, hear this. Most of all,

I was grateful to God that God worked on

my heart that morning when through his

grace, he replaced my anger with his

peace.

Finally, today's scripture tells us not

to give the devil a foothold.

The original text from which this verse

is derived uses the Greek word tapon,

which means opportunity instead of

foothold.

And as I said before, anger in itself

isn't a sin, but how we handle it can

be. Anytime we don't resolve our anger,

anytime we let it build and build,

instead of dealing with it or addressing

it, we are giving the devil an

opportunity to start working in our

lives, an opportunity to lead us to sin.

Any space we give the devil in our lives

is too much space.

He is the very def definition of if you

give him an inch, he'll take a mile. He

will exploit every opportunity, every

little bit of unresolved anger and use

it to break relationships, divide

families, and destroy spiritual lives.

So, how do we guard against sinning out

of anger and thereby protect ourselves

from the devil worming his way into our

lives? Scripture has an answer for that,

too.

First, we hear the reminder in James to

take note of this. Everyone should be

quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow

to become angry because human anger does

not produce the righteousness that God

desires.

So, first we slow down and we take a

beat. We learn to listen and then we

speak. We remember that when our anger

is egregious and misdirected, it does

not honor God.

Next, we turn to the verses that follow

our original passage that we read today.

And these verses give us additional

instructions on how to deal with our

anger so that the devil does not get

that opportunity to work in our lives. I

want to read these verses to you from

the meth the message translation because

I think the words give us this really

poetically clear picture of how we are

to behave in place of anger.

First, we hear in this scripture that

above all else, we belong to God. That

that relationship is the most important

one we have and how much it really

matters to God.

Ephesians 4:30 says, "Don't grieve God.

Ephesians 4:30

Don't break God's heart. His holy spirit

moving and breathing in you is the most

intimate part of your life, making you

fit for himself.

Don't take such a gift for granted.

The next thing we're going to hear is

how we should treat other people instead

of opening the door to anger and giving

the devil that opportunity to come into

our hearts and determine our actions.

Starting again at verse 31, make a clean

break with all cutting, backbiting,

profane talk. Be gentle with one another

and sensitive. Forgive one another as

quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ

forgave you. Watch what God does and

then you do it like children who learn

proper behavior from their parents.

Mostly what God does is love you. Keep

company with him and learn a life of

love. Observe how Christ loved us. His

love was not cautious but extravagant.

He didn't love in order to get something

from us but to give everything of

himself to us. Love like that.

The instructions are clear. Behave as

though you are a child of God because

you are. And behave as though you are

always speaking to another child of God

because you are.

Pay attention to Jesus. Learn from what

he did. Learn from how he loves you and

how he loves other people. Because

here's the thing we need to know, and

this really gets to the heart of it.

Anger is easy, but love is hard.

It's easy to fly off the handle. We see

it all the time, and many of us do it

ourselves.

It's easy to get irrationally upset when

someone cuts us off in traffic, or they

ignore us, or they get something that we

thought should be ours.

Anger is any emotion and emotions get

the better of us really easily, taking

over our hearts and our heads and our

actions really quickly, sometimes in a

matter of seconds.

Love, on the other hand, is a choice.

It's a decision. to deliberate action

that requires us to take intentional

steps to think about how we're going to

express it and then to act so that the

person we are interacting with is able

to see the love of God shining through

us.

We are going to get angry. We're human

after all. The temptation is to keep

taking the easy way out and allowing

anger to take up permanent residence

inside of us.

When you feel that temptation to stay

rooted in anger, remember Jesus.

Remember how he expressed anger and

remember then how he loved.

Choosing love over anger is a challenge,

but it is also our calling.

We can't do it on our own. But when we

trust God, amazing things happen. After

all, God is in the business of changing

hearts. It happened to me this week. God

changed my heart and God can change all

of our hearts, too.

Let's pray.

Loving God, we are

a people who cling to anger

and who very easily switch over to rage.

Today we pray that we would not allow

the devil to work that way in our

hearts. That you would replace our anger

with your peace and with your love. That

instead of anger, we would be able to

turn that over to you and that we would

be acting out of love for all of those

with whom we come in contact. We pray

that you would guide our actions and our

words. We pray that you would not allow

the devil any way into our lives, but

that it is your love that would take

root

and your love that would speak through

us to a world that needs so desperately

to hear it.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.