Feet On the Table—Anger

Sandy, carrying several overflowing bags of groceries, struggled to get through the front door. She had had a horrible time shopping. The store was crowded (the students were back and hungry), the kids fought and nagged the whole time, and she hit her head on the door when she was trying to pick up all the bags. Here she was struggling to get through the door and Wilbur, her husband just sat there watching her. Not only was he just sitting there watching her (with a bemused look on his face, she thought), but he had his feet on the coffee table that her great grandmother had left her.

So, let’s talk about anger for a minute. Surely, Sandy has extreme justification for being angry, certainly anger directed at Wilbur. Life is hard. Crowds are testing. Children can be something other than cute. But husbands with their feet on the table? Not helping? Did I mention that he had his feet on the table… the heirloom table? Come on. If anger were ever allowable, even right, this is one of those times, surely.

But the Bible says, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:31–32).

It’s true that the Bible says to be angry and not sin (Eph 4:26), but what does that mean? Does it mean that it is okay to be angry for any reason at all as long as you don’t sin when you are angry? How does that work? Give me an example of that. And if you do, does it fit Sandy’s situation?

Let’s examine Sandy’s situation for a second. Let’s begin with her anger at Wilbur. Who is the focus of Sandy’s attention? If you say Wilbur, you’d be a little bit wrong. Not a lot wrong, but there is a lot going on here. Suppose for instance that normally, when Sandy came home from shopping, Wilbur jumped right up when he first heard the door. Suppose he did it with great glee and excitement for seeing and helping Sandy. But this time, he didn’t. Why not? Well, it turns out that this time, while Sandy was out shopping Wilbur was busy falling off the roof (where he was taking down the Christmas lights) and breaking his leg. By the time Sandy came home, he’d already been to the doctor, had the bone set, and had his leg put in a cast. When Sandy struggled through the door, Wilbur had just gotten home himself, taken all his pain meds, sat down and had just put his very well padded (he knew he needed to protect the table) foot on the coffee table. In fact, though he was excited to see Sandy, and would have jumped up to help her, he just couldn’t.

But Sandy had had a hard day. She didn’t know anything about Wilbur’s leg. All she saw was herself struggling, the kids crazy, the crowded store impossible and her husband not helping. Her attention was focused on her and her situation. She was angry, but it wasn’t Wilbur’s fault. In fact, you could hardly call what he did, provocation or temptation for her anger. But here she is, dropping her bags, cursing Wilbur and all his family.

Imagine her chagrin when mid-rant she realized that his feet aren’t muddy, it isn’t “feet” on the table, it is foot on the table, and it is a large padded cast. She looked at his face and saw a pallid, though smiling, a little bit confused look on it and realized that all wasn’t’ what she thought. In fact, it is much worse, in a different way, than she thought. Now her emotions switch from anger at him sitting there to compassion for him being hurt, mixed together (perhaps) with anger at the realization that now she has another person in the house she must help. But again, when we talk about Sandy’s anger, who is at the center? Who is being wronged? Who is being put out? Who is the victim? She is. And that’s where the sin comes in.

The verse we tried to use to get around being angry isn’t working.  Be angry and don’t sin, didn’t work. Sandy was in the middle of sinning by telling Wilbur what’s what, when she noticed his suffering. So, she needs to acknowledge that the fact of her anger was sinful all by itself. She never got to the stage where she could wonder if she could be angry and not sin. Her anger, by itself, was sinful because it was totally selfish.

Okay, you say. Let’s see if we can give Sandy a break and suggest that Wilbur doesn’t normally help. He normally just sits on the couch with his feet on the furniture and laughs at Sandy when she is having a hard time. Okay, let’s assume that. Who is she thinking about now? Who is the person being wronged? Who should be served and worshipped and helped? Even though the situation is changed, Sandy is still at the center. Now suppose she lights into Wilbur for his laziness, his rude treatment of her stuff, his insensitivity to her plight. She is right about Wilbur, but she is still sinning by being angry. And she is sinning in her anger (Eph 5:33). Sandy appears to be more “righteous” because she isn’t wrong about Wilbur, but she is just as selfish, in exactly the same way as she was in the scenario where Wilbur had broken his leg.

Another way to look at this situation is to look for what Sandy is not doing. In the passage I quoted in the beginning, anger was to be avoided, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger…be put away from you….” We have already seen that because Sandy was focused so intently on herself and her situation, that she was angered by everything that didn’t “go her way,” culminating in the event with Wilbur. But the next verse says what should be done instead: “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:32). What this means is that all sins are both sins of commission and sins of omission. We both do things and we don’t do other things. So, when we are thinking about what went wrong, we should look at both what did do and what we didn’t do. In this case, Sandy was angry, but she also wasn’t kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving (which I think means, being ready and excited to forgive). The sin was both being angry and not being kind, etc.

Okay, here’s how Sandy should proceed. First, she needs to get off by herself for a few minutes and confess her sin to God. She needs to not only confess her anger but also her not being kind, tenderhearted, forgiving. And more than that she needs to confess the sin of being at the center of her life all day long. It was this self-centeredness that led to all her sins all day long. She was the most important person in her life and no one else acted like they got the message. So, she needs to confess her sin to God and ask him to forgive her. She needs to read some Scripture, sing a psalm or hymn or two and receive his Grace.

Second, when she is fully back in fellowship with God, she needs to go back out and confess her sin to Wilbur. If she is generally a godly woman, she has probably already mentioned her sin to him (at least in the first scenario), but she needs to go back and make it a more formal discussion. She should confess all the same sins to him that she did to God and, again, ask him to forgive her. Then, when he does, she should give him a big hug. This hug part isn’t necessarily in the Bible, but it feels good and it helps to make sure the air is clear.

Third, she needs to go back to anyone else she was involved with all day and confess her sin to them. This includes the kids, the checkout girl and anyone else she snipped at that she can find.

Finally, she needs to think about how and when she went off the reservation. Did she skip her devotions today? Yesterday? She hasn’t met with God for months? Did she fall for the temptation to put herself in the middle when the new puppy piddled in the laundry room (can you believe he did it again?)? Then she needs to work with God to ensure that she is always ready for the fight to keep God and others in the center of her life. She needs to focus on that part where others are more important than herself (Phil 2:3) and she is kind, tenderhearted and forgiving.

And lots of hugs.