The Whole World in the Hands of an Angry God

As we delve into the proper content of our summer series, Psalms! The Voice of The Heart, exploring the language of the emotions through the lens of the prayer book, I find myself experiencing and engaging all kinds of emotions in my own heart. There's gladness, of course - I genuinely enjoy preaching, and as a musician the Psalms lay special claim to my affections. But there's also fear in talking about emotions to emotional beings, with all of our baggage we bring. There's a bit of loneliness thinking of how I'll miss bouncing ideas off my coworkers as we're all traveling in and out over the next few weeks for church trips and vacations. There's also some shame when I think about how daunting these texts and concepts are and how limited I often feel before the colossal Word of God. But most of all, what I feel is anger.If that sounds strange to you, maybe it's because we typically think of anger in one of two caricatures: the first is the kind of blind vindictive rage, bitterness, or resentment that destroys relationships and nations, that wildfire blazing out of control and consuming all life in its path, leaving nothing but ash and rock in its volcanic wake. The other is the cartoonish lid-flipping that the Warner Brothers are so famous for: Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil and the others - these clowns who are constantly foiled by either circumstance or their own foolishness and simply can’t keep their tempers in check when their best laid plans go awry.Why on earth would I admit to feeling such base and immature emotions with reference to a sermon series? As I was coming of age in the 1990’s, (yes, I’m that young), the quintessential angry man of comedy was Mr. Adam Sandler, who somehow embodied both of the above parodies in one. He built a filmmaking empire out of playing essentially the same immature character surrounded by the same cast of misfit man-boys in movie after movie about guys whose inconsequential outbursts are just so gosh darn funny. But after a decade or so of diminishing returns on the same shtick, most people had simply stopped watching. Those people probably missed Punch Drunk Love. In 2002, Paul Thomas Anderson hired Sandler to play Barry Egan, essentially the same character Sandler had always played, but with one significant difference: this was no comedy. Barry was without that supporting cast of buffoons who never held him accountable for his actions; without those fortuitous coincidences that left him on top in spite of his failures. In this story, his depression isn't funny and his intermittent violent outbursts aren’t working out for him. He finds himself isolated and alone as his mistakes come back to roost and he falls victim to an extortionist. But throughout the course of the film, Barry also falls in love with a young woman and learns that the proper end of anger is pure passion and a willingness to suffer for the object of one’s beloved. “I have so much strength in me you have no idea.” Barry tells his abuser. “I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.” His anger has found its purpose and he stands poised to fight for honor.For all its insight, Punch Drunk Love is a pretty obscene film and I certainly wouldn’t give it a blanket endorsement. But that scene in particular always stuck with me, and it describes well the way I feel about this sermon series. I have such a great burden and passion to share with you all that I’ve seen in the scriptures; it is literally propelling me to the pulpit. I feel like the prophet Jeremiah, who declared, “If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” That’s me this week. I am angry for the word of God and for His people and I can’t wait to tell you about how we can righteously reflect God’s true, good, and beautiful anger for us.