Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing

My apologies to Mr. Shakespeare for shamelessly stealing part of his line.

Anger.  Is it an emotion?  Dictionary.com seems to think so; it defines anger as "a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong".  Poor Merriam-Webster apparently doesn't know what it thinks about anger.  Its entry for anger points to angry which points back to anger.  Huh?  Perhaps they think that anger is such a common and obvious piece of the human experience that no one truly needs a real definition of it.  I would agree that with very few exceptions visitors to Merriam-Webster's web site already think they know all about anger.  But perhaps anger has been mislabeled, misinterpreted, and misunderstood by humans since that little matter of fruit in the garden.

I have been studying the book of James lately.  A few weeks ago I ran across a pretty familiar passage but this time it decided to jump out and hit me between the eyes.

James 1:19-20 - Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

It sounds pretty simple; we should not respond hastily about anything.  I've always accepted it at that level and moved on.  But what happens if we dig into this passage a little deeper?  

Let me set a couple of baselines for my conclusions first.  I'm not going to spend the time to dissect each of these core beliefs in this post.  But it is essential to at least know where I'm coming from, even if you don't know why.

• God is the only absolute good in the universe
• God and by extension His revealed word are the only absolute truths in the universe
• All of reality is defined by the two preceding statements
• Man, as a being created by God, must align his system of beliefs with God's standard if he wishes to hold a world-view that matches reality

With those items as the basis for progression let's look at the end of our passage first; "for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."  About God's righteousness Psalm 7:11 has this to say: God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day.  Immediately we see a contrast.  Man's anger does not produce righteousness.  But God can be both righteous and indignant (i.e. angry) at the same time.  Clearly there must be a vast difference between man's anger and God's anger.  Therefore anything we think we know about anger should be automatically suspect.  With that in mind I go back to our web definitions above.  Anger is defined as a feeling, which is a synonym for emotion.  I believe this is accurate in terms of how anger is expressed and viewed by humanity.  But in light of our preceding conclusion that our own understanding is suspect I believe we should be prepared to accept that we might just be wrong about our understanding of anger.  

In other words, we as humans tend to think of anger as an emotional response to a situation we dislike.  But I am suggesting that anger handled the correct way (i.e. the biblical way) is not an emotional response at all.  Allow me to explain.

First I should note that James is not referring to a specific situation or type of encounter here.  His purpose is to present a series of general life guidelines and how we should respond to them.  There is a theme throughout James of actions speaking louder than words but he doesn't get into the meat of that argument until chapter two and after.  This first chapter certainly has elements of it but the individual vignettes contained here are still mostly autonomous.  It's kind of like a section of detailed proverbs, each of which can be applied in a broad sense.  Therefore it is best understood that our passage is intended to be taken in the same way.

So let's take a look at the progression of responses James and the Holy Spirit chose to use.

1. quick to hear
2. slow to speak
3. slow to anger

Taken independently of each other these three elements all can be understood to mean roughly the same thing as mentioned above; don't be hasty.  But what if they are intended to be followed in a chronological sequence?  I believe that paints a very different picture.  

First, we should always be ready to listen to what others have to say.  This should be the initial response to every situation; to hear what is being said.  Sadly, far too often I don't manage to even get past this first step because my own self importance gets in the way and drives me to spout off with what I think I know.  

Only after we have listened fully should we speak, and slowly at that.  I do not believe this phrasing necessarily calls for an actual decrease in the cadence of words flowing out of our mouths (although it might not be a bad idea sometimes).  Rather it points to an increase in the thoughtfulness and care applied to our choices about which words flow out of our mouths.  Instead of dashing off a hasty rebuttal in the heat of the moment we should carefully and critically assess what we are about to say.  

Words are incredibly powerful devices.  Later in his book James calls the tongue "a restless evil and full of deadly poison".  It is not the physical member of our bodies that is being referenced here but that which flows from it.  Words, whether spoken or written, have the power to destroy people and topple governments.  Consider the case of Egypt these past few years.  A regime decades in power eventually toppled by mere words which led to ideas and progressed beyond the ability of those in power to check.  On a personal level, words once uttered usually cannot be completely taken back.  No matter how much one apologizes or how much biblical forgiveness is sought after the specter of poorly chosen words has the potential to hang in the air like a deadly cloud, souring relationships and fueling resentment.  Throw them around hastily at your peril.
Finally, only after hearing completely and responding carefully should the notion of anger even be entertained.  And James emphasizes slowness even here at the far end of our response spectrum.    

I believe the Holy Spirit belabors the point of slowing down because He fully understands how difficult this concept of deliberate measured responses would be for us to understand.  We of the fast 21st century lifestyles who dash off 10 texts in half as many minutes (conservatively!), air inter-personal drama with all 857 of our Facebook friends, and share with Twitter what we had for lunch.  All while surfing 3 news web sites and scanning the RSS feeds of 5 more with the television blaring in the background.

To sum all of this up here is the revelation that struck me as I read James 1:19-20.  Anger is typically understood as an emotional feeling triggered quickly and acted upon hastily.  But the anger that I see prescribed by James is far from a fast response to stimuli.  Rather, it is a carefully considered and reasoned decision about how to deal with a situation.

Thus speaking to the point of this post, I'm not so sure that biblical anger as found in James should even be classified properly as an emotion.  And I don't know about anyone else, but of the many and varied times in my life that I have been angry not many have looked anything like the process described above.  

Sound and fury, signifying nothing indeed...

Soli Deo Gloria