"Did God actually need Moses' lessons in anger management?"
 Exodus 32:1-23

Sermon for Sunday 03/09/06 @ 6pm

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After reading a few stories all related to one emotional turmoil I decided to base my sermon on that. This week’s news were dominated by a story of a father who, while on holiday in Greece, jumped off of a four storey building killing his son, injuring his daughter, and injuring himself. According to the police indictment, Mr Hogan took his son Liam whos 4 and Mia who’s 2, into his arms after a furious argument with his wife, Natasha, in their hotel room and leapt off the balcony, plunging to the concrete floors below. Apparently Mr Hogan and his wife Natasha had had a blazing row that was heard throughout the hotel. It was in the anger and rage that lead to Mr Hogan making that fatal jump.

A few weeks ago another man killed his wife and three children aged 11, 8 and 6. The four dead bodies remained in the house undisturbed for four weeks before they were discovered. In the meantime the man had boarded a plane for Bangkok in Thailand where he was arrested and brought back to Britain to face trial. On leaving the plane, he was arrested on suspicion of the four murders.

The page that had this story had also another about a man who was jailed for nine years for attempted murder. He tried to electrocute and drown his fiancée while she was in the bath.

Now we leave the newspapers of twenty first century and go back in time three thousand years. On their way to the promised land the people of Israel under the leadership of Moses have had challenges and situations which I guess marked not only their journey but also the history of their descendants. One of those situations was when they made the golden calf and worshipped it while Moses had gone to talk with God. This was when he received the famous tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. God was angry with the people. This is what God said to Moses in Exodus 32:9: ‘I know how stubborn these people are. Now, don’t stop me. I am angry with them, and I am going to destroy them’. Moses was horrified by the prospect of loosing all the people he led. He argued with God and convinced him that should he destroy the people of Israel it would be a disaster not only to those who would perish but to God himself. In the end Moses persuaded God not to carry out what he had intended to do. He said: ‘stop being angry; change your mind and do not bring this disaster on your people’. And God did change his mind.

There is irony in this story; that after God changed his mind and stopped being angry, Moses took on that anger. He took the tablets of the Ten Commandments and went back down the mountain. Do you know what happened? Look at chapter 32:19 ‘When Moses came close enough to the camp to see the bull calf and to see the people dancing, he was furious. There at the foot of the mountain, he threw down the tablets he was carrying and broke them.’ In his anger Moses did what he had asked God not to do; which was to let the anger get the best of him.

There are some similarities between the anger of the man who jumped the hotel balcony killing his son, the anger of the man who killed his wife and three children, the anger of the man who almost electrocuted and drowned his fiancée, and God’s anger that was going to destroy the entire people of Israel. One big difference though; was that, in my view, God’s anger was justified although the destruction which was going to take place wasn’t; because that is why he changed his mind after Moses’ convincing argument. These four examples show us that anger can be costly, both physically and emotionally. Before I picked this topic for my sermon I asked myself whether we here today, have anything in common with these people. The answer was clear to me. But before I give you the answer, can somebody here say that they have never been angry? That they will never be angry? No I don’t think anybody here would be able to say they have never been angry or they will never be angry. Things happen and we do get angry.

The question is how do we deal with our anger? Can the Bible reading we had help us to deal with our anger? The difference between the men in the newspapers (maybe the fact that they all men tells something about how violent husband can be towards their wives) and God , is that God talked it over with a friend.. I don’t know whether you can see the pattern of these people’s behaviour. In one case a blazing row immediately followed by grabbing the children and jumping off the balcony, in the second case we do not know the details of the circumstances surrounding Mr Arshad’s wife and children’s murders, but what is known is that the children were last seen on July 28 and the man flew to Bangkok on July 29. You can see how close it was. The man who almost drowned his fiancée had, while she was in the bath, found a telephone bill that showed she had been in daily contact with a former lover. His anger didn’t even let him wait until his fiancée got out of the bath. God on hearing what the people of Israel had done, his reaction was I will destroy them. Fortunately according to the story God changed his mind.  

And as a way of conclusion, there are three lessons we can draw from these stories. One is that whenever we are angry about an issue. It is important to get a friend and talk it over. God was angry so we can be angry too. But let us be aware of what it can lead us into and try to control it. One of the ways to keep our anger under control is to talk to a friend about what is making us angry and what we want to do about it. One day, and this was many years ago back in Rwanda, a colleague priest from the Roman Catholic Church caused some upset in the congregation I was looking after. I was really angry and in that anger I went and wrote a long and confrontational letter in which I had let out my anger. Fortunately a friend dropped by to say hello and although I had not planned to show him this letter; there was something in me that was urging me to do so. I explained to him what had happened and asked him to look at the letter and tell me what he thought. After reading it he said: ‘Don’t send it. But if you really feel you want to send a word to your colleague, keep that letter somewhere for two days, then read it again. If you still think you need to send it, then send it.’ In the end I didn’t send it and I thank God for my friend and his advice.

And this leads me to my second point. Give anger time; as they say time is the best healer. We don’t know how long it took Moses to talk God out of destroying the people of Israel but it must have taken some time. In the meantime, while God and Moses exchanged words, the situation cooled down; things were put into perspective; and God saw that there was another way of dealing with the issue. Anger which is out of control leads to disasters. So talk to a friend and give it time.

My third and last point is that we need to learn to give our anger to God. As we saw in the reading in Exodus, God himself was angry. He knew how to deal with anger; his way should be our way. So if we submit ourselves and our anger to him he will know how to help us.  My prayer for each one us today is that God will help us to overcome the destructive power of anger. Amen

P.S: This Sermon is based on Exodus 32: 1-21 which was read only a few minutes before the sermon was preached. I asked the congregation not to read the remaining verses of the chapter. Can you now read those verses and tell me why I was concerned in case my sermon was thought of in conjunction with the rest of the chapter? Please send your reply to paulpetit7@hotmail.com. Thank you

© 2006