Weekly Sermon of
Dave Johnson

Episcopal Church of the Resurrection
“Slow to Anger” (James 1:19-20)
September 1, 2024
Dave Johnson

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I am preaching on just one verse from today’s passage from the Letter of James,
two verses that have had a huge impact on my life, two verses that reveal both how
God treats us and how we are to treat one another, two verses that if apply it to
your life I promise you will bear much fruit: “You must understand this, my
beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your
anger does not produce God’s righteousness” (James 1:19-20). The emphatic
Greek verb oida, translated here “You must understand this” could also be
translated as “You must remember this” or “You must keep this in mind.” “You
must understand this,” James writes, “let everyone be quick to listen, slow to
speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”

“Be quick to listen, slow to speak,” James tells us. We live in a world in which
most of us do the exact opposite—we are quick to speak and slow to listen. We
want to make sure we are understood before we consider whether or not we
understand the other person. Guess how long the average person listens before
interrupting? 15 seconds. Yikes! There is a great book that I’ve gone through
with many couples during premarital counseling called The Marriage Book by
Nicky and Sila Lee—not the most creative title, but a book filled with wisdom. In
this book they humorously describe several types of people who are bad listeners:

 

• the advice giver who will give you unsolicited advice that usually proves unhelpful,

• the interrupter who will not only cut you off when you are talking but also finish your sentences for you,

• the reassurer who ends the conversation short with shallow reassurances like “Don’t worry about it, this too will pass, it’ll all work out”,

• the rationalizer who will explain to you why you feel the way you do and what you need to do to deal with it,

• and the deflector who takes the conversation in an entirely different direction in order to avoid what actually needs to be talked about.

 

Of course, I am not guilty of any of these, but I have “a friend”
who has been all these at one time or another. Of course, the truth is being “quick
to listen, slow to speak” will strengthen every relationship in your life.

Listening matters. Think about yourself for a moment. How do you feel when
someone really listens to you—listens to you without giving you advice you didn’t
ask for, listens to you without finishing your sentences for you, listens to you
without reassuring you with shallow platitudes, listens to you without changing the
topic of conversation to something irrelevant? When someone really listens to
you, you feel validated, you feel cared for, you feel accepted. On a deeper level
when someone really listens to you it can be healing. Being “quick to listen, slow
to speak” is always helpful and will always strengthen any relationship.
 

But what happens when you regularly experience the opposite, when the norm for
that relationship is “quick to speak, slow to listen”, when the norm for that
relationship is never being really listened to ever? You feel hurt, you withdraw,
you shut down, you turn to others hoping to find someone who will care enough
for you to really listen to you, or perhaps you self-medicate. And on a deeper
level, what is the result of not being listened to? Anger. This makes sense because
not being listened to hurts, and often hurt is the root of anger. That’s why James
writes, “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen,
slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s
righteousness.” It all connects.

How about an illustration from a classic 80’s movie? In one of the best 80’s
movies ever, the 1986 John Hughes hit film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Matthew
Broderick plays Ferris Bueller, a high school senior who decides to take a day off
and skip school. He is joined by his friend Cameron and girlfriend Sloane. There
are so many hilarious and memorable scenes. During the day they “borrow”
Cameron’s dad’s gorgeous read Ferrari convertible. Later that afternoon when
they return it to his father’s garage Cameron panics because the mileage on the
odometer would show his father they had “borrowed” it. So, they jack up the rear
wheels and run the car in reverse to lower the odometer back to where it should be.

While the Ferrari is running in reverse, and the odometer is adjusting there is a
poignant scene. Cameron is filled with anger toward his dad because he has never
felt listened to by him. He glares at the Ferrari and exclaims, “My old man pushes
me around! I never say anything!” He leans against the hood of the car, “I gotta
take a stand. I gotta take a stand against him.” Cameron starts kicking his father’s
beautiful Ferrari, “I am so sick of him and I can’t stand him and I hate this car!”

Cameron keeps kicking the Ferrari, dents the bumper and the hood, smashes out a
headlight. “Who do you love?” he yells, “Who do you love? You love a car!” As
he keeps kicking the front of the Ferrari you see the jack at the rear of the car begin
to lean backwards. Cameron looks at the damage he has done and chuckles
ruefully, “I dented the heck out of it. Good! My father will come home and see
what I did, I can’t hide this. He’ll have to deal with me.” He wipes a tear from his
eyes, “I don’t care, I really don’t. I’m just tired of being afraid.” Then he places a
foot on the front of the Ferrari, “I can’t wait to see the look on his face”—and at
that moment the jack gives way and the Ferrari with its wheels still going in
reverse zips through the huge glass window in the back of the garage and plunges
down two stories and smashes into the ground. Ferris and Sloane peer over the
edge at the totaled Ferrari. Cameron is stunned, “What’d I do?” he asks. Ferris
pauses and looks at Cameron, “You killed the car.” I’ll never forget how all of us
in that packed movie theater that had laughed so loud at all the funny scenes was
silent during that painful scene. Why? Because everybody knows what it’s like to
not be listened to, and everybody knows what it’s like to be really angry.

The problem is your anger will never help; your anger will never make things
better. “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen,
slow to speak, slow to anger”—anger is deadly, not just to your father’s Ferrari,
but to you. Being quick to anger is dangerous; it wreaks havoc on your physical
health and can lead to digestive problems, high blood pressure, insomnia, heart
attacks, and being quick to anger will also wreak havoc on your relationships or
wreck them altogether. On the other hand, being slow to anger will not only help
your relationships, but it could also prolong your life. There is a reason scripture
warns us, “Refrain from evil, and forsake wrath...it only leads to evil” (Psalm
37:8)—and tells us, “One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one
whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city” (Proverbs 16:32). And in
his Sermon on the Mount Jesus was very blunt when he preached about anger:

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not
murder” and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to
you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to
judgment (Matthew 5:21-22).

Anger is destructive, anger is deadly, anger never makes anything better.

“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to
speak, slow to anger,” James writes. Why are we to be “slow to anger”? Because
as James continues, “Your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” When
you unleash your anger on someone and think you “won” because you think you
“straightened them out” or “gave them a piece of your mind” or “made your point
in no uncertain terms” or “showed them who’s boss” or whatever, your “winning”
wounded that other person (and probably wounded yourself too) and doubtless left
hurt and resentment in its wake. “Your anger does not produce God’s
righteousness”—James is utterly direct here, no nuance. I can’t speak for you, but
every time in my life I have lashed out in anger, even if I felt justified in doing so, I
always regretted it because my anger never produced God’s righteousness.

So, if our anger “does not produce God’s righteousness” what does? This is where
the good news of the gospel comes in, because ultimately, the only One who can
produce God’s righteousness is the only One who is truly righteous to begin with,
the One scripture identifies as “Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1)—and Jesus
Christ the righteous produced God’s righteousness in his death on the cross. Paul
put it this way in his Letter to the Romans:

The righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and
the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all
who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:21-24).

When it comes to anger, all of us “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”,
but bn Good Friday, Jesus Christ the righteous who throughout his earthly ministry
had always been “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger” took both the
anger of God for our sin upon himself and the anger of the world upon himself and
in doing so produced God’s righteousness. This means when it comes to the anger
in your heart—anger at others or anger at yourself, perhaps anger rooted in your
hurt of never really being listened too—you can lay it at the foot of the cross of the
Jesus Christ, who has always really listened to you and whose love can heal you
and actually produce what your anger never will: the righteousness of God.

Amen.