What caused Jesus to feel outrage?
Stewarding Outrage, Part 2
From Pastor Chris
What caused Jesus to feel outrage? A brief survey of his earthly life can give us direction for how we are to live faithfully in our day of incessant news and social media soapboxes.
The most well-known expression of Jesus’ outrage was in the temple when he drove out the money changers, overturning tables and blocking the commerce. “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:17) Those exchanging currency and selling animals for sacrifice had taken over the portion of the temple designated for Gentiles to worship. Jesus was doubly infuriated–the money-changers were both extorting the pilgrims and denying them access to worship God.
This theme of Jesus’ outrage over those who would deny access to God unites the other explicit gospel references to his anger. His own disciples were on the receiving end of Jesus’ indignation when they prevented children from coming to Jesus–”do not hinder them,” our Lord explicitly commanded (Mark 10:13-15). When the Pharisees set up a sting operation to see whether Jesus would heal on the Sabbath, “he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). Jesus seemed perpetually agitated with the Pharisees, but he launched his most incisive invective in Matthew 23, where his first “Woe!” against them captures the essence of them all: “you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces” (Matthew 23:13).
If we are to keep all of this relevant to our modern situation, we must remember the political context of Jesus’ day. The Roman Empire ruled ruthlessly over the children of Abraham with heavy taxation and unhesitating crucifixion of insurrectionists. Herod the Great’s reign was so marked by paranoia and violence toward his own power-hungry family members that the emperor Augustus reportedly said, “It is better to be Herod's pig than his son.” There was no shortage of injustice for Jesus to decry.
Yet much to the surprise of Messiah-seekers and the disappointment of his own disciples, Jesus did not level his guns at the oppressive Roman Empire. When asked his opinion about “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices” (Luke 13:1), Jesus used the violent tragedy to appeal to all sinners: “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). His highest commitment was to his Father’s plan to reconcile the rebellious and bring them into his eternal Empire.
How does this inform our response to news about blackface and border security, abortion and abuse?
At the very least, it should cause us to pause, step back, and ask a few questions when we feel outrage. What value of mine is being transgressed? What is my vision of the ideal situation? What action would I challenge the people involved to take?
My concern here is not that we feel outrage over abortion or racial discrimination. Rather, my concern is that our knee-jerk anger–if more influenced by the values of our neighbors than the values of Jesus–will short circuit the strongest emotions we should feel. Jesus’ indignation flowed from a radical orientation to God’s holiness, God’s wrath, and God’s loving initiative to reconcile with sinful humans.
Thus if we take the time to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19-20) our initial outrage over a blackface photo can turn into something bigger—a firm commitment to gospel-centered racial harmony in the church that welcomes all our neighbors into Christ’s family. Our strong feelings about abortion, regardless of the veracity of the most recent new story, can move us from political opinions to engagement with one of humanity’s greatest areas of brokenness—our sexuality. Our mission expands from “keep the baby” to “come find your belonging in the family of God” even as we give sacrificially to meet the growing family’s needs.
If we commit ourselves first to Jesus’ mission to remove all obstacles between sinners and God, outrage can become a catalyst for redemption and we can speak words of rebuke in the service of reconciliation.