This Epiphany Season (January 6-February 17) we are following the ministry of Jesus as told in the Gospel of John, alongside our Church School curriculum.
Like a lot of us, I grew up with this idea of Jesus as gentle, loving, embracing, slow to anger, quick to love. It’s a conception nestled deep in my psyche that has brought much comfort throughout my life.
Which is part of why I’m grateful for this Sunday’s passage (John 2:13-25), when Jesus gets really pissed off in the temple, even overturning tables. I like it because we see the really human side of Jesus and we have to tease out where the godly side is in his behavior in this scene. It also causes us to reflect on how we should handle our own anger.
Like a lot of us, I grew up with discomfort about how to show your anger. Anger was seen as negative, often stuffed away, seeping out in passive aggression or occasionally blowing up in a sudden outburst. But anger is human emotion, woven throughout our lives. The work and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior that we celebrate this weekend, was rooted in both love and anger.
My guess is that many of you have things that you’re angry about. So come this weekend, and let’s reflect together on how Jesus might teach us to work with that anger.
I also warmly invite you to take whatever emotions you’re feeling and join us in service by making sandwiches and coming to worship with our unhoused siblings at common cathedral. We start with sandwich-making in the Parlor at 9:45am, and will leave from our worship at 11:45am to join on the Boston Common in time to serve lunch at 12:15pm. See more here.
In faith,
Kent
Image credit: “Christ Overturns the Tables of the Money-Changers,” by Peter Winifred (Canisius) Koenig
