Chapter 9: Righteous Indignation
In my first year of seminary, a classmate in our Introduction to New Testament Studies class described Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the temple as “Our Lord’s hissy fit.” The words did what they were supposed to: they caught our attention. My classmate called the story that for a couple of reasons: one was to make Jesus’ anger and deep frustration clearer, and the other was to contrast it with the less just reasons to be angry we see and feel. The people Jesus gets mad at are extorting others by exploiting their desire to be close to God through the temple’s customs.
What Bell tries to show is that responding to God’s love with love doesn’t always look nice, like something you’d see on a Hallmark card: righteous anger (“rooted in love and justice”) has its place, and it’s indifference, rather than anger, that is the emotion truly to be rejected.
- How comfortable are you with imagining the stories where we read of Jesus being angry? Have you imagined those moments before? What might we see Jesus being angry about in the world today?
- Where in your life do you see indifference casting its shadow on the people, issues and policies of our world? Why might this be the case?
- One of the petals of our diocesan vision is “Prophetic Social Justice Making.” How might knowing of Jesus’ anger help us in our quest to foster God’s justice in the world? How can we express our outrage in a way that will be heard by others?
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