“Have you any right to be angry?”
It would be interesting at some point to have a sermon series of Great Bible Questions, and this would surely be one of them. It’s the question God asks Jonah when he is upset with God for not destroying the people of Nineveh. Jonah even says that, precisely because he thought God would do this, he’d run away so as not to be part of it. He’s very angry, and angry with God, when God asks him, “Have you any right to be angry?” We can only guess how he might have responded! You can read the story in Jonah chapter 4.
And what about us? What would it be like if, the next time we’re angry about something, God asks us, “Do you have any right to be angry?” Occasionally, it is true, we do; our anger is totally justified. But most of the times we’re angry, aren’t we really saying something like this: “God, you shouldn’t have let things turn out like this. You’re not doing your job very well, you know. If I was God, I wouldn’t have let this happen.” Put like that, it sounds obviously wrong. But isn’t that what’s going on when we get angry? Things aren’t the way we want them to be and, even if we wouldn’t dare voice it, we’ve judged God for his performance and found him wanting.
A little humility would help. The reality is we just don’t know nearly enough to make such judgments, especially not of God. That’s not to say we should remain emotionally frozen and unresponsive. But it is to say we must be humble – to admit that we don’t know everything and that we might have got it wrong.
Chris Hobbs,
Vicar.