Thoughts on anger

But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide me now a man who can play well, and bring him to me.” Then one of the servants answered and said, “Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the LORD is with him.” Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse, and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul. So David came to Saul and stood before him. And he loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, “Please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.” And so it was, whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.
-- 1 Samuel 16:14-23

A colleague of mine, Leonard, posted a question on facebook about the ways in which we view God, and he questioned why we seem to conveniently forget depictions of God as "wrathful" or "angry," and focus instead only on the loving nature of God. My colleague questioned whether there was a sort of misogyny in ignoring the wrathful side of God because anger is so often associated with the feminine. I have attempted to gather my thoughts on this subject here.

"This is a fascinating question and one I actually wrote a sermon about. One of the things people seem to frequently overlook about Jesus is the fact that he gets angry... a lot! There is of course the time that he turns over the tables in the Temple, which is probably the most memorable, but there is also the time that he curses a fig tree so that it does not bear fruit. And don't forget how many times he outright called the Pharisee and Sadducees stupid! However, whenever I have pointed this out in Bible study or some similar situation, it's usually brushed off as 'Oh that's just the human part of Jesus, not the God part.'

"What gets me about it is there is no specific reason that the anger is attributed to the humanity of Jesus and not the divinity. There is plenty of evidence in the Hebrew Bible of God being angry; therefore anger is quite evidently a quality that belongs to God. I think that our describing God merely with phrases of love and comfort is in fact avoiding the truth: God is not always loving and is in fact quite capable of anger."

In response to this post, I was reminded by another poster that "anger is not always the absence of love." I responded to this comment in kind:

"I was not trying to imply it was; in fact I would agree with you completely. Love and anger exist independently of each other, and both can co-exist. However, the typical understanding of God is that God does not get angry at his followers, sine qua non, and I think this is a false supposition. Anger in love is in fact very common in the Old Testament. Perhaps one of my favorite stories is when God gets angry at Saul because he does not live up to God's expectations of him; Saul does not live up to his own potential, and because of this God actually sends an evil spirit to plague Saul. Is this anger without love? I think not; it is anger because of love.

"And as for the idea that there is an inherent misogyny in referring to God as only loving, I think one must consider what value is assigned to God's anger. Is God's anger virtuous or shameful? There is a sort of binary in cultural understandings of how anger should be expressed. In men, it is perfectly acceptable to show anger, so long as it is not excessive and as long as it seems reasonable. As soon as a woman displays anger, however, she is immediately labelled as 'unstable' or 'crazy.' Would we be so bold as to claim that God's anger demonstrates instability or insanity? I do not have a satisfactory answer to this question. I can see the misogyny that you imagine, Leonard.

"Another thought: when there are descriptions in the Bible of God's love for his people, it is often described in feminine imagery: a suckling breast, a cradling mother, a protective hen. What is the implication of this?"

These are just my quick thoughts on the subject, and I hope to update with more as the conversation continues.