Please, Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Good and Angry

One day child asked Mr. Rogers, “What do you do with the mad you feel, when you feel so mad you could bite?” Mr. Rogers knew the power of music to express our emotions, and out of that question grew a song that he sang in 38 episodes over the years, “What Do You Do with the Mad You Feel?, when you feel so mad you could bite? When the whole wide world seems oh, so wrong and nothing you do seems very right.

Over the 31 seasons of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, Mr. Rogers asked 3 questions many times, “1. Are there things that make you angry? 2. Do you have ways of showing you’re angry? 3. Ways that don’t hurt you or anybody else?”

Mr. Rogers knew that to be human is to have things that make us angry. There are things that make all of us angry and that is not bad. Anger is a gift from God. All of our emotions are part of our design. They allow us to interpret what we are experiencing and its effect on us, and they move us toward action. Anger is good; it tells us that we are experiencing something wrong that matters to us.

So, if anger is good, what are we supposed to do when we are good and angry? Mr. Roger’s second question was, “Do you have ways of showing you’re angry?” When we are good and angry, when something is wrong and it matters to us, we need to be honest about it: with God, with our neighbor, and with ourselves.

The Psalm that we read this morning is a great passage to read when you are good and angry, when you feel like the end of your rope is slipping through your fingers and God isn’t doing anything to help you hold on. Four times the psalmist says, “How long, O Lord!” Three was the number of completion, so that fourth repetition is emphatic. How long are you going to forget me? Forever? How long are you going to turn the other way? How long am I going to wrestle with feeling like you have abandoned me? How long are you going to let my enemies win? It’s time to answer God. Turn back to me and respond, or my enemies will celebrate that I have been defeated.
When we face tragedy or loss, when we are desperate and don’t know how we can keep putting one foot in front of the other, showing our anger is natural and healthy. It opens us up to be honest with God. That honesty lets God draw closer to us. As we continue to read the psalm, there is a pause, a deep breath. After we have expressed our anger, when it is all out, we are able to make space, to breathe in God’s Spirit. I trust your love, God. It never fails. My heart rejoices that you will deliver me. I will sing your praise for you have been good to me.

In the passage from Ephesians that I read this morning, Paul is describing life as the Body of Christ. As followers of Jesus, we put off the old self, he says, and clothe ourselves with a new self –with truth and with anger. It may seem an odd combination. What Paul is speaking against is the way of the Greek society in Ephesus. Good people in the Greek ideal didn’t get angry. Good people lived in tranquility, even if it meant lying to themselves and one another about the world around them. Paul tells the Ephesians that the Christian ideal is not to suffer in silence, but to show our anger, to “speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another” as the body of Christ.

When we are good and angry, we need to talk honestly about our feelings. Mr. Rogers famously said, “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”

Paul goes on to say “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” I know married couples who have fought through the night to keep from going to bed angry – that’s not what Paul meant. Paul means that we are to be in control of our anger. The second verse of Mr. Roger’s song, says “It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong and be able to do something else instead.” Not letting the sun go down on our anger means placing limits on it, harnessing it to use it for good. If someone hurts you, address it. When you look at the world and see the truth of the pain and the injustice, address it. “Be angry!” The Greek here is the imperative, but the imperative in Greek can also be used to express a concession rather than a command. So, perhaps what Paul is saying is “You are going to be angry, and that is understandable.” But don’t sin.

Be honest about your anger with God, with your neighbor, with yourself; put limits on it so that you control it, rather than it controlling you; and don’t sin or as Mr. Roger’s asks with his third question, “Do you have ways of showing that you are angry that don’t hurt you or anybody else.” Paul says it this way, “Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit.” Express your anger in a way that doesn’t violate the body of Christ, the community, because when the community is wounded, the Holy Spirit is wounded. Paul lists the sinful ways that we can express our anger: bitterness that comes from brooding over insults and injuries, the kind of lashing out that we associate with having a short fuse, arguments that escalate louder and louder, using words to attack.

So, what do you do with the mad you feel when you feel so mad you could bite? Mr. Rogers suggested punching a bag or pounding some clay, or playing a game of tag. In one episode, he pounds a nail, hits a gong, crunches celery, and plays angrily on the piano. In another, he talks with a neighbor about swimming, and that even just thinking about swimming helps, when she is angry. Then he reminds his television neighbors that “the important thing to remember is there are many things we can do when we’re feeling angry or sad or happy — many things that don’t hurt ourselves or anybody else.” There are many ways to keep from sinning in our anger. But then what?

On September 20, 1994, Mr. Rogers was interviewed on Charlie Rose. In that interview he said, ““One of the things that our whole world needs to be able to work on more, are ways to deal with anger.”

When something is wrong and matters to us and we are good and angry, God is stirring us to respond, to act to right the wrong. Do you know why Mr. Rogers began a children’s television show? He was angry. He graduated in 1951 from college with a degree in music, planning to continue on to seminary. Television was just gaining in popularity and he says, “I saw people throwing pies in each others’ faces, and all kinds of demeaning behavior…and I thought, ‘Why is it being used this way> This could be a wonderful tool for education.’ And so I said to my parents, ‘You know…I think maybe I’ll go into television.’” Children learning how to respect and interact with their neighbor and their world mattered to him. And children learning to laugh at demeaning behavior mad him good and angry. And so began Fred Rogers’ journey to Mr. Rogers and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.

Are there things that make you angry? Things that are wrong that matter to you? What will you do with the mad you feel?