“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV)
Anger and the Same Day
A boy at the corner won’t put his backpack on. His mother has it by the top loop and the bus is four minutes out, and she’s down at his level going through it with him, because she read a long time ago that you don’t send a child off angry. Today it’s about the socks. Two days ago it was about the window seat.
The bus comes anyway. He gets on with none of it settled, finds his seat, puts his head against the glass. She stands on the corner with her hands empty, and she’ll still be going over it at eleven.
“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Paul wrote that to a church about how its members treat one another. He’s asking them in that letter to tell each other the truth, because they belong to one body.
I lose patience with this read as a rule about bedtime, and I’m not going to soften that. Couples have fallen asleep at three in the morning with a thing still open between them and woken up fine. Paul’s warning is about a foothold. The anger he has in mind is between two people who belong to the same body, and he wants it dealt with on the day, while they can still find each other.
The sun going down is a short limit. Paul asks for the anger to be settled with the person it’s about, and settled today. The devil is named in the same instruction, and what he’s after is a place to stand in a church.
The boy came home at three and had forgotten the whole thing by the time he got to the refrigerator. His mother hadn’t.
A Prayer to Remember
I’ve kept it from the person it was about, God, and said it to somebody who had nothing to do with it. I told it well, too. Give me the nerve to say it to a face today, while it’s still today.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
