Before We Get Started

For our discussion today, we will be using the sermon series discussion guides. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.

Prayer

Because the primary goal of our time together is to establish relationships and learn how to walk with one another in all that God has called us to be and do, we’d like to begin by praying for one another. So, does anyone have anything you’d like us to pray for or anything to share regarding how you’ve seen God moving in your life that we can celebrate together?

This Week’s Topic

Processing the Emotional Life

Today’s Topic

Processing Anger

Discussion Questions

We Are Not Nearly Angry Enough

Psalm 137:1-4

By the rivers of Babylon,

There we sat down and wept,

When we remembered Zion.

Upon the willows in the midst of it

We hung our [b]harps.

For there our captors demanded of us songs,

And our tormentors mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

How can we sing the Lord’s song

In a foreign land?

 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those whom one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help.” In short, righteous anger is a tool of justice, a scythe of compassion, more than a reactive emotion. Although it may have its roots deep in our fight-or-flight desire to protect those in our family or group who are threatened, it is a chosen response and not simply an uncontrollable reaction. And it is not about one’s own besieged self-image, or one’s feelings of separation, but of one’s collective responsibility, and one’s feeling of deep, empowering connection.

In the past, how have you typically dealt with any anger you may have experienced?

How can our anger at injustice and suffering be a useful tool?

What kinds of things prohibit us from feeling anger for all the injustices in the world?

We Are Not Nearly Spiritual Enough

Psalm 136: 5-6

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

May my right hand forget her skill.

May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth

If I do not remember you,

If I do not exalt Jerusalem

Above my chief joy.

 

Henri Nouwen

Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.

 

What makes God angry?

How can we remain spiritually focused when anger arises in our bodies and souls?

How does prayer intersect with anger?

Our God is Not Nearly Big Enough

Psalm 137:7-9

Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom

The day of Jerusalem,

Who said, “Raze it, raze it

To its very foundation.”

O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,

How blessed will be the one who repays you

With the recompense with which you have repaid us.

How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones

Against the rock.

 

Corrie Ten Boom

At a church service in Munich where I was speaking, I saw him. The former SS man who had stood at the so-called shower room door at the processing center at Ravensbrook. With the other guards he had often run his hands over the naked bodies as they walked by and responded callously to requests for help. 

He was the first of our actual jailers that I had ever seen after the war, and suddenly it was all there again: the heaps of clothing, Besty’s pained, blanched face, and after the church service he came up to me and said, “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein! To think, that as you say, He has washed away my sins.” 

His hand was thrust out to shake mine, but my hand stayed at my side. Angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand, but I could not. I silently prayed, “Jesus, I cannot forgive him; give me your forgiveness,” and as I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened:  from my shoulder, along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to pass, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.”

 

How is the cross God’s response to his anger about sin in the world?

Given that anger is the emotional means we have to recover what is lost, how can our anger become an invitation to know God better?

What Questions God Answers

Psalm 88:14 

Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?

Matthew 27:45-46

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

What kind of questions arise in your soul when you suffer?

Why do you imagine darkness descended while Jesus hung dying on the cross?

How does the story of Jesus offer you hope when you face despair?

Closing Time

In your final few minutes, pray for God to help you learn to respond to anger in ways that redeem all that has been lost because of sin.