Last week after worship, fourteen volunteers ripped out the original sanctuary carpet, which served us well for 60 years, to get ready for the new carpet.  It’s strange being in the sanctuary with bare floors!  My mother-in-law likes to say, “With enough time, we can get used to almost anything.”  I suppose if we weren’t getting new carpet, I would eventually get used to this room without it.  But thankfully, we don’t have to get used to a sanctuary with no carpet.  We only have to get used to a sanctuary with different carpet.  I can’t wait to see the new sanctuary carpeting.  The color is called Video Port.  I don’t know how they get these color names.  Looks like blue to me.  I’ve shown this carpet square to many people this week, and the response has been very positive.  But I’m sure there will be a handful of people for whom this carpet isn’t initially pleasing.  The good news is, with enough time, we can get used to almost anything!  Even a color called video port.

The new carpeting color was chosen by some of our Trustees, and I enjoyed working with them as they considered all the options.  When the original carpet was laid back in 1960, I doubt there was a whole lot of debate about the color, because red carpeting was pretty standard for churches built in that time.  But as we considered carpet color this spring, the main consideration was complementing the stained glass window which was installed years after the sanctuary was originally built.  I am no interior decorator, but as pastor I shared my “vision” with the carpet color choosers:  that when someone steps onto the center aisle of the sanctuary, the carpeting is to be like a runway that will draw their eye right to Jesus.  What color would help everyone see and worship Jesus most effectively?

To answer that question, we used a color visualizer on the computer provided by the carpeting company, and it was really neat to see all the possibilities.  But in the end, the group chose this shade of blue, hoping it will indeed draw everyone’s eye to Christ.  I can’t imagine any more noble purpose for carpeting than that.  I hope you will see it as a noble choice as well.

The new carpeting color has gotten me thinking a lot this week about God’s vision for Lima.  God’s vision for Lima isn’t as much concerned with the color of the carpet we use to cover our floors as it is in how we cover and clothe ourselves—with the righteousness of Christ.

In order to clothe ourselves in Christ, we have to take off some old habits, and adopt new ones in every area of our lives, including new relationship skills.  Last week we talked about putting off falsehood and speaking truthfully to our neighbors, using the Community Temperature Reading technique, which prompts sharing in five areas:

I appreciate…
I’m puzzled…
I notice…and I prefer
My new information is…
I hope…

One of the things I like about this template is that it nudges us to share our appreciation more.  My second favorite thing about it is it normalizes having complaints in our relationships.  Friction is an inevitable part of living in a world with other people!

Which is why I wanted to focus today on a handful of words from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus.  Just after his instructions to put off falsehood and speak truthfully to each other, Paul wrote, “Be angry, but do not sin.”  If that doesn’t fall under the category of “easier said than done”, I don’t know what does!  What does it look like to be angry but not sin?  What is God’s vision for us when we get provoked?  What does un-sinful anger look like?

I think the next several verses give us some clues.  First, Paul says, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”  In some translations it says, do not give the devil a chance, or do not give the devil a foothold.  There’s something about anger that can get a hold of us, and it’s hard to shake.  And it is contagious!  Angry people make other people angry!  So Paul says, don’t stay angry any longer than you have to.  Get to work on it.  Don’t let it fester.  Can I just say, though, that sometimes the best thing to do when you’re angry is to go to sleep?  Chances are things won’t seem nearly as bad in the morning.  So maybe we don’t want to take it literally when Paul says don’t let the sun go down on your anger.  Get some sleep if you’re tired.  But pay attention to your anger!  Don’t ignore it. Anger is an important signal that something needs your time and attention.

And that something is YOU.  It’s easy to say, “That politician makes me so angry!”  Or “My neighbor/relative/boss/classmate/sibling makes my blood boil!”  Or, if you’re a Philly sports fan, “That bum (insert name of pro athlete or coach with a disappointing performance in last night’s game) drives me nuts!”  While all those things are true, ultimately, it’s your anger, which means it’s your responsibility.  You have to decide what to do about it.

Which is another reason I don’t think we should take Paul’s advice literally when he says don’t let the sun go down on your anger.  Some things that make us angry can’t be resolved in the remaining hours of daylight in any given day.  In fact, they might need weeks, months, or years to work through.  The key is to pay attention, and do the work.  Anger is an important signal that something needs your time and attention.

So what does doing this work look like?   Addressing anger might simply look like thinking things through, and deciding to let it go.  For example, let’s say you arranged to meet a friend for lunch, and they stood you up.  You’re angry, because you made plans and organized your day around this lunch date.  Hours later, your friend calls and apologizes, it simply slipped their mind.  You’ve been friends for years and nothing like this has even happened before.  The best thing to do with your anger is probably to simply let it go!  Do unto your friend as you would have your friend do to you:  forgive and move on.  Letting it go is the first option to consider when thinking about what to do with our anger.  Whenever possible, give others the benefit of the doubt, give them the grace you’d like to receive, put things in perspective, and let it go!

But what if this is the third time this year your friend failed to honor the plans you made?  The general rule of thumb is, overlook whenever possible.  But if something is really bothering you, or if it’s happening repeatedly, you need to say something.  This might be a great place to use what we talked about last week.  You might call your friend and say, “I appreciate the way we always have fun when we’re together.  I’m puzzled why you forget our plans to often.”  Find a way to talk to your friend directly, honestly, and lovingly about what is bothering you.  Remember, people are not mind readers!  If your friend forgets your lunch date, and you say, “No problem, that’s fine”, that’s what your friend will believe.  If it’s really not fine, you need to be truthful with them!

But here’s where it gets tricky.  Often, instead of talking directly to the person who has upset us, we involve a third party.  This is called triangulating.  Here’s how it works.  Say my friend Joanne stood me up three times in the last two months.  I’m angry and upset.  The first time I let it go, no problem, but it keeps happening, and it’s really bothering me.  What should I do?  Hopefully your first reaction is, go talk to Joanne!  Yes, but…the thing is Joanne is kind of delicate, she’s touchy, I don’t want to upset her, too.  (Hopefully by now you’ve figured out that Joanne is not a real person, this is just an example!)  You know what would be so much easier, and probably make me feel so much better?  If I talked to my husband Phil.  He’s a great listener!  Or our mutual friend Janine.  They would probably empathize with me, and validate me, and I would feel comforted because now I’m not alone in my anger.

But would anything change between me and Joanne?  No!  Because Joanne is not a mind reader!  She has no idea I’m upset because of course, I told her everything is fine.  She’s going to keep doing the same hurtful thing again and again because she never got word her behavior was hurting me.  And we could argue that Joanne should just know this is unacceptable, but remember what we said last week?  There’s no such thing as you should “just know”.  Either I find a way to talk to Joanne (which is scary), or I withdrawal from the relationship (which isn’t fair to her), or I set myself up to get angry again (which is crazy)!  As they say, pick your poison!

Triangulating is a harmful relationship pattern, because it never gets to the heart of the problem.  Instead of productively working on anger, it really only prolongs it.  And what is our rule about anger?  Don’t stay angry any longer than you need to!

Also, triangulating—involving a third party into my conflict—is really the opposite of nice.  It’s actually mean.  If my friend Joanne forgets our lunch date, again, and instead of talking to her about it, I tell Janine, now what was a private matter between the two of us becomes a public thing.  Now I’ve exposed Joanne’s oversights to others, and depending on the severity of the issue, got other people mad at her, too.  Drama!  Instead of my speech being used to build up my friend, I’ve used it to tear down her reputation.  All of this could have been avoided if I had simply mustered up the courage and kindness to speak to her directly after the second time she stood me up!

One thing the apostle Paul does not like is drama.  And for him, protecting the reputation of Christians is very important.  Remember, the Church was just getting started.  There was a lot of skepticism about these Jesus followers.  Their witness to the world was directly tied to the quality of their relationships.  I think the same is true in our day and age!  That’s why we’re singing this month, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”  But being loving is not the same as being nice, which seems to be the standard most Christians assume we should strive for.  Nice is NOT the biblical standard!  Righteousness and holiness, those are the standards.  Being nice is not the same as being kind, or good, or wise.  In order to be kind, good, and wise, we will need to develop the skill of speaking the truth in love.  I say “develop” the skill because, for most people I know (including myself), this is a developing skill.  We have not been taught how to put off falsehood and speak the truth.  Or we have tried and found our skills to be lacking.

But if we don’t find ways to be honest about our anger, we either blow up in unattractive ways, or will end up depressed, discouraged, and disengaged.  With enough time, we will get used to suffering in silence!  This is certainly NOT God’s vision for us!  This does not fulfill the instructions to be angry but do not sin.  If we don’t manage our anger well, it will likely come out in destructive, instead of constructive ways.

Be angry, but do not sin.  What does that look like in your life?  May we live into the vision God has for us as peacemakers and kingdom builders.  Amen.