Do You Do Well to be Angry?
Robert Ellsberg

Prophets are often described as angry. Even in our own time those regarded as prophets are often distinguished by their righteous indignation over the injustices and wrongs of this world. So their words echo the blistering judgments of Amos and Micah, who described the iniquities of their age and invoked the consequences of such hardheartedness. In light of the callousness of the rich before the misery of the poor, Dorothy Day once wrote, "It is impossible not to hate, with a hearty hat red and with a strong anger, the injustices of this world."

There is surely such a thing as righteous indignation and holy anger, an anger that does not feed on itself, that does not relish the conflagration it describes. The anger of a Jeremiah or an Amos was rooted in a love of God and of the very people who were the object of their wrath. Their aim was not the vindication of their personal righteousness but the vindication of truth and justice, manifested in the conversion of Israel. If they saw more clearly than their contemporaries the choice befor e them of life or death, their hope and prayer was that the people would choose life. And so their words--sometimes spoken in anger, at other times in heartbroken sobs--were directed to that end. Their lives and witness were not ultimately motivated by anger but love.

But then there is a prophet like Jonah. Like the other prophets he found his task uncongenial--so much so that when he received the word of the Lord to bear witness against the wickedness of Ninevah he rose to flee in the opposite direction. Jonah is wellÄremembered for the unusual vehicle which returned him to his prophetic task. But he is little remembered for his actual proclamation to the people of Ninevah: in all the prophetic literature it would appear to stand as a singularly lame and wooden pronouncement, simply: "Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!"

That's it. Somehow the words lack the typical prophetic pathos-not to mention sincerity. And yet it is one of the humorous ironies of the story that Jonah's speech has the impact of a thunderclap. On hearing this laconic prophecy the people of Ninevah, "from the greatest up to the least," immediately repent, fast, dress themselves in sackcloth, and pray for God's mercy. So effective is Jonah's mission that the people are utterly converted and receive God's forgiveness. 

But is Jonah therefore relieved? On the contrary. He is furious. And here the true secret of his anger is revealed. It seems that Jonah is angry over the mercy of God. This was the reason for his original flight. He had feared lest his prophecy should have the precise effect, in other words, that Ninevah would turn from its wickedness and thus be spared the just desserts of its wickedness. God simply answers Jonah's outburst with a question: "Do you do well to be angry?"

When Jonah goes off to the wilderness to sulk, God at first comforts him with the shade of a castor oil plant, only to leave him sputtering with rage when the plant dies. Once more God asks him: "Do you do well to be angry for the plant?" To which Jonah replies in perfect character: "I do well to be angry enough to die." Here indeed is an angry prophet, convinced that anger confers its own righteousness, ready to lay down his life for the sake of a castor oil plant.

In response God restores a sense of perspective. What, after all, is a castor oil plant beside the fate of the city of Ninevah? But at the same time God contrasts the impotent rage of Jonah with the work of true compassion: "And should I not pity Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their  left, and also much cattle? Thus the story becomes a tale of Jonah's own call to conversion. It is not enough to be an agent of God's anger. The true prophet is called to be an agent of God's love.

"Do you do well to be angry?" The RSV translation of God's words are mysteriously suggestive. It is not simply a question of whether Jonah is justified in being angry. We may well have cause to be angry, but does our anger "do well"--does it do anything at all but nourish our own sense of being absolutely right and of our enemies as absolutely wrong? In such a state it makes a pleasant pastime to think of showing the whole world just how right we are, but do such fantasies do anything to promote conversion, reconciliation, or to add one ounce of justice to the world's balance.?

 In fact, the delectable quality of such anger can be such that it means more to us than the original cause itself. We would rather vent our anger than convert enemies into friends. Often our words and actions suggest that the very last thing we truly desire is for our enemies to admit their wrong and change their ways. Convinced that we are agents of God's justice we gleefully deliver the word of judgment but carefully omit the word of mercy.

And so anger over some just cause can easily become anger against God, a God whose purpose is not the destruction of the wicked but the vindication of life in all its fullness.

There are many causes for anger in this world. But the mercy of God is not one of them. In our anger it may displease us to recognize that God's mercy extends to our enemies. The good news is that, angry as we are, it extends to us as well.

Robert Ellsberg is Editor-in-Chief of Orbis Books.