In biblical Hebrew, the idiom for a person’s anger, more literally translated, is that his or her “nostrils (are) flared.” One can fairly easily understand how the emotion of anger came to be so closely associated with this physiological reaction.

In fact, so closely were these two concepts connected–flared nostrils and anger–that offering incense and burnt sacrifices came to be seen as ways to appease God’s anger by, anthropomorphically, relaxing or salving God’s nostrils. Proper burnt sacrifices of sizzling lambs and cows not only helped avert God’s anger from the people but also fed the priesthood. Win-Win.

Behind this is the idea that God in fact gets angry. This is, by and large, a product of interpreting horrific events (war, famine, pestilence) as God’s punishment; because God is “just,” then punishment must be merited (meaning that human(s) did something Very Wrong). In other words, Bad Things Happen Because Humans Make God Angry. It’s the schtick that people like Falwell and Robertson trotted out to explain 9/11, and what self-righteous religious pricks used to explain why homosexuals were dying of Aids back in the 1980s and 1990s.

So best to keep God’s nostrils from flaring, and–if they are flaring–best to help bring God back from the brink of inflicting God’s Righteous Anger on you and yours. Sacrifices. “Sweet-smelling” ones. Incense. Sizzlers.

Today’s saint, Eusebius, came from a time in religious history when the idea of salving God’s nostrils was regarded as “magic” rather than “true religion.” So instead of offering incense and sacrificial animals burned on massive braziers, Eusebius and his fellow priests offered up words. Butler reports that when Eusebius was unanimously selected Bishop of Vercelli (northern Italy), he instructed his clergy so that they would have “no other ambition than to appease his (God’s) anger by fervent and uninterrupted prayers.”

I have several thoughts about anger and about anger-and-God. First, as a human being, I find that anger is a trustworthy emotion that tells me to realize “Something is Wrong”–it is a native and natural response in the presence of injustice. Given this, it also means that the hard work with anger lies in identifying where that injustice actually exists.

Second, I don’t believe that a disembodied God gets angry. I believe that people pretend that they are able to identify God’s anger–and here’s the unsurprising, dirty little secret: God is ALWAYS angry at exactly the same situations and people that those who speak of God’s anger are! And what we see more frequently now is that instead of trying to salve God’s nostrils to avert God’s anger and instead of praying to avert God’s anger, many Christians have “advanced” to the point where they declare which humans are making God angry and who must therefore change their ways, their behaviors, their beliefs (“repent”) in order to talk God off of the anger ledge and to keep the community pure and protected.

Since God is so often imaged as some Great Father in Heaven, it seems appropriate to quote from Tennessee Williams’ groundbreaking play and related movie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In Cat, the patriarch is called Big Daddy (played on stage and on screen by the magnificent Burl Ives). Big Daddy in fact has no use for incense or sizzling steak, endless apologies, or finger-pointing at others. Instead, Big Daddy simply declares to his apologetic son, Brick:

“I hate apologies. Especially for the truth.

Whatever you did, don’t apologize–just don’t do it again.

If you didn’t do it, start doing it.”

That’s it. Here endeth the Lesson.