My God Has Space for Sacred Rage

What the Fruit of the Spirit Looks Like When the World Is Burning

Trigger Warning: This post includes discussion of spiritual abuse, depression, and religious trauma.

This is a slightly edited version of a sermon I preached on Trinity Sunday at the church where I serve. I’ve adapted it for this space; not just because I think the message matters beyond the pulpit, but because I know I’m not the only one who’s been handed a version of God too small to hold our pain, our rage, or our fullness.

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Last week, I got a note—handwritten, no less—from a visitor who was upset that I had, in their words, “edited God.” They were angry that I had referred to God with inclusive language and said it was my own preference, not “Biblical.”

At first, I wanted to laugh. It felt so absurd, so detached from the God I know.

But then the laugh caught in my throat.

And I cried. I didn’t just cry—I sobbed. I wept alone in my office, and then again in my car on the way to the grocery store. I cried again at home, when I sat down to write the next week’s liturgy and felt my hands tremble.

I questioned every word I had spoken, every line of the service I had lovingly crafted. It triggered my depression in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I replayed the sermon in my head like a crime scene, wondering what exactly had been so offensive, so dangerous, that someone believed I was a threat to God’s integrity.

It made me feel exposed. Accused. Condemned. The assumption wasn’t that I was trying to be faithful—it was that I was a heretic. That I should be silenced. That I should be burned at the stake.

Figuratively, sure. But the line between metaphor and memory in the church is thin.

That note didn’t just wound me. It tried to unmake me.

And I know I’m not alone in this.

There are so many of us who have been told that telling the truth about God—God who is more than male, more than one metaphor, more than we can capture in a pronoun—is betrayal. But the betrayal, friends, is pretending that God is small just so we can feel safe.

Because the suggestion that God is only male, only father, only what we've always said—that’s not about God. That’s about control.

And that? That’s not the Spirit. That’s fear wearing a church hat.

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Some of you may know this story—but at a previous church, I once forgot to switch the Lord’s Prayer back to "Our Father…" after using inclusive language for Mother's Day. I had written "Our Mother..."

People left the church.

Not just the service. They left the church.

Others threatened to stop giving financially.

Over a word. Over an image. Over the idea that God might be bigger than the box they had been handed.

And friends, if your God can’t survive being called Mother, or Shepherd, or Wind, or Flame—then your God is too small.

Because the real God? The Triune God? The wild, uncontainable, relational God who is Love?

That God has space for sacred rage.

That God is the one flipping tables.

That God is weeping in the street, wrapped in a foil blanket, begging to be seen.

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So what does it mean to walk by the Spirit when the world feels like it’s breaking?

It means we move differently. We bear the fruit of the Spirit on purpose.

And no, not everyone is going to be on the front lines. Not everyone is going to protest or chant or call their senator. Not everyone will write an op-ed or organize a fundraiser. But everyone—yes, everyone—can do something.

Maybe your “walk” looks like bringing water to the protest line.

Maybe it looks like donating to an immigrant rights group.

Maybe it looks like teaching your kids that "love your neighbor" is not a metaphor.

Maybe it’s simply staying in the conversation when your discomfort wants to slip out the back door.

Walking by the Spirit means letting the Spirit lead. Which also means we don’t all walk the same path—but we are all headed in the same direction:

toward justice.
toward healing.
toward the kind of beloved community Jesus was murdered for trying to build—one where everyone truly is welcome, where the last are first, and the margins are at the center.

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The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

It is not a checklist. It is a way of life.

And bearing that fruit doesn’t mean being polite. It means being rooted.

Because kindness without truth is just performance. Peace without justice is oppression in disguise. And self-control isn’t about silence—it’s about alignment. Alignment with what matters. With who God is. With who we are becoming.

The world will try to rot your fruit. With distractions. With scandal. With fear. With the seductive lie of "neutrality."

Don’t let it.

Instead, ask:

• Is what I’m doing rooted in love?

• Is what I’m saying bearing joy or shame?

• Is this path bringing peace, or just keeping me comfortable?

Because friends, walking by the Spirit is not soft. It is not easy.

It is radical joy in a world addicted to outrage.
It is gentleness in the face of cruelty.
It is faithfulness when others have given up.
It is knowing who you are, whose you are, and what you’re called to be—together.

So let the Spirit walk with you. Into grief. Into action. Into sacred rage. Into sacred rest. Let the fruit grow in you. Messy. Tangled. Beautiful.

And when someone tells you that love or joy or kindness isn’t enough?

Tell them: this is how we resist.
Tell them: this is how we rise.
Tell them: this is how we walk by the Spirit.

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A Benediction for the defiant:
May the Spirit set fire to every lie you’ve been told about who God is
and who you’re allowed to be.

May the Creator roll their eyes at every box you’ve been shoved into
and laugh with delight as you break out.

May the Christ who flipped tables and broke bread with outcasts
call you blessed when others call you a heretic.

And may the fruit of the Spirit take root in your bones—
not to make you sweet,
but to make you whole.
Strong.
Tender.
Uncompromising.

Go.
Walk by the Spirit.
And don’t you dare shrink.

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I'd love to hear from you:

• Have you ever been accused of heresy for telling the truth about who God is?

• What does walking by the Spirit look like in your life?

• How have you experienced sacred rage?

Let me know in the comments or hit reply.

Love and power,
James