We are at the mid-point of the US Open Tennis Championship. But before fans even gathered at Flushing Meadows, NY, commentators were already reminiscing about last year’s women’s final and Serena Williams’ angry diatribe, in which she branded chair umpire Carlos Ramos a “liar” and a “thief.”
During the 2018 final against Naomi Osaka, Williams was slapped with a code violation for receiving coaching. She disagreed, became angry, her game started to fall apart, and then she smashed her racquet, received another code violation, and in a rare moment in a final, she was penalized a point for having two violations.’
At first she was confused. Then she came unglued. Offended that the coaching violation had been enforced, she was incensed. The violation implied she had cheated (players are not allowed to receive coaching during a match).
And the match started to slip away from Williams. Osaka was already playing better than Williams and continued to do so. But Williams had lost focus on the match. She demanded an apology from Ramos and received another violation for calling Ramos a “thief.” This resulted in the loss of a game, in unprecedented call in a Grand Slam final. Williams continued. Her protest morphed into a tirade. She complained to the officials, and then escalated her accusations to include sexism, claiming that this kind of thing only happens to her because she is a woman. A man, she claimed, could do far worse and not receive a violation (historically that’s not true, but that’s not the point here).
In the end, she lost the match and, ironically, while defending her integrity she demonstrated poor character. Also, while she demanded an apology from the officials, Williams seemed to miss the obvious–she owed an apology to Osaka, whose championship win and grace under pressure was overshadowed by Williams’ meltdown.
That was a year ago.
The superstar athlete’s angry diatribe still looms over her career and the Open, so in the August edition of Harper’s Bazaar, ahead of this year’s Open, she wrote an essay that described her intervening year and, while still placing the blame elsewhere, focused on the impact her meltdown had on Osaka.
And she said she had finally, and sincerely, apologized to Osaka. And she says that Osaka responded with grace. Williams writes, “When Naomi’s response came through, tears rolled down my face. ‘People can misunderstand anger for strength because they can’t differentiate between the two.’” Osaka seems to mean that Williams was expressing her strength, an attribute that the watching world mistook for anger.
Now, here’s the thing. I think Osaka is trying to be generous, indeed, but she’s wrong. At least, from a biblical perspective.
An outburst of anger is not a show of strength. Calling people names and accusing them publicly is not a show of strength. And continuing your tirade when you should stop talking and play the game at hand? Not a demonstration of strong character. And we can, in fact, distinguish between anger and strength.
The point is that, simply, Williams was right to call out what she perceived as a bad call, or even an injustice. But she was wrong to continue, disrupt the match, and by doing so to diminish Osaka’s remarkable win. The difference between strength and weakness is knowing when to stop talking and return to the game at hand. Anger cannot be confused for strength. But how you handle your anger shows your strength. Or your weakness (Prov. 16:32).
The Bible does not condemn anger in itself. Even God gets angry. His anger is focused on sin, injustice, and unrighteousness (John 2:13-22; Rom.1:18). So anger has a place and an expression that is in keeping with the life of a disciple of Jesus (Eph. 4:26). If there is any distinction we should make, it should be there—how is anger different in the life of a believer?
Roundly and without exception, the Bible condemns rash words and outbursts of anger (Prov. 12:18, 14:29, 15:1; Eccl. 7:9). Outbursts of anger contradict an attribute of the Spirit of God, universally available to every believer, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
So the Bible represents true strength as self-control, especially when it comes to how we handle moments of unfairness, moments when the less-than-self-controlled would burst out in anger and sustain a diatribe beyond the boundaries of common sense.
Strength shows in the ability to control your emotions and, especially, your anger. Self-control is an indicator of a Spirit-filled life.
And words are powerful, relentless things. Words are revealing. Our words are an index to our character (Matt. 15:18). Once said, words can sting, wound, and inflame. But they can also encourage, inspire, and comfort. But either way, they always linger.
The follower of Christ, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is slow to respond with anger (Prov. 19:11; James 1:19), not rash and explosive. And Christians learn to be careful with words, in control of the tongue, and know when what must be said has been said. And when it’s time to stop talking (Prov. 29:22).
Remember that the next time you are angry.