I have my morning rituals, just like everyone else. I get up, let the dogs out, feed the cats and dogs, make myself a cup of hot tea, and sit down to read the newspaper. It is amazing to me how many news stories have to do with the deadly sin of wrath. For example, there are stories about domestic violence; assault; road rage; terror attacks; and murder.
It seems to me that sin is an appropriate topic for the season of Lent, which begins today and ends on Holy Saturday. And I thought it might be interesting for us to consider the sins that are known as the Seven Deadly Sins, or the mortal sins. So I turned to two books written by United Methodists, as well as some other resources, to see what we might learn about the deadly sins and how we should respond to them.
The first person to list the seven deadly sins was Pope Gregory I, also known as Gregory the Great, who was pope from 590 to 604. And he also explained that the reason these sins are considered “deadly” is that, at first glance, they don’t seem to be all that bad. Will Willimon writes,
Why worry about gluttony when murder is so prevalent among us? Surely there are more serious sins than Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Anger, Lust, Envy, and Pride. The Seven are the stock and trade of daytime soap opera TV, but they are hardly the most terrible things of which human beings are capable.
But Gregory believed that these sins were deadly because they are able to generate even more serious sins. For instance, envy leads to hatred; anger leads to murder.
I’d like to consider the sin of anger tonight. The Bible never says that anger is inherently evil; it is what results from our anger that is sinful. Anger is a normal and healthy and appropriate emotion, even necessary in some circumstances. There are things that we should be angry about: oppression, injustice, suffering, and violence come to mind. But in our anger, we should not sin. The apostle Paul offers the word to “be angry without sinning.” And he warns, “Don’t let the sun set on your anger. Don’t provide any opportunity for the devil.”
First, let me talk about the kind of anger that is a sin. Tim King differentiates between anger and wrath by saying that,
Wrath distinguishes itself from anger in its intensity. Anger at a real or perceived wrong can be understandable but wrath connotes a disproportional and uncontrolled response and loss of a rationality and temperance.
There are instances of this kind of uncontrolled anger, this loss of rationality, in our culture all the time. For example, there are instances of violent crime. Approximately 387 people in every 100,000 Americans are victims of violent crime every year. In Hew Hampshire, that number is just 173. Most of these crimes were assaults: there were 39 rapes and 2 murders per 100,000 people in New Hampshire last year. In the US in 2019, there were 16,214 murders. And then you might consider the incidences of road rage. This term originated in 1987-88 in Los Angeles when a rash of freeway shootings took place. Road rage includes aggressive driving, tailgating, cutting off others in a lane, deliberately preventing someone from merging, chasing other motorists, flashing lights or sounding the horn excessively, yelling or exhibiting disruptive behavior at roadside establishments, rude gestures, shouting, making threats, intentionally causing a collision, hitting other vehicles, assaulting other motorists or pedestrians, getting out of the car to start a confrontation, threatening to use a firearm or other weapon, and throwing things from a moving vehicle with the intention of damaging another car. In the US there have been 12,500 injuries due to road rage since 2007, and 200 murders due to road rage. Some 82% of drivers admit to road rage or aggressive driving in the past year; 59% say they have honked their horns; 42% have yelled or cursed loudly at another driver; 38% used rude or obscene gestures; 7% engaged in verbal confrontations; and 6% engaged in physical altercations with other drivers. Clearly, anger is a problem in America.
And not just the kind of anger that results in physical violence. There is also the sort of everyday, run-of-the-mill anger. People get angry when the line is too long at the grocery store. People get angry when someone says something that offends them. People get angry when the power goes out in the middle of their favorite TV show. People get angry when they are late for a meeting because the traffic was heavier than they expected it to be. People get angry when something goes wrong in their relationships.
If you look in scripture, you will find that many of the bad things that happened were a by-product of anger. For example, the first murder in the Bible was the result of anger. Cain got angry with his brother Abel because he resented him, and so Cain killed Abel. Jonah got angry when God called him to go and preach repentance to the Ninevites, and he ran away in the opposite direction, which led to divine intervention in the form of a big fish.
Anger gets us into trouble because it can be so destructive, to ourselves and to others. We even use language that reflects this destructiveness. We say that we “lose it” or we “blow up.” Our anger becomes sinful when we act it out in ways that are not consistent with the way of Jesus Christ, when we allow it to harden into resentment or revenge or hostility. Anger can lead to rage, manipulation, violence, or even death.
Frederick Buechner describes how anger is self-destructive:
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor the last toothsome morsel of both the pain your are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
So how can we cope with our anger to prevent it from becoming sinful? I found some great suggestions in James Harnish’s book, Strength for the Broken Places.
First, we need to just slow down and take a breath and do nothing. Thomas Jefferson advocated, “When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, one hundred.” Mark Twain had his own version of this: “When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.” I don’t know about the swearing, but I do know that pausing before you respond is often a way of reducing the level of your emotional reaction and keeping yourself from saying something you will really regret later on. This is a very sound Biblical principle, taken from James 1:19-20: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because our anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
A great example of how to handle anger came in 1975 at the Masters tennis tournament in Stockholm, Sweden. Arthur Ashe was competing against Ilie Nastase, whose nickname was “Nasty Nastase.” Nastase was at his worst that day. He stalled, he cursed, he taunted. He was acting like a madman. Finally, Arthur Ashe put down his tennis racket and walked off the court. He said, “I’ve had enough. I’m at the point where I’m afraid I’ll lose control.” The umpire told him that if he left, he would have to default the match. Ashe replied, “I don’t care. I’d rather lose the match than my self-respect.” The next day, the tournament committee refused to condone the behavior of Nastase and insisted that he default the match for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Second, we should look to the cross. We see there the forgiveness that God offers to us through the death of Jesus Christ, who bore all our sin. If God forgives us, then surely, we can forgive those people who do us wrong. Forgiveness is not easy; it is sometimes excruciatingly hard. That word “excruciating” comes from the same root as “crucifixion,” and that should tell us how difficult forgiveness can be.
In his book, No Future Without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu tells how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission dealt with the aftermath of Apartheid in South Africa, and he discusses what he learned in the process. He writes,
Forgiving does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it … Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim.
Excruciating forgiveness was practiced in the nation of Rwanda, as well. In April of 1994, a genocide took place when the Hutus rose up against the Tutsis, who had been in power for generations. In just 100 days, some 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. About 300,000 of them were children. Another 95,000 children lost one or both parents in the same slaughter. In the aftermath, there were approximately 120,000 Hutus put into prisons which were designed to hold only 20,000 inmates. In 2003, President Paul Kagame issued a decree that released over 60,000 prisoners, the elderly, the sick, and lower-level killers and looters from the genocide who had confessed to their crimes.
The question quickly became, how could the killers and survivors learn to live together? Each day Rwandans struggled with the answer to that question. In the book, As We Forgive, Catherine Claire Larson described some of the efforts. She wrote,
Behind prison walls, perpetrators are urged to tell the truth publicly about their crimes and to make actual or symbolic restitution. Some survivors volunteer to enter the prisons and share the stories of their shattered lives, hoping to create empathy and shared understanding. An ancient form of justice, known as gacaca … unfolds on grassy fields under wild fig trees, where trusted elders, men and women of integrity, hear cases … Together, the elders, the perpetrators, and the community – including the survivors themselves – work out solutions. The solutions may involve more prison time or require the offenders to return to the place of their crime and participate in community service and reconciliation. Gacaca strives to bring justice and peace into communities that have been shattered … Survivors, once seething with rage, are moving toward forgiveness. While there are still deep wounds … there are also clear and unmistakable signs of hope, bearing witness to the possibility of reconciliation.
It seems to me that if people can find ways to forgive under such horrific circumstances, surely in can learn to forgive the person who says an unkind word to me, or who cuts me off in traffic, or who offends me in some way.
Finally, let me say a word about the anger that is justified, anger over things like oppression, injustice, and suffering. James Harnish wrote,
Anger can be the voice of God within us that shouts, ‘This isn’t right! It isn’t fair! This is not the way things are supposed to be!’
There are times when we should be angry, when we should be upset over the situation. There are times, Harnish said, when we should shout like the lead character in the 1976 film, Network, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
That kind of anger can be channeled in such a way as to bring about some kind of good. Will Willimon, writing in his book, Sinning Like a Christian, says,
Anger is a natural, necessary response in the face of injustice. It is an acknowledgement that this is not the world as it is meant to be, not the world as God intended. The anger should be expressed, preferably in church, in prayer, in conversation with God. We have a God who is good enough and great enough to receive our anger, to take even the most raw human emotions and weave them into his purposes. Anger can be expressed, but ought not to be acted upon without the greatest of care … Gross injustice, great anger, ought to be given to God as our offering, our confession that we have come to a place in our lives where we are unable to fix that which afflicts us.
Willimon goes on to describe an event that took place on the campus of Duke University, where he was Dean of the Chapel, after two sexual assaults had occurred. Hundreds of students gathered outside the chapel, and at a signal they all stood there and screamed. It was a “scream-in.” Willimon writes,
I thought it was appropriate. It not only made those who screamed feel better but also reminded us of the horrible injustice of the world in which we live.
But just screaming isn’t enough, really. I think we also need to take some kind of positive action when injustice makes us angry. Like Jesus clearing the Temple, we have to rise up and do something about those things that are wrong with our world. Anger can be a powerful motivating force for good. Martin Luther once remarked,
I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperature is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.
I want to close by returning to the words of Paul regarding anger. Be angry without sinning. Don’t let the sun set on your anger. And don’t let your anger provide an opportunity for the devil to take up residence in your heart. If you do that, you can avoid the deadly sin of wrath.
