Pray KNCSB

The deadly sin of Wrath or anger.

Listen to this Jeremiad: This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled to the brim with my anger, and make all nations to whom I send you drink from it” (Jeremiah 25:15). The “cup of the wine of the wrath of God”, as the Hebrew literally says, is the cup of the righteous anger or judgment of God. God was angry with his people and with the nations in their disobedience. There is a point of no return when the axe of judgment falls upon debauchery. And God’s anger is the driving force.

In a final way, Jesus downed this judgment cup with one crucifying gulp when our judgment was nailed to his cross. But as long as the cosmos remains rebellious against God the residue of the anger of God remains as an instrument of judgment and reconciliation.

So much for God’s anger; what about ours? Since we are made in the image of God, is not anger or wrath part of the human gene pool? So we deduce then that there must be a right anger and a wrong anger since it is inconceivable to call God’s anger wrong.

Right anger serves and protects something good. The world God created is good, and we, the apex of creation, are very good even if we are desperately flawed. Anything that causes this goodness to wane or be destroyed incurs the judging wrath of God. In turn, we who are imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1-2) also make right and wrong anger choices. Righteous anger is God’s way of protecting the good, of purifying the world and our hearts. The wrong or sinful anger promotes the dark side of rebellion.

What is right anger? One time someone attempted to harm one of my children. I became a fiery and irritable 5-foot ball of anger. This kind of anger is right, fair and just. Justice and putting things to rights demands it. When the poor suffer and are taken advantage of, God is angry and we should be too. Not at God, not at ourselves. At a world system we are determined to transform in our anger. When a woman is abused in any way, our anger leads us to sympathize with her. Is justice even possible without right anger? Probably not! Until the kingdom of God comes in a final way and the will of God is done anger is the right response to injustice of any kind. Angry feelings, stemming from these situations, are not sinful. They fit well with Paul’s repetition of an Old Testament teaching to be angry but without committing sin or breaking a commandment of God. Letting the sun go down on this anger does not seem right.

The right kind of wrath is part of the life of the heroes of Scripture. Abraham beats the tar out of Lot’s rival warlords. I assure you he did not enter the war in love. Moses, by God’s voice, encouraged an eye for an eye, and made mincemeat of Egypt. And what to say of all the prophets of Israel, who railed against injustice, abuse of God’s moral law, and life in the fast lane of sin? Just as God’s wrath is positive and active so must our anger be.

Our problem is with the wrong anger, the Cain kind of anger that acts to destroy brother and neighbor (raising Cain we say). Rather than love, hatred digs its ugly claws into the seat of anger. The passage in Genesis 4 tells us that Cain branded his moral compass with the seal of internal anger. He then nursed the internal scar until it broke through his skin in the form of a hateful killing club.

But physical violence is not the only anger we commit. Pride, greed, and envy often lead to backbiting, slighting, or demeaning language against our neighbor. “How many reputations have you killed, O unrestrained anger?”

Then again, angry feelings are not always served piping hot or sported at the tip of the tongue or dangled on the sleeve. Often vengeance is calculated in the frigid temperatures of anger. Stafford (Disordered Loves, 82) quotes this Spanish Proverb: Vengeance is a dish best eaten cold. Vengeful anger injures with a deliberate word (a disposition of character that calls a neighbor a fool, Jesus said), withholding goodness, or ongoing unforgiveness.

And this: Displaced anger. I had to stop the other day when I realized I was beginning to react angrily to a situation. I quizzed my soul: Why are you angry within me? My soul admitted: I am angry at the injustice of a previous situation and because you haven’t let go of it, you’re wearing your anger on your sleeve in this other situation.” Touché! I took a mental shower and returned to my usual self.

Put away your wrong anger? But where? On the cross where Jesus traded hate for love. Those who walk with the master train their souls to respond with love when hate is more natural, when vengeance is pleasurable, and when keeping that angry piece of our minds we’re so willing to part with, right where it belongs: On the lips of prayer.

I think much more about myself when I should be more mindful of others? I cause pain to those I love. I chicken out when it comes to standing up to those who hurt others. I act stupidly but I blame others. I make a mess in my life by having unhealthy appetites. Why is speaking badly of others so at home on the tip of my tongue? Why is my soul so broken?

Dare I ask it? Why is yours? Neither you nor I are the first to struggle with answers to our experience of pride.

When asked what is wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton responded with this shortest essay ever written: “I am.”  The reason he was so sure of his response is because of a realistic view of his own sin, which is first and foremost a power inhabiting our physical bodies. Long ago, one of the early Christians told us that sin “tends to make that which is cease to be.”

Jeff Cook sees sin as a parasite in need of a host, which we willingly supply. As a power sin cannot exist on its own. Just like the demons in Jesus’ parable, they take up residence in the house of a willing host.

Early in the life of the church all kinds of saints tried to understand the reality of sin and its manifestations. So they created lists of the most essential elements of sin. One author called these elements “wrong thoughts”. Others prefer to see them as challenges to our faith. Another named them deadly sins. History finally settled on naming seven of them: Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, wrath, and gluttony. From these spring all other sins we commit. Rape, violent acts, gossip, adultery, and murder come from anger or wrath or envy or lust. Cheating and hording come from greed. You get the idea.

Why do some call these seven sins the deadly sins? Well, cogitate with me for a moment. For example, a person who is totally possessed by pride, or his heart is strongly grasped by it, will be affected at the deepest levels of his being by his arrogance. Pride’s tentacles extend to all aspects of his life. The way he perceives everything (his whole worldview) is tainted and affected by his high view of himself and low view of others.

Do you own shares in the common stock of pride? Are you a member of the club? Is pride in your life? We all naturally love ourselves; self-love is mandated by our Lord “love your neighbor as yourself.” But when I exaggerate this love of myself or pervert it into contempt for others, I am full of pride. Pride or arrogance is a debilitating, death-thirsty, self-inflicted disease, gone on a rampage in us.

If pride is leprosy, I pronounce myself unclean. Who can deliver me from this deadening sin? Thanks be to God. He owns the business of grave digging and has a monopoly on bringing the dead back to life from the dark tomb of pride.

The proud think they contribute more than they do. They believe they are more important than they really are. Because their own self blinds them, they are unable to recognize the contributions of others. They believe that if they think highly of others somehow they are thinking less of themselves.

One who knows wrote: “Pride is the cause of the most damaging fall for the soul. It induces the Christian to deny that God is his helper and to consider that he himself is the cause of his own virtues” (Evagrius of Ponticus, 345-399 AD). Another, who struggled with pride for a long time wrote: “pride made the soul desert God, to who it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself instead as the source of its own life” (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD).

Jeff Cooke adds: “The more I make my life, my well-being, my enlightenment, and my success primary, the farther I step from reality. Thus the hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness” (The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes, p. 34).

The elder son in the prodigal son story is the epitomy of this kind of pride. It destroyed his ability to connect with his father, his brother, and even his own soul. Pride is the one sin that makes everyone ill and especially the one who has it.

When you find pride in yourself, or in others, you will also find much private thinking, much time spent alone because of disdain of others, and much lone ranger activity; a tenacious unwillingness to submission to authority of any kind.

Christianity in North America suffers today because millions of individual Christians have decided to go it alone without the church. Believing they are right, they do their own thing without any accountability, any submission to authority, deeming themselves captains of their own souls, masters of their own ships, with the determination to seek their own destinies apart from tradition. Pride moved into their neighborhood, and emerged as a virtue. Jesus and me and a few others and to h… with the rest of you… If an implosion of Christianity were to take place in the West, history will judge pride as the fuse that lit the downward spiral.

The antidote of pride is humility, the subject of the next article. Until next month, think through with Jesus about the damage to your soul that pride is wreaking (read Luke 15:11-32; Luke 16. There are great lessons about pride here). Walk a little with the master immersed in His words in these great texts.  Look full into His wonderful face. The things of pride may grow strangely familiar.