A while back, I was sitting at dinner with some friends, and several of them were picking on another friend. I don’t remember what they were teasing him about, but they were getting under his skin like you can’t believe. I had the type of friends that, if they were getting under your skin and they knew it, they dug in deeper and harder, and wouldn’t let up! Finally, my friend had enough, and stood up angrily and screamed at the others, “I disgust you.” He immediately realized what he said, and we all began to laugh. As it turns out, laughter healed the hurt. The unintentional flub my friend made released himself from his anger and diffused my other friends from abusing him with ridicule.
You know when we are outraged, we often say ridiculous things. Which reminds me of a time I was singing in the choir in seminary. Believe it or not, we were not the best bunch of singers, and the director of chapel music was getting very frustrated with the bass section, of which I was apart. As we continued to mess up the music, he finally slammed his hands down on the piano, he looked right at us, with the most fearsome gaze, and yelled at the top of his lungs, “This isn’t rocket music, people!” We all began to laugh hysterically! As he realized what he said, he sat down at the piano, and said to us, “You can go away now.” To this day, remembering that story continues to bring me joy.
I believe that by moving anger out of the way, we can receive joy. Have you ever heard of the seven deadly sins? The church developed them as measures of sin, that if not washed away, could very well ultimately lead to the death of the soul. These seven sins are, pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, covetousness, and sloth. They are also known as a typical Friday night on any college campus in the country.
These seven sins have virtues that counteract their power over each of us, humility over pride, forgiveness over anger, generosity over covetousness, purity over lust, love over envy, diligence over sloth, and temperance over gluttony. While I would love to stand up here and pontificate on all these wonderful conditions of man, I am going to focus today on anger. It is a deadly sin I know all too well, and, one that if not checked, can not only destroy your relationship with your friends and family but also become a total block to your relationship with God.
A synonym often used instead of Anger in the seven deadly sins is wrath. I like the term wrath more than I do anger because it sounds so much stronger. Wrath is the need for revenge, and the root of violence. You can have righteous anger; you can never have righteous wrath. Righteous anger causes you to do the right thing in the face of something that upsets you; wrath causes you to be violent, either in thought, action, or word, with the intention of causing harm.
Today people are all too excited to be outraged over something. We have become like virtual sharks constantly circling the trash on the internet and social media so that we can sniff out some blood and have a feeding frenzy on the outrage that makes us all feel so good. Someone did something wrong once, one year ago, two years ago, ten years ago, 30 years ago? Let’s get them! You all are seeing it happen, when something damning about someone comes out, the virtual sharks attack it from all sides devouring the person and making them virtually nonexistent. Many believe this is the way it should be, and oh how good it feels to silence the opposition and to destroy what you define as evil.
The problem what all this, is that wrath does not belong to us; it only belongs to God. Human sin is the ultimate offense to God; His justified wrath was upon us all, we are all guilty and not one of us on our own merits can stand before the presence of God. God’s solution to the wrath he rightly felt towards his creation, was to give himself, His Word Jesus Christ, to be the atonement for our sins. In effect, after we slapped God in the face with our disobedience, he turned the other cheek so we could crucify him. In doing that he saved us from ourselves and left us a model to strive for. Oh, that we would obey his will.
We must pay attention to the things that draw out the wrath inside us, and ask ourselves when we become angry, is this worse than what Joseph’s brothers did to him? You remember our first reading today, Joseph’s brothers, who sold him into slavery, because he was an arrogant little twerp, are redeemed by Joseph, through his forgiveness, and through that action Joseph also redeemed all the people of Israel to survive a great drought and famine. Joseph was abiding by ting to us, perhaps we would be able to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse us, offer our other cheek to those who strike us, whether virtually or physically.
Don’t ever forget the contingency built into the Lord’s prayer, forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. God calls us to be a people of forgiveness, to love each other the way we need to be loved, and to leave the judgment, condemnation, and wrath to him; he does it better than we do anyhow. Free yourself from the power of wrath, by offering those with whom you are the angriest total forgiveness. Jesus said the truth will set you free; I tell you forgiveness will, too!
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
6th Sunday after the Epiphany
24 February 2019