SE7EN: WR4TH
June 1, 2008
Various Scriptures
The fourth deadly sin that we will look at is wrath. Now if we remember the purpose here is to help us look at ourselves to understand ourselves and to seek God’s strength and forgiveness to change our character one decision at a time. This was the first sermon of this series, which can be found online. In short, the purpose is to help us live in the light.
Let’s clarify something. In the bible, the word for wrath (orge) is primarily (but not exclusively) used in the context of God’s wrath and judgment. Usually the picture is God bringing judgment as in Romans 2:5, “But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” However, in terms of “deadly sins,” traditionally this is understood as the sin of anger. So that is what we are really going to look at: anger.
There are literally hundreds of passages about anger, hatred, and wrath. For example, Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 2:24 says, “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered.” Lots of advice from scripture indicating that this is an important topic especially in our culture.
A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her class of five and six-year-olds. After explaining the commandment to honor thy father and thy mother, she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?"
Without missing a beat, one little boy while looking at his twin brother answered, "Thou shall not kill."
Here is how we are going to approach this. I am going to share a little of my story and how anger has affected me. We’ll look at a couple of Scriptures and then I have a few things that might help you address anger in your own life.
If there is one emotion that I have been familiar with it is anger. I lived with anger for most of my childhood and teenage years. It became quite comfortable and familiar so much as that most other responses such as disappointment and fear became masked by my anger.
Now what I am telling you has taken many years of prayer, contemplation, and introspection to uncover. It didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t happen accidentally. I had to be intentional about facing my “demons” and what was hidden deep in my heart.
As a child, I got into a lot of fights. I don’t believe I was a bully but just had an extremely short fuse. I remember walking after school and a kid that I didn’t know ran by me and accidentally bumped me. I took off after him and caught him at the corner and proceeded to pummel him.
I even picked fights with bigger and older kids mouthing off to them. I wasn’t always angry and brooding but I would just let myself basically erupt. Part of the reason that I now know has to do with my parents. For the first two years of my life, I was basically raised by my grandmother. My mother was around but was doing what she wanted. When she finally decided to take full responsibility, I was placed into daycare while she worked at the age of three. As I look back at it, I just wasn’t ready.
I was one of the first generation of kids that went to daycare while both parents worked. My friends got summers off to play. I had to go to daycare. My friends played for several hours after school. I went to daycare.
I was angry and really didn’t know why and didn’t understand that these were feelings that I had to deal with. In fourth grade, my mother quit her job and decided to stay home and take a break from working. This did help. I got into a lot less fights. But by then anger were was too comfortable and ingrained into me. I was beginning to stuff it down because acting out got me into too much trouble.
Now I don’t blame my mother. I’ve worked through it. My parents did an incredible amount of things that were wonderful for me and I’ve learned to appreciate those things. I’m sharing this to help you see the problem with anger that I had.
Eventually, I began using pot and drinking. I gravitated toward rock and eventually into heavy metal and thrash because this music fed my negative emotions. In fact, there were specific songs that I couldn’t hear for several years later without having a response that put me emotionally back in that place.
By the time I sought help for my drinking, I was consumed with anger. I controlled it and had fun but whenever something happened that I didn’t like, I responded with anger.
When I was twenty, I found out that I had never truly given God the control of my life. When I did that, God relieved my of the obsession to drink immediately. I have said that I had a lot of issues to work out. And anger was one of them.
I began to learn why I was angry. Many times it was because I was afraid. I saw how deeply rooted this problem was. I also learned to feel other emotions and not cover them with anger. And I learned what to do with my anger.
It has taken lots of time, work, prayer, and help from others. But I can honestly stand here and say to you that today, I am no longer a slave to anger.
I have learned from God that anger is not sinful. It is what you do with it. Paul says in Ephesians 4:26-27, "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” In other words, deal with the anger before you go to bed. When we don’t, things begin to pile up. In relationships whether they are parent and child, siblings, spouses, friends, neighbors, or coworkers, we need to deal with those issues and talk about them ASAP. After all, we all get angry. Right? How many of you have gotten angry? This morning?
Jesus got angry. Paul got angry. God gets angry. What do we do with that anger?
I have met couples that have issues they have never truly taken time to iron out. Every time something happens that angers the other person, it is not addressed and these become bricks in a wall that gets higher and higher. Each little thing becomes fuel for the fire so that by the time people come to me, they each feel like they are hitting their heads against a wall. And they are? Walls can be torn down. But not overnight. But it can and has been done.
It took time for me to tear down the wall of anger that I had surrounded myself with. And even after twenty years of trying to the wall of anger and build bridges of love, sometimes I respond with anger just because that was so ingrained in me.
We aren’t perfect, just repentant.
If we don’t deal with it and there are many who never do, then we are in trouble. I’ve met people who have gone to church their entire lives that have problems with anger and never deal with it. Attending church every Sunday and even three times a week is a wonderful thing but it does not guarantee that we will deal with some of these issues.
1 John 4:19-21 says, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
So what do we do?
Getting off the Path of Wrath
• Christ-awareness
Just being aware that God is in control and being aware of God being at work around you can be incredibly liberating. To realize that you don’t have to control everything will certainly lower your frustration threshold and save you a lot of grief let alone anger and resentments. Giving God these moments past and present even if we have to do it several times is certainly rest for a weary soul. It begins with a choice that you make to follow Jesus and his ways. You can make that choice for the first time and or again at any time including this moment. For that is what worship is all about: I give you my all including all my praise.
• Self-Awareness
After Christ-awareness comes self-awareness. It can begin with a list: what resentments are you carrying. Then expand that to those times that you were angry: I mean really angry. Perhaps we can start to see patterns of behavior and responses and then think of different ways to respond. And this brings me to:
• Find some tools
This is very broad. But I mean here things that might be labeled self-help. There are lots of books and things that can help you. Talk things out without blaming. Counting to ten. Breathing exercises. Use physical exercise to channel the energy that anger brings. Figure out how to keep yourself out of situations that frustrate you. Nothing frustrates me more than cars that don’t work right. So we sold our two junkers and got one new car that has a warrantee. So if something goes wrong, I just say fix it.
Any suggestions that have help you deal with anger, frustration, and the like that you would like to share with everyone?
• Forgiveness
Forgiveness and other spiritual tools such as grace and love are essential. The bible talks about how forgiveness through Jesus for us basically quenches God’s own anger and wrath over the injustices that we perpetrate. It does the same for us.
Rabbi Hillel supposed told his disciples, “Make sure that you repent on the day that you die and God will forgive you.”
His disciples then asked, “How are we supposed to know when that day will be?”
Hillel said, “That’s the whole point.”
On April 26, 2008, the Western Oregon women’s softball team played against Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. During the course of the game, Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky hit the first homerun of her college career. She dropped her bat and started to make her way around the bases. In the midst of all the excitement, she forgot to tag first base. When the first base coach brought the mistake to her attention, she quickly turned around. To everyone’s horror, her right knee buckled. Crying, she tried her best to crawl back to the base. Tucholsky’s teammates were warned that if they touched her, she would be called out. The umpires also noted that if her coaches opted to call in a pinch runner, the homerun would only count as a single.
You can probably imagine the shock everyone felt, then, when Mallory Holtman, the opposing team’s first baseman and career homerun leader for Central Washington, turned to the umpire and said, "Would it be okay if we carried her around the bases, and she touched each bag?" When the umpires gave their approval, Holtman and teammate Liz Wallace picked up Tucholsky, crossed their hands beneath her, and carried her to second base. Once there, they lowered the injured player and gently touched her foot to the bag. They did the same for third base and home plate. The crowd erupted into a standing ovation. Western Oregon went on to win the game, eliminating Central Washington from the playoffs.
When later asked about the good deed, Holtman said the decision to help out her opponent was simple. She felt Tucholsky deserved the homerun, because the ball cleared the fence. In her own interview, Tucholsky said, "It’s amazing, what they did…I hope I would do the same for her in the same situation." George Vecsey, a writer who was there covering the game, said what happened can only be described as a moment of grace.
1 John 4:19-21 says, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
