Be Angry and Sin Not
THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
There are innumerable aspects of the Christian life that all of us cherish and are so very grateful for, are there not? I'm sure you could rattle several off right now if I asked you to. But let’s, be honest: Christianity is inconvenient. It's inconvenient to get up early on a Sunday and drive to Church. After waking from a good night’s rest (or a poor one) it’s a struggle to open the prayer book and have the first words out of our mouths "show forth God's praise," or after the demands of a long day to kneel with our children and pray for God to "keep us safe from the perils and dangers" of the night; thanking him for his gracious protection through the busyness of the day.
Prayer Book feast days are notoriously untimely, often falling on every other day except Sunday and at the worst times of the day. "Why Ash Wednesday? And at noon! Wouldn't it be more efficient and sensible to mark our foreheads on a Sunday? Weekday traffic is terrible!" (By the way, I'm fairly certain that Jesus found Good Friday inconvenient as well.) Evening prayer and mid-week choir practice, forget it! Trust me; I suffer from the same disorder of the soul. There are times when Christianity simply isn't convenient.
As I shared with the men yesterday who were able to attend our Fellows group, the fact that we have the propensity to be inconvenienced by the practice of Christian religion reveals something: it reveals our imperfection and the dire need for sanctification. Because one day, when we are resurrected from the dead, raised in perfection, we will never again conceive of inconvenience, and certainly not in relation to worshipping and loving God for our greatest desire shall be fulfilled and all lesser desires but trifling fancies.
In his book The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis writes,
"We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest well pleased. To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labor to make us lovable."
In other words, God's love—as it is true and deep love—is not content to leave us as we are. He loves us as we are but love never wants to leave the person as they are. He desires our holiness, for our happiness and his honor. And as Lewis concludes in the last two sentences above, there is no other way to happiness. God, in His love, therefore, seeks to make us more like him. This is his 'intolerable love.'
And I might add that Jesus never apologizes for this. Quite the opposite, actually. Listen to the words of our Lord: "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Lk 9:62). "if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles" (Mt 5:41). "Carry one another's burdens... Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep" (Gal 6:2; Rm 12:15). Or "if anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Lk 9:23). And "anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me" (Mt 10:38). Do you hear inconvenience or love?
The Divine compulsion to change us, to make us into little Christ's (and that's precisely why the Church exists!) is why this season of Trinity tide concerns itself with growth in sanctification through cultivating virtue and purging vice; the necessary surgery for all who desire to attain God in perfection. But, growing up into little Christ's (sanctification) is hard work, unsettling, and inconvenient. Just think of the vices exposed by these first several weeks of Trinity tide. The vice of self-love and an inordinate desire for the things of this world are combated by the virtue of charity; pride which only the virtue of humility can overcome; vainglory, which esteems self far above others, an unmerciful judge quick to condemn. And the sin of despair, or acedia, which draws one down the perilous hole of spiritual loathing and inner despair, to which godly sorrow and repentant tears are the first rungs on the ladder of escape.
Today, as in Sunday’s past, we are turned again to confront one of the deadly sins: the sin of anger. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment." First, let me clear up something from the very start. Anger isn't always sinful nor unbeneficial. As a passion, Aquinas teaches that anger itself is neither good nor evil. In fact, anger can be noble and good if directed toward maintaining justice and correcting vice: this is virtuous.
Noble anger is a passionate desire to confront evils, to make things right and is often accompanied by courage. This is anger with a cause. We see this in the Church's continual fight against the atrocity of abortion or the abolition of slavery by an Anglican churchman named William Wilberforce. Holy anger isn't about getting even or avenging hurts. Rather, its aim is to protect all that is good: the sanctity of life being a higher good, as is defending biblical marriage, the minds and bodies of our children, and the correction of all kinds of injustices.
But Virtuous anger also seeks good for oneself. It desires a rightness of being (which we call this Christ-like) and is most angered over sins. St. John Cassian calls this noble anger that swells within, unleashing a holy wrath in the soul as the first shot across the bow in the war within ourselves: waging war against the lust of the flesh and unholy desires of the heart. This anger towards sin leads to repentance and the mortification of vice. Therefore, it is good and virtuous anger.
On the other hand, the anger which Jesus speaks is unholy; it is the vice of wrath. Wrath is sin because, without just cause, it is inordinately angry over the wrong things. Wrath doesn't seek good: it seeks to inflict harm. It's vindictive and hurts back. Instead of turning the other cheek, it raises its hand and strikes. It is destructive, neither desiring nor acting for the good of the other. It is poisonous and erosive. Just as for the egotist, there is a never-ending appetite for praise, so wrath, once enkindled, can become an unquenchable fire that consumes every good thing: your marriage, family, and friendships.
Anger is like the sea of torment found in Dante’s fifth circle of hell, those on the surface are constantly fighting each other, and even themselves. They tear, rend, bite, and scratch in an epic bare-knuckle brawl. Wrath explodes on others in unreasonable fits of rage. The damage done by this kind of behavior is immense. A raging father or mother or child is torture for just about everyone in the family, but most prominently for the one engulfed by the fire of wrath.
You see, we never sin in a vacuum because we are necessarily communal beings, as is God. I hate to burst your bubble, but you are not the only person inhabiting the planet. A "Me" necessarily infers a "you." All of life is lived in the reality of the other. The sin of anger has absolutely no place within the life of the Church: not in Christian marriages, not in Christian homes, not in any relationship. Anger towards our fellow Christians not only harms them but does violence to Christ because we are sinning against his image-bearers, whom he died for. Wrath is deadly because it sins against God and neighbor seeing evil, not good; harm, not protection; death, not life. It is the very antithesis of God by which one becomes an anti-image bearer.
"If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
See how anger creates disunity; they must be brought together, unified because anger creates division. Beloved, nothing, absolutely nothing good comes from disunity. That's why when anger divides us, we better drop our offering and make amends. For how can the offering of ourselves, which is the very gift we gladly present to God each and every Sunday, be when we are active accomplices to the sin of anger? Will God accept the gift in one hand while in the other hand you're holding a brother, a friend, a child, a spouse in the clutches of wrath? A house divided will not stand.
Disunity is the antithesis of God, who is unity in himself: Father, Son, and Spirit. Anger degrades the image of God in us because it divides: this is the very antithesis of Trinity. Marital divisions negate the visible image of Christ's love for his Church. Neither can a church suffering from disunity effectively image Jesus to the world; preach the Gospel with power; care for the sick; feed the hungry or clothe the naked because disunity hinders every good thing.
Goodness comes forth from unity. This is why Jesus says if you want to bring a good and acceptable offer, do so in unity with your neighbor. Our liturgy enforces the same criteria calling all who do truly and earnestly repent of their sins and are in love and charity with their neighbors to offer themselves to God in response to God's offering of himself in the bread and wine. An acceptable gift to God is only offered in unity with others. And being unified with one another, we enjoy unity with God and unity within ourselves.
In his Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. John Climacus writes, "The start of liberty from anger is stillness of the mouth when the heart is troubled. The middle is a stillness of the mind when there is a small agitation of the soul. The end is an unchanging calm beneath the breath of polluted winds." God must aid us in the war against our passions. Holy and just anger cannot be defiled by uncontrollable emotion nor be allowed to fester into wrath by which every good thing is destroyed.
Beloved, what then must we do? Let us pursue peace. The pursuit of peace cuts off anger at its root, not only its fruits. The Psalmist says, "Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it" (Ps 34:14) as does Jesus who tells us to drop our wrongful anger and pursue peace with our brethren, then, not only will the healing begin, but our offering (our very lives) will be a pleasing and acceptable sacrifice. Instead of evading those to whom our misguided anger is directed, let us go to go and offer them the branch of peace.
The greatest and highest good ever performed in the history of the cosmos was the sending of the second person of the Trinity, the eternal son who took humanity upon his deity to redeem and save unworthy sinners such as you and me. The greatest good came from unity, not disunity, from the eternal God, father, son, and Holy Ghost, the Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity. Perfect love comes forth from perfect unity. This is why we love others to the same degree that we are united to them. And why disunity always diminishes love.
"Therefore, cease to be angry: go thy way and be reconciled to thy brother (your husband, your wife, son, daughter, mother, or father) and be reconciled to them. Jesus says to "Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him." So go, seek peace and pursue it. "Be angry, yet do not sin." Do not let the sun set upon your anger, and do not give the devil a foothold." Amen+
