St. Paul's Episcopal Church
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 | Newsletter |
Steve’s Sayings
From the Vicar……
On Anger
On this last Sunday of January, we had some teaching on one of the seven deadly sins—Wrath, or Anger.
As Frederick Buechner has written, “anger is a delicious banquet, until we realize that the carcass we are feeding on is our own.”
There is probably no sin more primal than anger. We react in anger any time we feel we have been wronged or whenever our system of the way things should be has been challenged.
I believe that Satan revels in two Christians speaking in anger to each other more than anything. He loves that—to see us exclude the love of Christ in our conversations and in our discourse.
It is so easy to slip into righteous indignation about almost anything, and not consider the context of what the other person has said or done to offend us.
The worst part of the sin of anger, in my mind, is that we allow our indignation to fester and we lash out with words and deeds that we might regret later, but find hard to take back.
Jesus taught the simple principle of “turning the other cheek,” as a way to dispel and turn away wrath. How many of us are courageous enough to consider the way of Jesus?
I thought so. We would rather be able to indulge in our self-righteous anger and to keep fanning the fires of hate and the opposite of love.
This is our sin, and we must confess it and ask for forgiveness from God first, and then from the person whom we hold anger against. This is the only way to heal brokenness in the Body of Christ.
Fr. Stephen Secaur
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
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