LET NOT THE SUN GO DOWN

A SERMON FOR THE 19TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

“Be ye angry, and sin not.”  We’ve spoken about anger several times over the past couple of years, and I hope the message is sinking in that it’s okay to be angry, providing, 1) that your anger is justified, and 2) that it’s proportional to the offense, and 3) that you keep it under control.  We don’t shoot people because they cut us off as we’re driving to work.

You might think that anger is special in this regard.  That it’s not like gluttony or sloth or envy or those other deadly sins.  We can’t be gluttonous—drunk, for example—providing it’s justified, proportional and controlled, can we?  Justified… How can we ever begin to justify drunkenness?  Proportional?  What possible proportionate cause could there be to allow us to get drunk?  And as for controlled, surely the very fact that we’re drunk means that we did not control our drinking?

But if we think about it, most of these sins, like drunkenness (a form of gluttony) are sins simply because they lack a proportionate cause.  Lack of a proportionate cause can make what is usually a sinful act perfectly rational, permissible, and even sometimes encouraged.  We mentioned this in passing last week in connection with the sin of lust, which of course isn’t lust at all if it’s in the context of normal marital relations.  Sloth is not sloth if we’re sick and need a day in bed to help us get better.  Even drunkenness was excusable in the old days when there were no anasthetics, and doctors were happily sawing off limbs from patients who had nothing better than a whiskey bottle to moderate the pain.

We can go on forever thinking up examples of justifying acts which at first sight we would think are sinful.  When we look closer at these acts, we can clearly see that they are not sinful because there is a proportionate reason for performing them.  Today though, I’d like to focus a little more on the control aspect.  There are certain things we do, maybe even every day, which are not sinful at all, providing they are kept within moderation.  It’s not sinful to drink a glass or two of wine with our dinner.  But it is a sin if we guzzle down a whole bottle of vodka.  Drunkenness is simply the over-indulgence, the lack of moderation, in the drinking of alcohol.  Some crazy brands of Christians would like to tell us that drinking of any alcohol is wrong.  But if so, I wonder how they explain that our Lord turned water into wine at the marriage feast of Cana.  No, drunkenness is just a lack of moderation.

Moderation has many aspects.  Let’s zoom in on just one of them, and that is with respect to Time.  How much time do you spend on a particular act.  Sleep for eight hours and it’s a wonderful thing.  Spend your whole day in bed, not doing any cleaning or cooking or other duties of state you may have, and it becomes sloth.  

But today’s Epistle is about anger, and the command we have to be angry without sinning.  That’s partly to do with this idea of moderation.  And as we’re focusing on moderation as it relates to time, let’s remind ourselves of that old expression, that “time heals all wounds”.  And it’s true, but only if we let it.  Let’s be quite clear, there are some wounds that need a bit more than time to heal them.  Time will not heal wounds that are left to become infected.  On the contrary, the longer a wound is left to fester like this, the more dangerous it becomes.  Gangrene, ulcers, all manner of unpleasant results ensue over time, so that the condition of the wound becomes worse than when it was first inflicted.  

Deeper wounds are those of the soul.  We can leave these wounds to fester too, and the results are the same.  The wounds of anger provide us with an obvious example, and we have only to look at the current situation in the Middle East where a centuries-old animosity between Turkey and the Kurdish people reared up last week into full-blown warfare.  The same type of festering angry can be seen throughout the world on the national level, not only between infidels, but between Jews and Palestinians, and even between Christian peoples like the English and the Irish.  

Even closer to home, just over the river in Kentucky, there was the legendary feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, in which thirteen members of the two families were killed and many more injured starting in the year 1863, after a dispute about which family was the rightful owner of a hog.  It was not until June 14, 2003 that the two families signed a formal truce.  “Be ye angry, and sin not?”  Sure, if Randolph McCoy’s pig really was stolen by old Floyd Hatfield, then he had a right to be angry.  The stealing of one’s property is a sin against justice, and gives you the right to be recompensed.  So anger was surely justified and proportionate.  But the sin comes when neither side could ever get over it, when time did not heal the wounds of anger, and neither party could come to an agreement about the wretched pig.  Surely at some point, the anger becomes disproportionate to the crime committed, and the parties involved should have shrugged their shoulders and just moved on with their lives?  To carry on a feud and harbor resentment like this from one generation to another, whether it’s at the personal or the national level, goes against the bounds of moderation that we are called to when handling our anger.  Anger can so easily descend into hatred, violence, and ultimately bitter resentment, which eventually feeds on itself, poisoning our own souls and not serving any useful purpose whatsoever.  It becomes disproportionate to the original offence.

How long should we remain angry, then, without sinning?  St. Paul suggests the following: “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.”  One of our daily tasks, therefore, should be to include in our night prayers, a heartfelt supplication to our Father in heaven that we might “forgive them that trespass against us”.  It’s part of that most familiar of prayers, of course, which if we ever take the trouble to think about what we’re saying, is a constant reminder that if we want to be forgiven by God for the manifold offences we commit against him, then we had better be equally forgiving to our own foes and adversaries.

I remember seeing an old movie once, I don’t remember its name, in which an elderly German couple would bicker with each other all day long.  They’d argue so badly, you’d think they couldn’t stand the sight of each other.  But over the fireplace on their mantelpiece, they kept a wood carving of two lovebirds that the old man had made, with the words “Lasset die Sonne nicht über eurem Zom untergehen” (Let not the sun go down upon your wrath).  The two birds faced away from each other, but they both stood on a metal rod that allowed them to swivel.  As the sun went down every night and it was time to go to bed, the old man and his wife would each turn one of the birds around, so that before they slept the two lovebirds were facing each other, their beaks affectionately touching.  And love and harmony was restored between them.  “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”

How can we apply this to our other sins?  Simply by keeping in mind that we must not hold any attachment to them for any length of time.  By making an examination of conscience each night, bringing up in our own memory all the offences we have committed during the day against God, our neighbor and ourselves, and then by resolving never to commit those sins again, we are like the old German couple swiveling our soul around to face God again to be reminded of his love.  Have we indulged our envy of others, have we lied or cheated, have we gossiped, did we eat or drink too much?  Whatever the sin, it has the ability, like anger, to fester within our souls, to become embedded in our personality, taking over control of our behavior and values, turning us into a person focused on a life of self-indulgence rather than pleasing God.  That heartfelt act of contrition is our way of turning God’s little woodcarving, which is our soul, back to face the Creator and tell him that, in spite of all that has transpired during the previous day, we are still his loving children, determined to do our best to continue in that love as long as he gives us breath and life to do so.