"If you are angry, let it be without sin. The sun must not go down on your wrath; do not give the devil a chance to work on you."--Ephesians 4:26-27
Last year, sometime in late April, I downloaded an app to my iphone that I have sadly not used nearly as much as I should. The app is the Divine Office app, which offers the prayers, hymns, readings, responses, and blessings for each of the four prayer services that many Roman Catholic laypeople and clergy engage in daily. There is a morning, daytime, evening, and night prayer service. Sometimes, I go through the entire prayer service, taking time to offer up the prayers, quietly sing the hymns (if I know them), and do the readings. Most of the time, though, I just take the minute or two to read the Scripture lesson for each prayer time. Then, hopefully, throughout my day I will ponder upon them.
The above reading from Ephesians is from the prayer service for tonight. ( I may have jumped ahead a little...). As I read through this text, I could not help but think about the first time (and only time) that Jess and I got into a fight so big that we were still mad at each other when we woke up the next day. It was while we were both still taking classes at TLU, and it had something to do with our upcoming nuptials. Honestly, other than that, we have no idea what it was about. All we remember was being really upset at each other and that we were both absolutely certain that we were right and the other person was wrong. (For the record, I was right.)
It seems utterly foolish, now, that we were so upset about something, so mad at the other person over what was said, and yet neither of us have the slightest idea about what it was!
But one thing that I can remember is that I was still too mad when chapel came around to pay the slightest bit of attention to the message. I did not sing the songs, I did not pray the prayers, and I did not actively engage in worship. I had let that anger build up inside of me over night, and I had allowed it to guide my thoughts and actions the next day.
The Apostle Paul reminds me in this letter to the church in Ephesus that this kind of anger is sinful, not because it in itself is a sin but because this kind of anger distances me from others and from God. I cannot love someone when I am harboring bitterness and wrathful feelings for them. I cannot shine God's light in the world when I am allowing hate and malice to cloud my outlook.
The call here is to remember that we are allowed to be angry at times. It is an emotion. We cannot help but feel it. Christ Himself showed anger at times and even channeled that anger into some of His actions. We must strive, though, to keep our anger from becoming sinful: we must keep it from distancing ourselves from God and others, from becoming that which controls our thoughts and actions, from marring the light and love of Christ within us.
It is a tough challenge at times, but God has declared that we are up to the task.
Amen! I really like that idea that it isn't our emotions or thoughts or actions in themselves that makes them sinful, but the way those things distance us from God and hurt others. It's a really important thing to consider when we ask "Is such-and-such a sin?" The ultimate question should be "Does this hurt my relationship with God or with other people?"
ReplyDeleteI must agree with Allison's comment. We must make our ultimate concern how we treat our relationship with God and others.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I really don't know what you and Jess were fighting over...and it is odd to me that y'all were that mad at each other and it got to you that badly yet you cannot even remember what it was about.