Sermon for the 4th Sunday after Easter, 2020
I. Introduction
A. Image: Story of Wrath
1. King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s most tragic characters. He is a man overcome by vanity and rage. The two often go together. Early in the play, he brings his three daughters before him to split up his kingdom equally among them. But first, they must tell him how much they love him. The older two sisters flatter their father with the highest words of adoration that they can muster for the old egomaniac. But Cordelia, the youngest, who truly does love and pity her father, says, "Nothing, my lord. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty / According to my bond; no more nor less.” She loves him as a daughter ought to love her father, which turned out to be quite a lot. But King Lear flies into a rage, and banishes his daughter, stripping her of her royal title, and the rest of the book is about the misery caused by his wrath. His anger blinded him to the love of his daughter. Is it any wonder why Dante in Purgatorio places the Wrathful in a cloud of smoke? Wrath blinds us to the Good.
B. Need: Dangers and Commonness of anger and the desire for peace
1. Of course, this is an angry age. Because so much is constantly changing, and because we are hyper-aware of it, there is an endless supply of things to ignite our rage. Given that the Bible says that “Anyone who says ‘Thou fool’ is in danger of the judgment”, we can say that it is a particularly dangerous time to live! “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. But wrath also steals our peace and our joy. It makes life miserable.
C. Subject: Elements of true peace and freedom from wrath
1. Wrath is the by-product of misdirected vision, a lack of alignment between the will, the reason, and the affection. It is like the neck ache that comes when your body and heart are pointed in one direction, but your head is forever looking the other way.
D. The Propers, especially the Epistle
1. But our Propers this morning give us hope that we can have God’s peace. They can be found on page 174 of your Prayer Book. Go ahead and open up to that page, page 174, or follow along in your Bible. We’ll be especially examining the Epistle, James 1:17-20.
E. Preview: In short, the Collect describes the problem of wrath, its solution, and resolution in our soul. The Epistle is where we will spend the most time, because James roots his prohibition of wrath in the sovereign and fatherly care of God. The Gospel relates this topic to the Resurrection.
II. Collect
A. The problem: the unruly will and affections of sinful men
1. The Collect begins by drawing attention to the “unruly wills and affections of sinful men”. Now ladies, don’t get too high on yourselves. By “sinful men” it means mankind. You’re in there, too. It also makes clear that it is God alone who can order them, meaning, to put them in alignment and proper relation to an object. That our wills and affections are unruly and out of alignment is the problem and cause of so many ailments of the soul, but most especially wrath.
B. The solution: to love and desire what God commands and promises
1. But our Prayer Book doesn’t stop at the problem. It leads us to ask for specific redemption and healing. “Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise.” Here is the solution to the lack of order in our will and affections: God must give us grace to redirect our wills and affections and point them directly and exclusively at what He commands and promises.
C. The resolution: a steady peace and joyful heart among the “manifold changes of the world”
1. If this happens, we have peace and joy. It says, “that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found.” A steady peace and joyful heart among the “manifold changes of the world”. Don’t you want that? To be impervious to insult and offense, to bless those who persecute you, to be free from anger, unable to be manipulated or frothed up by the people and institutions that profit from your anxiety and rage? The most important I can tell you is to pray. And we have the Collect for this exactly. Here we ask God to change our wills and affections, because these are the elements of our soul that we are truly inept at changing ourselves. But we are also called to study God’s Word, and to learn what we can do and think to repent from wrath.
III. Epistle
A. Walk through James 1 text expositorally
1. Our primary text this morning is from our Epistle, James 1:17-20 on page 174. James begins this section by stating a truth and follows it with an application. First the truth, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with who is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
2. One of my favorite movies is “The Ghost of Mr. Chicken”. There is this scene where Don Knott’s finally gets to have lunch with the girl of his dreams, Alma. He is so nervous that he says, “I love good food. I’d rather have good food than bad food any ol’ day of the week.” Well, of course he loves good food! And of course, we want good gifts. But where do they come from? Do they come from this world, which is always changing? What do you think kids, where do good and perfect gifts come from? [God!] That’s right. James describes this world as the sun, full of variableness and shadows of turning. This is where our Collect gets the phrase, “sundry and manifold changes of the world”. But God is the Father of lights, meaning the maker of the sun and the moon, in whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. He doesn’t change. He is the only one who gives good and perfect gifts, and all his gifts are good and perfect! Yet, so many rely on the world to grant them what they need, whether that’s their careers or portfolios, or politics, or their families, and they are always disappointed and angry in the end.
3. What is key here is that James moves from the sovereignty and unchangeableness of God to the application against wrath. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worked not the righteousness of God.” He begins with the word “wherefore”. In the Greek it is iste, meaning “given that, know this.” He is making a connection here. Namely, given that God is good, sovereign, and unchanging, we should not be angry. Let’s press into that connection. What about God being good, sovereign and unchangeable should take away our wrath?
4. Wrath grows from an orientation of the soul that is fixed on the variableness of the world. Peace flows when the will and affections are fixed on God’s command and promises. To understand this more fully, we must ask “what is wrath?” Wrath and anger come when things don’t work out the way that we expect or hope. If you expect the chair to be there when you sit down, but one of your impish children pull it out from under you, you get angry. Kids, if you require that life is going to be fun, but then you have to work, you get angry. If you rely on people to treat you nicely, or expect that politicians will be wise, truthful, and effective, then you will be angry. If you tell yourself that you will be successful, respected, secure, or perfect, then you’ll be angry when anything impinges on those self-ascribed commands. Or when you hope that the people you love will outlive you, but they die before their time. People have so many reasons to be angry in this life. But what do all of these things have in common? In each case, we rely on what we think should happen, or what the world says will happen. And we base our identities on what we say we should be. We fix our souls on the world. But we are always changing, and the world is always shifting! Once in a blue moon our fickle expectation might match the gifts of this ever changing world. But to set our hopes on the world giving us what truly long for is worse than playing the lottery. It will only end in bitterness and wrath. But if we set our hopes and desires on what God promises, and our focus on what God commands, and our identity on what He says, then how can we ever be disappointed, how can we ever be angry? Now, I’m not saying that we should be unconcerned about the things that are happening in the world, only that our hope and marching orders shouldn’t come from the world. It is from God that good gifts are received and true joys are to be found.
B. Perhaps the last several weeks have been really hard for you. Has anyone else struggled with a deep irritability throughout the COVID crisis? I have! Part of the reason is that it has been so hard to know what to expect and what we were supposed to do. “Ok, we’re going to do this.” “Nope, can’t do that.” “This is what we need to do to be safe.” “No, we’ve now determined that it is actually unsafe.” “Ok, well, let’s go take a hike.” “Can’t. The trails are closed.” It’s been maddening! And for a few weeks, my anger over not getting what I wanted kept me from experience the good gifts that God had for me in this time.
IV. Gospel
A. In our Gospel, the disciples were experiencing a big change to their expectations. They wanted Jesus to be an earthly messiah, to lead them in victory over the Romans. But now he speaks of being crucified and going away to the Father. Some of them were angry, others were “filled with sorrow.” But God had better gifts to give them than what they wanted. Jesus says, “if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” The Holy Spirit was a better and more perfect gift than their hope for a military messiah. And the Holy Spirit is a better gift than we, with our unruly wills and sinful affections, can desire. They needed to trust in what God would give them, not what they wanted. We must do the same. We must suffocate wrath by fixing our hearts on God’s gifts and commands. What true expectations can possibly be unmet when we have the Spirit of the Living God dwelling within us? What cause do we have to be angry when we have clear instructions from the Father, our identity as sons and daughters, and the sure Easter hope of the resurrection of the Body and Life Everlasting? These themes connect to Easter because the good and perfect gift of the Holy Spirit was made possible through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. This gift is the greatest help to wrath because the Spirit aligns our will and affections with what God provides and commands.
B. Of course, the good and perfect gift we now receive is the Eucharist. By partaking, God answers our prayer to order our wills and affections, to make them more like Jesus. And it is a reminder and a confirmation for what we should hope for and expect, that soon and very soon God will come and wipe away every hot tear, and pull open every shaking fist, and our hearts will settle into that eternal joy which is found at the Marriage Banquet of the Lamb. Amen.