Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

The Sin of Mr. Howell and Samson

by Dave Wilkinson

Ephesians 4:26-32, Judges 16:23-30

June 17, 2001

The Seven Deadly Sins Theme

Tune: Gilligan’s Island Words: James Mitchell

The Deadly Sin of Anger is

Our feature for today

Let Mr. Howell and Samson show

The price the angry pay

Poor Mr. Howell is angry that

His money has no clout

So "lovey" bears the burden of

Her hubby's angry pout

(Her hubby's angry pout).

Great Samson pushed the pillars of

His captors' banquet hall

Through stubborn will, sought vengeance 'til

His anger killed them all.

(His anger killed them all.)

We run aground when we are found

inviting these things in

There's Sloth, of course, and Gluttony,

Our Anger and our Greed,

The lure of Lust,

Pride and Envy, the

Seven Deadly Sins!

I suppose we have the right to shout "Kill the umpire" from the bleachers at Dodger Stadium. We paid money to get into the game. And, after all, we can certainly see better than the umpire -- because we are maybe 200 feet away from the play.

But I, for one, would like to see a lot more restraint at youth sports events. That was driven home to me when I read of Donald Jensen. Jensen, a dad, was struck in the head by a bat thrown from the stands while umpiring a Little League game in Terre Haute, Indiana. He continued to work the game, but later that evening was placed in the hospital by a physician. The following morning he died of a brain concussion.

He died of anger.

This summer we are looking at the seven deadly sins -- pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. These are the sins that have been recognized by the church as particularly deadly because they are originating sins -- kind of the mother ships for other sins. In other words, all other sins flow out of these seven.

Don Jensen was murdered. But anger was the mother ship for the attack. Other times anger leads to divorce, suicide, theft, gossip and a host of other evils.

Now those are things that are the bread and butter of soap operas. But the best source for understanding the seven deadly sins from modern culture isn't All My Children or even Guiding Light. The best source is that Nick at Night staple, Gilligan's Island. According to scholars in the field of Gilliganology,, each character on Gilligan's Island is an archetype of one of the 7 deadly sins. So far we've looked at the sin of sloth through Gilligan himself. We've looked at envy through the example of Mary Ann. Today, anger is modeled for us by Mr. Thurston Howell.

Was Mr. Howell angry? Yes, very angry. He was angry that his money -- his accustomed source of power -- had lost value on the Island. He was angry that he had to deal with Mrs. Howell. He had probably stayed away from her in his office for years. Now, because he tried to keep her happy by going on one measly three hour tour, he is stuck with her 24/7 -- season after season after season. Yes, he calls her "lovey." But he has the power to make it sound like a swear word.

Mr. Howell reminds me of a ferret I know named Cujo. Now the ferret is a relative to the fearsome wolverine which is notorious for it's temper. Wolverines have been known to destroy entire campsites. A ferret can get just as angry. It hisses. It arches it's back, flashes it's eyes, shows it's teeth, hops sideways on all fours in rage. But since he only weighs about 2 pounds, it's anger is mainly comic.

In the same way, Mr. Howell's anger is comic because it was not joined to strength. But it is anger nevertheless.

Mr. Howell's biblical counterpart is Samson. Like Mr. Howell, Samson suffers from both woman trouble and anger issues. But unlike Mr. Howell, Samson had both hair and muscles. And unlike Mr. Howell, Samson's anger is not at all comic. It was deadly because it was joined to strength.

The trouble with Samson is that he lived his life out of control. He was called by God to be a champion for the people of Israel in their long struggle with the Philistines. His birth had been announced by an angel to his mother. This has only happened a few times. But he had no control over his emotions -- including his anger.

Samson was a man of tremendous strength. But rather than expending his strength in leadership and drawing the people together, he used it in stupid, childish stunts and senseless carnage and destruction. He was given a gift but he was unable to control the gift he had been given.

Judges 16 pictures him lying in the arms of his Philistine lover, Delilah. The Philistines had paid her to extract the secret of Samson's strength. He'd done them a lot of damage. She whines and pouts until he gives her the secret of his strength which is his long hair. While he sleeps his hair is cut and Delilah hands him over to her people. They blind him and turn him into the resident fool in the court of the Philistines.

Blind and bald, Samson was a favorite entertainment at the great banquets. "Hey, strong man, see if you can lift this heavy bowl for me. I can hardly move it." "Over here, curly. Look at me when I talk to you! Listen, I want to ask you something kind of personal: Who's your barber?" I know they're not funny but what do you expect from a Philistine?

After a time, Samson's hair begins to grow back-- ever so slowly. He realizes that with the hair, some of his strength is returning as well.

One night, Samson knows the time is right. At a particularly large banquet, the Philistines put him on display between two giant pillars. After a bit, he asked the boy who is his keeper to guide his hands to the pillars so that he can lean on them for a moment to get his breath. With the last ounce of strength he can muster, Samson pushes outward on both pillars. The roof comes tumbling in, killing his enemies and him with them.

Why does he do it? Does he do it for his people? Does he do it for liberty? No--here is his final prayer to the God who had so gifted him: "Please remember me and please strengthen me just this time that I may at once be avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." He does it for vengeance! He lived angry and he died angry.

Now we aren't all Samson. But we still experience anger -- even if we don't act on it.

I read an interview in US. News & World Report with a 102-year-old artist who had painted alongside Claude Monet. She described the spiritual side of her life: "My spiritual vision means everything to me. I am against all war. It doesn't solve anything. I have this great interest in the world and in people." But then she added, "And it annoys me so that as I sit here, a little old lady, I, who do not believe in violence, would like to have cannons shooting all the people I don't approve of." Does that sound like anyone you know? Do you ever get angry? Do you want to shoot cannons? Maybe it doesn't seem like such a big deal to you, but the Bible makes clear why it's on the list of the 7 Deadlies.

Ephesians 4:26-32 offers us several truths about anger.

First. anger in and of itself is not necessarily a sin. Ephesians 4:26 says, "Be angry but do not sin." The Bible tells us that even God gets angry. "But watch out," says Paul. You'd better see where your anger is taking you. And you'd better find out what lies behind your anger before it leads to something else .

For many of us, our problem is not anger. Our problem is what lies behind the anger. Anger can be like a warning light on a dashboard that points to a problem somewhere else.

Some psychologists refer to anger as a secondary emotion. It's often brought on by something else.

First, there's hurt. It may be physical pain or emotional suffering. It may be relational conflict, like when you feel rejected by somebody else. Sometimes it comes about because we feel that we simply deserve more. I don't think I've ever known a truly humble person who had a problem with anger.

A second root cause behind anger is frustration. Things aren't going my way. My schedule is tyrannizing me, or the shopping checkout line hasn't moved in five minutes, or my kids never do what I tell them to do. I feel helpless, frustrated, angry.

Fear can trigger anger. Do you remember when Jesus and His disciples get caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee? What was Jesus doing? Sleeping. Mark 4:38 tells us that Jesus' disciples wake Him up with angry voices demanding, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

How does Jesus deal with their anger? Does He ask, "Why are you so angry?" No. He asks, "Why are you so afraid?"

We're grumpy as we're paying the bills. Why? Because we're fearful we may not have enough to make ends meet. We ream out our teenage son because he gets the car home fifteen minutes late. We're fearful he was in an accident. We resent our bosses, because we're worried that his or her arbitrary decision could eliminate our jobs. Fear.

When you're angry, ask the question: What's the real issue here? Because whatever is behind the anger is what you need to deal with with God's help.

Ephesians 4 warns that unresolved anger becomes a disposition. Verse 26: "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry." Why? When we go to bed angry, we wake up angrier because our anger has become a settled disposition.

If this sort of stuffing behavior persists in our lives, we become angry people. It's not just that we get angry; we are angry. Anger becomes a characteristic attitude. And we sometimes like it that way.

Frederick Buechner writes: "Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possible the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll your tongue over the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself."

Anger is the one deadly sin we all try to justify. It is the one we probably enjoy more than any other. Because anger gives us energy and a sense of power. And we love power.

American author Mary Gordon writes: "Even the ancillary words, the names of anger's sidekicks, are a pleasure on the tongue. Spite, vengeance , rage. Just listen to the snaky "s," the acidic, arrowlike soft "g," the lucid, plosive "t," preceded by the chilled long "i," then dropped ... To live in anger is to forget one was ever weak...The angry one is radiant in strength, and blazing like the angel with the flaming sword, banishes the transgressors from the garden they would now only defile."

She's right. Anger can feel great, and energizing and liberating. But anger, like the mother-ship sin it is, opens the door to great evil in our lives. So in verse 27 Paul says: "And do not give the devil a foothold." When that door is cracked open, there's no telling what will follow anger in.

Richard Walters is a psychiatrist in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He writes: "People will be murdered today because of someone's anger. Others will die from physical ailments resulting from or aggravated by their angry feelings. Many people die in anger-related auto accidents. While others carry out the angriest act of all, suicide. Countless relationships die little by little as resentment gnaws away at the foundations of love and trust. Anger is a devastating force, and its consequences should sicken us."

A recent news story from Philadelphia told of a man who killed a driver who cut in front of him on the Skuykill Expressway -- a bad piece of road. The murderer explained that traffic had slowed as it was funneled into a single lane. He claimed that he had waited in line for more than a quarter of an hour until he could begin to enter into the flow of traffic. Just as he was about to do so, another car passed him on the shoulder and cut in front of his automobile. As though that were not enough, the driver laughed and made an obscene gesture at him. It was too much for him to handle, and when traffic later stopped because of congestion, he got out of his car, walked up to the side of the car of the man who had taunted him and shot him to death. The injustice of what had happened was bad enough but being laughed at and taunted was more humiliation than he could tolerate.

The Bible knows this guy well. Proverbs 14:17 says, "An angry person does foolish things." A few chapters later Proverbs 29:22 says, "A hot tempered person commits many sins."

There's lots of examples of that in the Bible. But I chose Samson as the Biblical counterpart to Mr. Howell because of a very important point. God had something more in mind when he called and gifted Samson that uncontrolled appetites, pointless carnage and stupid stunts. God gave him his strength for a reason.

And we need to know that the opposite of anger is not weakness. The opposite of anger is not powerlessness. The opposite of the angry spirit is the gentle spirit.

The difference between the strength of gentleness and the strength of anger is the difference between allowing the gas in your car to explode all at once so it destroys you and the car or allowing it to explode a bit at a time in the combustion chambers- -so it gets you somewhere. Gentleness isn't weakness. It's strength that is focused, restrained and controlled. The word gentle was used of a powerful horse that would accept a bit and a rider. Gentleness is what God wants in us -- controlled strength.

Gentleness is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5. This means that it is part of the character of God a God who is anything but weak.

And if we suffer from anger issues no matter how we express them we can ask God to develop His own character in us. We can exchange the pseudo strength of anger for the true strength of gentleness.

We can do this because we know what God has done for us. Ephesians 4:31-32: "let all bitterness and wrath and anger and slander be put away from you as well as all malice. And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.

If we've experienced the forgiveness of God, if we've humbled ourselves before Him, it's almost impossible to stay angry with others.