Weekly Sermon Illustration: Anger

In our blog post every Monday we select a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the upcoming Sunday, and pair it with a Frederick Buechner reading on the same topic.

On October 6, 2013 we will celebrate the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost. Here is this week's reading from Psalm 37:

Psalm 37:7-9

Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices. Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret--it leads only to evil. For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.

Here is Buechner's note on "Anger" originally published in Wishful Thinking and later again in Beyond Words:

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue 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. The skeleton at the feast is you.