The Rev. G. Bradford Hall
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Part I
During the time of the great depression, a preacher stood up before his southern
congregation with his best sermon ever on sin. “You all know that Jesus said you
should not commit adultery!” he cried out.
The congregation: “Amen., brother, preach it!”
“And you all know that Jesus said you should do no murder.”
Congregation: “Amen, brother, preach it good!”
“You all know that Jesus said you should honor thy father and thy mother.”
Congregation (with great gusto), “Amen, brother, you’re right on, preach it!”
“Now I want to talk to you about the sin of chicken stealing . . .”
A hush fell over the congregation and then one brother stood up and spoke on
behalf of the others: “Now you’ve quit preaching and gone to meddling.”
This is an old church joke which has been on the circuit for a long time - it
has staying power because it tells a truth about how it is in life. For when the
preacher stayed with his well-known list of sins, the Ten Commandments, he was
on safe ground. Somehow we’ve learned to live within and around them. But the
moment he got specific, naming a familiar hometown sin, well, as the brother put
it, he went beyond preaching and began to meddle.
I think this is a helpful analogy for us modern folk because we have, for lots
of reasons, drifted away from a solid Biblical understanding of sin. In the
early 1970’s, psychiatrist Karl Menninger identified this drift in his seminal
work appropriately titled, Whatever Became of Sin? In it, Menninger proposed
that modern humanity has conveniently discarded the idea of, and even the word,
“Sin.” He writes:
“Sin, the veritable watchword of the prophets and early church,
a word once on everyone’s mind, is now rarely, if ever, heard.
Doesn’t anyone believe in sin anymore?”
Menninger says that we now speak of errors, mistakes and infractions, but not of
sin. What we have done is to convert sin into crime —the immoral is now the
illegal. What was once a sin against God’s moral code is now defined as crime
against state law or a mental illness to be treated. Menninger calls to us to
return to a true understanding of sin using words like immoral, unethical, and
indeed, sinful. Because, “if we do not take seriously our capacity to sin, we
cannot take seriously our capacity to do good.”
I want to accept Menninger’s challenge to take sin “sincerely,” by calling up an
ancient list called The Seven Deadly Sins, for there is something about these
seven sins which hits us so personally, so deeply, that we sense that someone’s
gone to meddling in our lives. “Not only do they point with deadly accuracy at
our sinful capacity —they leave us with a strong sense of what it means to be
human. Now, what are these seven meddling sins we call deadly and where do they
come from?
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
(Latin Name)
Pride Superbia
Envy Invidia
Anger Iria
Sloth Acedia
Avarice Avarutua
Gluttony Gula
Lust Luxuria
Now that we know them, let’s review some of their history. Though each sin has
many roots in Scripture, they are not recorded as a unit or grouped together in
the Bible. The seven deadly sins (or cardinal vices, as they were once called)
originated within the desert monastic movement of the early Christian church
around the 5th century A.D. In the lonely and cloistered world of monks, nuns
and hermits, these seven were the temptations that erupted most in their private
holy lives. By the year 600 A.D., Pope Gregory the Great, a monastic himself,
formulated the list of seven as we know them today.
They gained a great deal of popularity during the Middle Ages. Indeed, medieval
works dealing with the seven deadly sins have a great deal of aesthetic appeal
and emotional energy. The seven deadly sins show up in literature (Dante’s
Purgatorio; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales); in art (Peter Breughel, Hieronymous
Bosch) where they are always portrayed with vivid iconography, and in most
theological works (Aquinas) of the time.
They became such familiar “old friends” during the mid ages that each was
associated with a familiar barnyard animal, to help remember them.
Pride..... Peacock
Avarice..... Fox
Envy..... Dog
Gluttony.... Pig
Anger.... Wolf
Lust............Goat
Sloth...... Donkey
By the 14th century, the Archbishop of England ordered every priest to preach on
the seven deadly sins four times a year: “In the common tongue,” as he wrote,
“but without fantastical imagination or subtle curiosity.” A warning to not let
these sins become too familiar or over-friendly.
Medieval theologians made the seven deadly sins the basis of their understanding
of human behavior and frailty, and with good reason. Without the help of modern
psychology, they knew that these are seven basic universal tendencies to sin
against oneself, against one’s neighbor, and against God.
The seven sins lost much of their popularity during the 18th century age of
enlightenment and by now, most of us are hard pressed to even name them. But
I’ve discovered that recent analyses of the seven deadly sins have come up with
some marvelous insights into human behavior. In particular:
Deadly Sins, New York Times Book Section, Summer 1992, (Williams Morrow and Co.)
Henry Fairlie, The Seven Deadly Sins Today , (Notre Dame)
Lance Webb, Conquering the Seven Deadly Sins, (Abbington)
Solomon Schimmel, The Seven Deadly Sins, (The Free Press)
Dorothy Sayers, The Other Deadly Sins
Using these resources as a guide, let’s begin exploration into the seven sins.
We will begin with some general comments and then zoom in and briefly take them
on one by one in the week or so ahead.
Henry Fairlie divided the seven into three helpful groupings:
“All the seven deadly sins are demonstrations of love that has gone wrong. They
spring from a natural impulse in humans to love what pleases them (e.g. money,
food and drink), but that love becomes misplaced or distorted.
The first three, pride, envy, and anger, are sins of perverted love, a rejection
of community, a form of egotism, which separates the person from his world. They
are appropriately called cold sins.
“The last three, avarice, gluttony and lust, are sins of excessive love, over
indulgence, reflecting our tendency to addiction. They are called the warm sins.
“And in the middle lies the sin of sloth, neither hot nor cold; it is a sin of
defective love.
“These are sins which begin in love and end in lovelessness. And they live at
the very root of our human nature,” because each has its contrary virtue, for
which it can be sometimes mistaken:
Pride..... Self respect
Greed........Prudence
Envy.....Justice
Gluttony....Good Fellowship
Anger....Righteous Indignation
Lust...........Love
Sloth......Caution
There is often a thin line which separates the sin from the virtue.
It’s fascinating to note that the two major groups of sin are what define the
two brothers in Luke’s great parable, The Prodigal Son. The younger son
(prodigal) rebels against God by running away to embrace the warm sins of
materialism. Driven by greed (avarice), he becomes lust-filled and gluttonous in
behavior.
The elder brother chooses to rebel against God by staying home, doing his duty,
being a good boy, yet all the while he, too, is rebellious at heart, mean
spirited. Driven by pride, envy, anger, he becomes resentful and jealous and
separates himself from those who love him.
It is interesting to note that Jesus comes down harder on the cold sins (elder
brother) than the warm ones (prodigal son).
Along with their own gravity, the seven deadly sins are distinguished by their
power to generate other sins. They are in essence “evil states of mind” that
tempt us into a variety of evil acts; envy can lead to burglary or blackmail;
anger to murder or injury; sloth to suicide. Indulging in them involves you in a
host of other sins, for each has its own territory of sin.
The parson in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales understood this well:
“The root of all sin is pride,” he said, “and from this root spring the branches
of wrath, envy, sloth, covetousness, gluttony, and lechery, and from each of
these branches spring many twigs.”
Also note, these sins are not just confined to the individual, for each deadly
sin fuels harmful social phenomena as well (Schimmel).
Lust.............Pornography
Gluttony......Substance Abuse
Envy...........Terrorism
Anger.........Violence and War
Sloth...........Indifference to Suffering
Greed..........Abuse of Public Trust
Pride............Discrimination
Now with this general introduction in mind, let’s have just a brief and deeper
look into the heart of each deadly sin. Today, we will begin at the beginning
with the first:
I. PRIDE
Pride is described in Spenser’s great poem “Fairie Queen,” as a magnificent
coach drawn by six great beasts. In the lead are Anger and Envy, then comes
Greed and Sloth, followed by Lust and Gluttony. And the driver of this coach and
six is none other than Lucifer himself. Pride is and always has been first on
the list. It is the coach upon which Lucifer sits.
Our acknowledgement of pride as sin has eroded over the past century, noted for
its advances in self-actualization, self-esteem, and self-growth. Indeed, the
word pride has many good connotations. We take pride in who we are and what we
do (self-respect). It is good to be proud of our country and family and to feel
good about those accomplishments which satisfy and delight us. And yet, pride is
so easily diverted and perverted. For on either side of the narrow road of good
pride, lies a swamp which entraps and mires the best of us. So, what do we mean
by sinful pride?
Pride was the first fruit of our rebellion against God. It is the sin of Adam
and Eve. Pride chooses me over thee. Pride is inordinate, excessive love of
one’s self. Pride is the sin against God’s first two commandments — to love Him
and serve Him only. Pride has many names and faces: vanity, egotism, hubris,
conceit, selfishness, narcissism, and, above all, arrogance.
Pride leads the pack of the cold sins (along with envy and anger) because it
engenders isolation and separation, self-sufficiency and superiority. The
prideful person, like the elder son in the story of the prodigal son, denies
one’s need for community and refuses the obligation of community. For when the
soul becomes inordinately pleased with itself, it ignores others and eventually
retreats from the world and stands aloof from it all.
“Ante ruinam exaltur,” said St. Augustine - “Pride goeth before a fall.”
Augustine listed pride as number one on his hit list, because it is the sin
which keeps us from recognizing all other sins. “It is,” he says, “the keystone
in the arch of sin.”
“The devilish strategy of pride,” says modern English theologian Dorothy Sayers,
“is that it attacks us not in our weakest points (like lust and envy and greed),
but in our strongest. It is preeminently the sin of the noble mind.”
And now with pride in hand, we must pause for a week with a promise to continue
this study of deadly sins. I’ll close with this classic from the popular
newspaper columnist, Ann Landers:
“Dear Ann, I have been sleeping with three women for several months. Until a few
days ago, none of them knew the others existed and things were going fine. By
chance two of them met each other, compared notes and found me out. Now they are
furious with me. What am I going to do? P.S. Please don’t give me any of your
moral junk about sin or anything! Signed, Trapped.
“Dear Trapped: The one major thing that separates the human race from animals is
a God-given sense of morality. Since you don’t have that sense of morality, I
strongly suggest you consult a veterinarian. Signed, Ann.”
AMEN