A Day of Wrath

A Day of Wrath.

Wrath is an important concept in the scriptures, ὀργὴ, appearing ten times in Romans and six in Revelation, the same root as “orgy”, and “engorge”, the image being that of a desert cucumber that, apparently, will absorb all the water you pour on it until it bursts. Wrath is disordered desire, desire that can never be satisfied, desire that spirals out of control until it destroys you. 

Wrath, it must be insisted, is not an attribute of God, it is something we do to ourselves, but in the scriptures it can be used by God nonetheless to save us from our death-bound desires, for when we realise that what we desire can never satisfy us, that is judgement, a moment of truth that can at last turn us back to the deepest and life-giving desire for which we were made.

So today is a day of wrath, nothing unique about that, indeed it has been a time of wrath, but a moment of truth when we are confronted by our desires that can never satisfy. The membership of a particular political party, like one bewitched, has elected as its leader a man of whose gross unfitness for public office they can hardly have been unaware, and whom Her Majesty the Queen must now, perforce, invite to form a government. This is a deeply shaming day for this nation.

This is not however a time to jump on the moral indignation bandwagon but, rather, to reflect on how it has come to this, and what part we have all had to play. This incipient premiership is a judgement on our society, a mirror held up to the nation’s soul, reflecting back to us what we have become: our insatiable desires, our escalating cycle of consumption and waste, our wanting everything except responsibility for our actions, our contempt for the poor and marginalised, the easy group security that comes from scapegoating the outsider, our disregard for truth.

And what is Brexit, this escalating hostility between Leave and Remain, which has led us to this point (and it isn’t finished yet), but wrath? A paroxysm of desire, that can never be satisfied, for the nation-as-idol (or, for that matter, a union-of-nations-as-idol), and that will end up destroying us if we are not saved from it. 

As in the scriptures, often the only way that we can be saved from our idols is to be thrown back on them, until we discover that they cannot save us. When we have done the worst to ourselves, God remains, and the living water is there for us still. But we humans are in such a pitiable state that we have to drink the bitter cup of wrath to the dregs before we realise that there is nothing in it for us.

Sisters and brothers, pray that this time of wrath may be shortened, for it will likely get worse before it gets better. But do not despair. “Yes, but God”, as my spiritual director often reminds me.

St Augustine knew all about wrath. But he also knew, much more importantly, about being saved. He is the only person I am naming in this post, because he, at least, has something of value to say to us. So here is his word of hope on a day of wrath, his hymn to the God who is still there when we finally come to our senses, utterly wearied by our death-bound desires:

“Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!

“Lo, you were within,

but I outside, seeking there for you,

and upon the shapely things you have made

I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.

You were with me, but I was not with you.

They held me back far from you,

those things which would have no being,

were they not in you.

“You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;

you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;

you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;

I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;

you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”