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The seven deadly sins

Many have been taught to prepare for confession by reviewing the list of the seven deadly sins.

This concise list, distilled from the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New, is not a simple list of things that we ought not to do: rather it is an invitation to a far deeper examination of the way we work inside – in our heads, in our hearts, and in our gut reactions.

Seven items is an arbitrary but convenient length for the list: much shorter, and there could be important omissions; much longer, and it could become repetitive. The list of seven is the list we happen to have inherited into the modern age. It is concise and memorable. Seven is fine.

Nine might just be better. There are two good candidates.

To many the list of seven will be familiar already: anger, pride, envy, greed, gluttony, lust, and sloth. Every one of these sins eats away at us from the inside – corrupting our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. We do well to pause from time to time for self-examination, to see whether these sins are eating away at what we could be – at what we could be for God, and for others, and for ourselves – if we were not hindered by habitual sin. Self-examination is the essential first step that can lead on to a resolution to change – to do better by God’s grace.

On the list of seven, ‘greed’ – or classically ‘avarice’ – is about hoarding and stinginess, which distinguishes it from ‘gluttony,’ also on the list, which is about excessive consumption. And ‘pride’ is not pride in the modern sense of a basic, moderate, healthy self-esteem – something Jesus positively encouraged in the lowly and oppressed – but the sin of a self-absorbed self-importance; the pride that comes before a fall.

Lust is an interesting case. When Jesus said at the Last Supper that he had ‘earnestly desired’ to eat this Passover with his disciples (Luke 22:15) he used the same word that he used when he condemned the man who looks on a woman with ‘earnest desire’ – or ‘lust’ (Matthew 5:28). But Jesus’ ‘earnest desire’ for the Last Supper is not a sin – and neither, in itself, is sexuality. The sin is the arrogance that reduces another to the status of an object. The sin of ‘lust’ is not the sexuality but the arrogance. The sin of arrogance deserves to be on the list in its own right – more aggressive and outwardly focused than the self-absorbed self-importance of pride – and it is on the list, as the item that is classically rendered as ‘lust.’

The sin of cowardice would be a valid addition to the list. Cowardice is the opposite of loyalty and faithfulness. God wants people who will march onward into God’s promised land – not wander forever in fear in the wilderness.

And those in power, the masters of spin, have always been prone to the sin of deceit – not just lies but a whole tangle of falsehoods. Perhaps that is why such an obvious wrong as deceit was easy to drop when reducing the list to a concise and practical seven.

And so the nine deadly sins are these: the arrogance of EIGHT, the idleness of NINE, the anger of ONE, the pride of TWO, the deceit of THREE, the envy of FOUR, the avarice or greed or hoarding stinginess of FIVE, the cowardice of SIX, and the gluttony of SEVEN.

Admitting the home base temptation can be the hardest thing, but it is the sin most likely to be eating us away, preventing us from moving on. Recognizing it, naming it, and confronting it, can be the first step toward a new place and a new life. When you feel yourself losing your grip, you can pause and say to yourself, ‘deal with the …’ – and name your temptation. In that simple act you reorient yourself – literally ‘turn around’ or ‘repent’ – away from your sin, and toward your potential.

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