Seven

Jeff Cook’s Seven matches Jesus’ beatitudes with the seven deadly sins. The beatitudes, he says, “are a picture of the voids created by sin being filled in with the life of heaven.” They provide “eight pictures of resurrection” (26).

So, being poor in Spirit is set against pride, envy against genuine mourning, lust against purity of heart, wrath against peacemaking. The match is pretty good, though, as Cook realizes, the numbers don’t match, and even though the seven deadlies didn’t exist as such in the first century. (Perhaps one could make the case that the seven deadlies were worked out as inversions of the Beatitudes.)

Despite some mismatch, Cook’s book is a challenging, edifying volume. Envy, he writes, “has the deadly ability to distract my heart and mind from the daily bread God puts in my hands each morning, focusing me instead on the gifts, status, talents and joys he gives to others.” Envy thus inhibits charity, and not only for the obvious reason: “Envy points to the good things that other people have while hiding the difficulties these people face. Envy insists that everyone but me is happy – that no one else hurts or struggles or wants like I do” (52). Worst of all, envy is an insult to God: “It insists that I direct myself away from the only life worth having – the one God is presenting giving me” (55).

Following a long tradition, he observes that sloth is more than “mere laziness” but is “indifference – indifference toward my soul, my neighbors, my world, or my God. Drug users, TiVo addicts, and obsessive video gamers may be poisoned by sloth, but so are most workaholics. Sloth is not restfulness. Sloth is escapism of the deadly sort. Sloth saps our time and emotions through a favorite sports team, a new set of shoes, or obsession over our appearance – while leaving scant energy for our marriage or kids or duties” (69).

Greed can grip an entire society, and not only because a society can be in thrall to insatiable desire for material goods. Worse than that is the greed for comfort and security, which creates bubbles large and small: “The money we spend on defense isn’t about saving lives. Our global priorities are focused on erecting bigger, badder, more intimidating bubbles. We want someone somewhere to know they shouldn’t mess with us. We easily affirm the bubble rationale. People out there are weird and messy. They might be dangerous. They may want to steal our stuff, and anyway, living in a country with warplanes that can bomb the opposition without a pilot is pretty stinking sweet.” Fear, greed, and pride multiple to “create families, societies, and whole kingdoms where the bubble mentality reigns supreme” (86).

Jesus’ blessing isn’t to the hoarders but to those who show mercy, those who give as well as receive. Because those receive and give are truly alive – breathing in and out. They are the true sons of their Father, the “breathing God” who does not hoard His Spirit but gives: “Giving away and receiving mark the kind of life going on inside of God. It is what he is about. Giving away and therefore receiving is the eternal kind of life” (97).