THE SUPERFICIAL SAGA: PART V
There is a man that I have come to know in this town. He is big, he’s as strong as an ox, he is healthy…and he does not work. He has two cars and he lives in an apartment here in Meadville. The owner of the apartment complex is a friend of mine as well, so I know what the rent for one of those apartments is, and it is not cheap.
I was in my friend’s apartment one time and he proudly gave me the grand tour. It was a hot summer day and his air conditioner was blowing ice cold air. In his living room I saw a 50-inch flat screen T.V. The furnishings looked like they had come just come off of the showroom floor at Hovis Interiors. I was thinking to myself, “Wow! I don’t have air conditioning. I don’t have a flat screen T.V. And our living room furniture is falling apart!” After the tour was over and I was walking out of the apartment, I saw it lying there on the kitchen counter. It was one of those little green Access cards. What that means is that it’s our tax dollars that pay for his basic necessities. He seems to be able to afford a number of luxuries, but it’s our tax dollars that pay for his necessities.
It’s this kind of thing that has a lot of people up in arms these days. Is this what we mean when we speak of the sin of sloth? Is this what we mean when we bemoan the loss of the good old fashioned Protestant work ethic? Keep that thought in mind as we move on.
This is the fifth in a series of sermons entitled, The Superficial Saga. It’s a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. We poke a lot of fun at sin these days. Truth be told, I don’t think we take sin very seriously. Yet God takes sin seriously. In fact, God takes sin so seriously…that he sent his Son to die on a cross in order to overcome it. Sin is not a matter to be taken lightly, as though a person could saunter into God’s presence at any time, in any mood, with any sort of life behind them…and at once perceive God there. No, the sense of God’s reality is a progressive and often laborious achievement of the soul; the soul that takes sin seriously and earnestly tries to dispel it.
Like I said, The Superficial Saga is a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. The seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust. Yet along with the seven deadly sins there are what we call the seven holy virtues or the seven cardinal virtues. The seven holy virtues are meant to counteract the seven deadly sins. For example, the opposite of pride is humility. The opposite of envy is love. The opposite of wrath is forgiveness. The opposite of sloth is diligence. The opposite of greed is charity. The opposite of gluttony is temperance, and the opposite of lust is chastity or purity. You see, the way to conquer sin…is to replace it with something better.
Three weeks ago, we examined the sin of pride. There we determined that pride is a sin basically because Jesus said it was. The secret to overcoming pride is humility. We determined that the key to humility is to approach God not as the big, self-sufficient, self-reliant adults we pretend to be. Instead, we approach God as little children – frail, empty, and dependent – needing a gracious and loving God in the worst possible way.
Two weeks ago we examined the sin of envy. We determined that envy is cold-hearted and cruel. Envy is basically our own sense of dissatisfaction with the way God created us. The secret to conquering envy is love. And the secret to love is to wish what’s best for someone else. Not an easy thing to do.
Last week we examined the sin of wrath or anger. We determined that anger is a normal human emotion that needs to be expressed. Yet anger needs to be expressed in the form of an offering to God. In other words, we express our anger to God, and then we leave it in God’s hands to rectify the situation. The secret to conquering anger is forgiveness. Forgiveness then breaks the cycle of anger…in order that peace might rule the day.
Today we examine the sin of sloth. Webster’s dictionary defines sloth as a disinclination to action or labor. It also defines sloth as a slow moving mammal that hangs upside down in trees, but that’s not the kind of sloth we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to be looking at sloth as a disinclination to action or labor.
Now back to my friend who seems to have a disinclination to work, yet who also seems to enjoy many of the finer things in life. Is that what we’re talking about when we talk about the sin of sloth? From a secular sense, we might be inclined to think it is. Yet that is not the sloth that is described in the seven deadly sins. The situation with my friend is the result of several generations of poverty. It is a mind-set and a state of being we middle and upper-middle class Americans simply do not understand. What’s more, I have a sneaking suspicion that God has placed such people in our midst just to see how we handle them. Are we compassionate and understanding…or are we condemnatory and judgmental? Perhaps our passing judgment on such people reveals just about as much of our sin as it does theirs.
So what, then, is sloth as defined by the seven deadly sins? Let me begin by explaining how the seven deadly sins came to be in the first place. The earliest Christian formation of the seven deadly sins came from a fourth-century monk named Evagrius. Evagrius established a group of monks, who formed a hermitage in the desert, that they might separate themselves from the evils of the world, and draw closer to God. The irony of this…was that in separating themselves from the rest of the world, they found that in living so close together, they often brought out the worst in each other. It was a little bit like the struggle a college freshman has getting along with a new roommate. The seven deadly sins were what these monks tried to overcome that they might live together in peace and harmony.
Here’s where sloth came in. The main meal of the day was served at 3:00 in the afternoon. Long about noon, as these monks were in their cells studying and praying, they started to get hungry. They started to get real hungry. They got distracted in their prayers and their minds began to wander. As their minds began to wander, the monks began to wonder, “What’s the use of all this holy effort anyway?”
The Latin word Evagrius used to describe this feeling was acedia. It literally means spiritual apathy. Spiritual apathy occurs when the great goal of life, communion with God, is abandoned for whatever reason. The French use the word ennui for apathy. Yet perhaps the Germans put it best with their word, Weltsmerz. It literally means, “pained by the world.” And perhaps that’s when spiritual apathy really occurs. It occurs when we become pained by the world and we start to think, “What’s the use?” There is so much pain and suffering in the world today. What’s the use in turning to God? What’s the use in worshiping God? For far too many people it’s the pain of the world that leads to sloth…as a defense mechanism against the hopelessness of the world.
There once was a man who was on fire for the Lord. He decided that he wanted to serve the Lord as best he could. So he spoke to the minister of his church and asked what he could do in the name of service. He got involved in a small group Bible study. He began serving on a church committee. He came to worship every Sunday morning. He threw himself whole-heartedly into godly service. And then he became, as he described it, burned out. Apparently he didn’t feel as though his service to God was making enough of a difference in his life, and so he just dropped out. He dumped his wife and his family. He began to pursue more worldly outlets for his personal satisfaction. You see, it’s one thing to have a life-changing conversion experience. It’s another thing entirely to maintain the tenacity and perseverance God asks from us over the long haul. That, my friends, is acedia.
I think of the couple who raised their children in the church. They wanted to ensure a good spiritual foundation for their kids. And then their kids grew up and went away to college. And then they, essentially, dropped out of the church. That, my friends, is acedia.
I think of the person who is on the rolls at the church. They come and worship God if they’ve got nothing better to do. But they don’t want to get involved. They want to remain anonymous. They figure there’s someone else who can do the job much better than they. That, my friends, is acedia.
You see, there are sins of commission, and there are sins of omission. Sins of commission are things we do that we ought not to do. Sins of omission are things we ought to have done, but did not. Acedia is a sin of omission.
Consider the passage we read a moment ago from the gospel according to Luke. There we see a rich young ruler approach Jesus and say to him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says, “You know the commandments. You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal or bear false witness.” The young man replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.” Then Jesus got to the heart of the matter. “There is one thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell all that you have, and give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he became very sad, for he had many possessions. Actually, I think I like the American Standard Version of the Bible’s translation even better. It says, “And his countenance fell at the saying, for he had great possessions.” His countenance fell. You see, he came to realize that he did not have what it takes to follow Jesus Christ. This is closer to what acedia means than laziness is. It’s more like a lack of commitment. Call it, “a lukewarm faith.”
Perhaps this is more theologically significant than we might notice at first glance. Have you ever heard the term, “Protestant work ethic?” It’s a term attributed to a sociologist by the name of Max Weber. In the late 1800s, he observed how hard Protestant people worked at their jobs and in their churches. He noted how those of Lutheran or Calvinist heritage believed in the concept of predestination. You know, people are saved by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. The catch is that it’s impossible to tell who is saved and who is not, except for one thing. The notion developed that it might be possible to determine who was saved and who was not by observing the way they lived their lives. Hard work and commitment – in life and to the church – were two important consequences to determining who was in and who was out.
Are you with me? What the Protestant work ethic is saying is that our diligence in serving God reveals the status of our salvation. We work not in order to receive salvation, rather, we work out of gratitude for what we have already received, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that lives within us. Thus, perhaps sloth is more than just sinful behavior. Perhaps what it really reveals is whether God is at work within us or not.
So how do we avoid acedia? How do we avert that spiritual burnout that keeps us at arm’s length from God? I think of a woman in my last church was elected at a congregational meeting to serve on the session. Someone actually said to her, “Now you’re going to see the church’s dark side.” It really upset her. But you know what? The church isn’t perfect. The church is imperfect people trying their best to imitate the perfection of God. Sometimes we get it wrong. But sometimes…we get it right. And it’s oh, so good when we do.
The point, however, is that that’s not what we should be observing. You see, when we work in the church, we are serving God…not anyone else. There will always be someone there to criticize us or to challenge us or to frustrate us. The point is that we don’t work for them. We work for God. If God is pleased…we will find the strength to persevere. Who cares what anyone else thinks? Amen.
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