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The Sins He Died For: Sloth
Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle March 14, 2004, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Amos 6:1-7 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15
Now three weeks into the season of Lent, and three sins into our series on the Seven Deadlies, this morning we take up the sin of sloth. Sloth is one of those sins that has been pushed out of the way, over the years, by the more titillating sins … like lust, for instance. It exists, but mostly in the background of our religious consciousness. By my dictionary, sloth is defined as “habitual disinclination to exertion; indolence, laziness.” So when we think of sloth, we think of the teenager who won’t get out of bed until 1, or the one at the office who doesn’t pull his weight, or the one at home who doesn’t pull hers. We think of those who let others do all the work, who ride the public wave of success but do little to make anything happen behind the scenes. We think those who get little exercise, who watch too much television, who are motivated to do little and in the end, do nothing. We think of, who else, Mrs. Howell, who never lifted finger the whole time the castaways were on Gilligan’s Island! Presbyterians have never been particularly tolerant of laziness. From their reformed beginnings, Presbyterians were those maintained that work was a sacrifice that demonstrated moral worthiness, who valued human industriousness, who knew and lived the Protestant work ethic. And, of course, over the centuries, there have been no shortage of Presbyterian preachers who have cracked the whip of duty and responsibility, damning those who would sit idly by in the face of great problems or condemning those who approached any of life’s tasks lazily. Well, with a few hundred years of history under our belts, the work ethic seems to have changed shape a bit. Most of our lives are busier and more full of duty than we want them to be. Most of us work hard and produce and keep going with nary a break during the day. Most of us lead fast paced lives full of things we do and need to do. Most of us fantasize about how we can get rid of things to do rather than add to the list. Might not a little laziness be a good and refreshing thing once in a while? Don’t we deserve a chance to do nothing now and again? Well, of course we do, and of course rest is necessarily a part of faithful living. But, to be clear, required rest and the sin of sloth, Sabbath and sloth, you see, are not the same things. Frederick Buechner writes of sloth, “Sloth is not to be confused with laziness. A lazy man, a man who sits around and watches the grass grow, may be a man at peace. His sun-drenched, bumblebee dreaming may be the prelude to action or itself an act well worth the acting … A slothful man, on the other hand,” he continues, “may be a very busy man. He is a man who goes through the motions, who flies on automatic pilot. Like a man with a bad head cold, he has mostly lost his sense of taste and smell. He knows something is wrong with him, but not wrong enough to do anything about. Other people come and go, but through glazed eyes he hardly notices them. He is letting things run their course. He is getting through his life.” What Buechner is saying is that the sin of sloth is not necessarily just day-to-day laziness. The sin of sloth is not just about choosing rest over responsibility, idleness over industry. There is another way to understand sloth. Grasping after such an understanding takes us back to Gregory the Great, the first complier of these seven deadly sins, to the time before sloth made the jump from sacred to secular. It takes us back to the little Latin word, acedia, the word used first used to describe the listlessness that afflicted monks during the middle of the day. It was that apathy that made their duties- the study of the scriptures, the contribution to the common life, the helping of those in need- seem so very unappealing and that made rest, laziness, so very much more appealing. A century before Gregory compiled the list of seven, another monk, John Cassius wrote that acedia was “the most, dangerous and persistent enemy.” Interestingly, acedia, translates into English not so much as “habitual disinclination to exertion, indolence, or laziness” as it does “not caring” or “without care.” So sloth, then, as one of the seven deadly sins, is not so much idleness of mind or laziness of body, not so much sitting by while others do the work or wasting our days in front of the television, as much as it is not caring. That is not to say that I could not stand here this morning and preach a sermon about the need to take more responsibility in the church and to take your civic duties more seriously. All churches could use a good does of that now and again. That is also not to say that I could not stand here this morning and chastise the idleness of mind that creeps in when certain people fall asleep in church - we know who you are. But for today, for this morning, proclamation leads me to acedia, this not caring which underlies our not doing much of anything. Sloth is a little more slippery than the other seven deadly sins. I think that is so for two reasons. First, most obviously, sloth is not like lust or anger or pride or gluttony or greed because all of those are associated with some kind of action, some kind of doing the wrong thing. Sloth, on the other hand, is not so much a result of doing the wrong thing but it is us not doing much of anything. It is the difference between sins of commission and sins of omission. Sin “has the form not only of evil action,” said Barth, “but also of evil inaction; not only of the rash arrogance which is forbidden and reprehensible, but also of the tardiness and failure which are equally forbidden and reprehensible.” I think this is what Paul was talking about in his letter to the church in Thessalonica. He had heard that some were living in idleness, not necessarily doing the things that Christ forbade, but also not. He had heard that some were busybodies, more concerned with what others were doing than doing anything themselves. He had heard that some were not doing any work, that they didn’t seem to care about the world around that which was so full of need. Sounds like Paul had heard about most churches I know. He had heard that there were people who had stopped caring, who had sinned by not doing rather than doing. Acedia, this not caring and so not doing anything, I think is difficult for another reason and this is maybe, perhaps, why it was so early on referred to as the most dangerous and persistent enemy. That is because when sloth has its way we stop caring- we stop caring about the fabric of human life and existence, we stop caring about each other, we stop caring about God- and so, without care, there is no sense of loss, but for a nameless despair, and no sense of guilt, but for a kind of purposelessness with which we “get through life” as Buechner wrote. The nameless despair which is sloth’s little sister is different than the kind of despair which has it root in the chemistry of the brain or in those experiences in life which leave us hurting and in need of emotional healing. I say that cautiously because I know that there is depression that human will alone cannot conquer and that there is a despair that reflects more than a relationship with God that needs tending. Nevertheless, or perhaps at the same time, I do believe that there is a sense in which human despair, nameless, lurking, is connected to our feelings and thoughts about God, or our lack of feelings and thoughts about God. Better put, it is connected to our lack of feelings and thoughts about God, our apathy toward God, our not caring about God and so, our sloth. Sloth lulls us into the kind of despair that has us go through the motions of life, ever so sad that there seems to be little depth or passion in our days. Sloth lulls us into the kind of despair that numbs our senses like a bad head cold and leaves us knowing there is something wrong, but not caring enough to do anything about it. Sloth lulls us into the kind of despair that leaves us not caring much about ourselves, anyone else or our God. It tells us that we need not care about God’s goodness toward us, or be comforted by it. It tells us that we need not be mindful of God’s grace toward us, or trust in his mercy for us and for all people. It tells us that we need not pay attention to these promises made and kept for us or love this God who has given us so very much. “In relation to God,” wrote Karl Barth “there is no middle term between love and hate. The man who does not love God resists and avoids that fact that God is the One He is, and that He is this for him.” And then, perfect Barth, he writes. “In sloth, [man] turns his back on God, rolling himself into a ball like a hedgehog with prickly spikes.” Rolled into a ball like a hedgehog, head buried and hidden from the world around us, prickly spears pushing away anyone or anything that might try to reach to us, we are slothful and despairing indeed. But more than the nameless despair of sloth, acedia, there also a sense of purposelessness that accompanies it. It is a purposeless that prompts lingers behind all of our inactivity, and so our sluggishness and our laziness. Sloth leaves us purposeless because it does not care about God, and so cares nothing about God’s claim on our lives. And so sloth, you see, is the lackadaisical refusal to live up to one’s essential humanity. It involves the refusal to be fully human, to be the responsible moral agents God created us to be. We don’t live fully enough or aim high enough. Sloth is not just about being a couch potato but failing to take seriously issues and opportunities before us. Sloth then is a denial of our vocation. It talks us out of believing that we have been born for purpose and that we have been equipped by grace to do anything in particular, and so, we do nothing at all. Purposeless. Not caring. Acedia. Anglican theologian Dorothy Sayers wrote this about this most dangerous and persistent enemy, "Acedia or sloth...is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing to die for." Sloth is the sin which, at some level, at some time, infects all of us and each one of us. The thing about sloth though, about our not caring, about our turning away from God, about our being like unto hedgehogs with prickly spears all curled into a ball, and this is where everything turns, is that no matter how much you don’t care, no matter how much I turn away, no matter how much we defend ourselves with our prickly spears, the truth is that God never stops caring about us, never stops turning toward us, never stops working to break down our defenses, for our sakes and for the sake of the world. For all of our apathy, God is never apathetic toward us. And so, there is a futility in our sloth for, as Barth concludes, “Our refusal of God cannot make the Word spoken in Him an unspoken word, nor can it kill his life nor silence his proclamation. It cannot conceal, let alone quench, his light nor arrest his revelation, nor destroy his direction, nor damn up the stream of the knowledge of God of which he is the source … I may close my eyes, I may shut them as tight as I can, or I may turn away from the sun, but this does not alter the fact that the sun shines on me, too, and that I have eyes to see it.” These weeks ahead, more so than any other, show us the intensity of our refusing him, the reality of the way in which we will try to kill his life and silence his proclamation, the depth of how it is we do not care, and of how very slothful the likes of you and I are as we betray, deny, forsake and flee. Even as we do that, even as we close our eyes and shut them as tight as we can, may we know that any darkness we can create, we have created, is never enough to quench his light, and may we be given faith enough to care about that and do everything for it. Thanks be to God. Amen. |