Sloth
Psalm 91:1-6
Psalm 91:5-6 (The Message): Fear nothing – not wild wolves in the night,
not flying arrows in the day, not disease that prowls through the darkness, not
disaster that erupts at high noon.
Mark 6:31a: [Jesus]
said to [the disciples], “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and
rest a while.”
From “Answers in the Heart”: We tend to feel ourselves under pressure to
perform, to produce, to excel. But
pressure makes us feel rushed, and we become careless with ourselves and
others. We miss seeing and enjoying the
small, simple things in life. We get
things and people out of focus. [AND]
Time is not an enemy to be
conquered, but part of the rhythm of life.
Fredrick Buechner: 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 sundrenched, bumblebee
dreaming may be a prelude to action or itself an act well worth the acting. A slothful man, on the other hand, 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’s 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.
Dorothy Sayers: [Sloth]
is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing,
interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds
purpose in nothing, and only remains alivAe because there is nothing to die
for.
[prayer]
Years ago in
The
Sloth
isn’t even the best name for this particular sin. The better word for it is acedia, a term
coined by the early desert fathers of the church. These men didn’t retire into the desert just
to find silence and solitude. They went
there to wrestle with their souls, a wrestling that involved confronting the
demonic forces that people of that time believed to dwell in the desert.
One
of those was the “Devil of the Noonday Sun,” what the psalmist called the
disaster that erupts at high noon. Those
afflicted by it were often burdened with a melancholy spirit that left them
bored and listless. They lost their
passion for the Lord. They reached a
point where essentially nothing much mattered.
They got through their days on automatic pilot, more or less putting one
foot in front of the other, doing just what it took to survive.
Today’s
psalm is a hymn extolling the protection of the Lord. And one of the dangers from which its
listeners sought protection was the demonic influence of the sun’s rays, rays
that were the most dangerous at noonday.
These rays were believed to cause a variety of ills or bring on any
number of disasters. God’s people prayed
for his protection from the “Devil of the Noonday Sun.”
In
his book The Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome Stephen Shoemaker wrote that, “[Sloth] may be one of the most devastating
of the seven deadly sins today.” We
don’t live in a culture that believes in the demonic influence of the mid-day
sun. We do live in a culture that limits
its definition of sloth to laziness, a culture that pressures us to perform, to
produce, to excel. Ours is a culture that
truly does view time as an enemy to be conquered, a 24/7 culture that seeks to
milk dry every last minute of every day.
And
it’s not just that way for adults. We even
program our children to the point that some of them actually have to consult their
day planners before they can schedule a play date. That way they can grow up to be just like the
busy man described by Fredrick Buechner, people who miss seeing and enjoying
the small, simple things of life; who get things and people out of focus. Slowly but surely turning them into ripe
prospects for the Church of It Don’t Matter.
We
Christians are as guilty of this as anyone else. We spend our time and energy doing church
busywork instead of the Lord’s work. We
get caught up in the administrivia of managing the institution instead of
continuing Christ’s earthly work of preaching, teaching, and lovingly healing. It’s real easy for us to end up on automatic
pilot, either working ourselves into a numbing exhaustion that prevents us from
giving God our best or using busyness to avoid acknowledging our deep hunger
for the things of God.
There’s
nothing wrong with hard work. Jesus knew
all about hard work. Galilean carpenters
of his day were involved in hard physical labor. The day in and day out work of his three-year
earthly ministry was physically, emotionally, and spiritually taxing. In the verses following this morning’s text
from Mark Jesus gives up his retreat with his disciples in order to minister to
the spiritual and physical needs of those people who had followed him to the
other side of the lake. He had his
priorities straight.
But
he also kept Sabbath, not in the legalistic manner of the Pharisees, but always
within the context of what his Father had created Sabbath for – a day of rest
from one’s labors and a day of worship in which one’s full attention was turned
to God. He took time out to visit with
friends. He enjoyed a good meal. He refused to wrap his life in legalistic
chains.
More
than that he knew the source of his power, strength, and ability. He spent much time apart from others
conversing with his Father. He took time
to fellowship with his disciples. He
spent time in retreat-like settings with them, teaching them what they needed
to know. He took time to get to know
them: their strengths and weaknesses, their quirks and foibles, their prides
and passions. He taught them that they,
too, needed time and space in which to converse with God. He did not want them doing ministry on
automatic pilot.
That’s
why he asked them to come away with him to a lonely place and rest awhile. And while at that place, tell him all about
their just completed two-by-two mission trips.
He and they needed time to debrief and decompress, time to pray and
enjoy one another’s fellowship. Even
ministry can’t be a 24/7 experience.
Even the most faithful of disciples can lose the battle with acedia and
burn out. There has to be time off. There must be Sabbath.
Even
the most hard-nosed businessman knows that busyness does not in itself mean
productiveness. Tired employees make
mistakes. Too much multi-tasking for too
long can lead to important things falling through the cracks. Decisions made too quickly under the pressure
of unrealistic expectations tend to be poor decisions. A famous surgeon once said, “I don’t have time to hurry.”
The Devil of the Noonday Sun can strike at midnight. It can come upon us when the weather is
winter-like. Acedia can afflict us any
time, any place. The only way to avoid
it is the same way today’s psalm celebrates: through God’s protection. The more time we spend with God the less
likely we are to commit the deadly sin of sloth. Prayer is a must. Quiet contemplation is a must. Sabbath rest is a must. God loves us too much to want us to burn out,
become bored, or live life on automatic pilot.
God did not create us to live lives in which people and things are out
of focus, lives in which we do nothing more than move from one gray, tasteless
day to another. God created us to slow
down and live, to regularly answer Jesus' call to come away with him to a place
of rest, renewal, and solitude.
Time is not an enemy to be conquered.
It is a gift God gives us to use wisely as we live out the rhythms that
he built into creation. Amen.