The Seven Deadlies - Sloth

John 15:1-8 [NRSV]
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
“You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Now I know what some of you are going to say today. You know I’ve been doing a sermon series on the seven deadly sins. And for three weeks, I’ve been hitting pretty close to home, haven’t I? We’ve talked about pride; we’ve talked about envy; and we’ve talked about anger. And as sins go, these are pretty big ones. I’ve certainly recognized them in myself.

But today, you came to church and you saw that I’m preaching about sloth and you said to yourself, “This time he’s gone too far! It’s one thing to take on pride because we know that we sometimes think too much of ourselves. And envy? Well, yes, sometimes we do covet what our neighbor has and take pleasure when bad things happen to them. And yes, anger does keep me from seeing God’s justice instead of my own sense of what’s right.

“But sloth? What does Alex have against a cute little three-toed animal that hangs from trees in the Amazon? How in the world can a sloth be deadly? I don’t think they even have teeth! All they do is suck on leaves!”

To that I say, “Let me explain myself.” Granted ‘sloth’ is not a word we hear much any more and when we do it usually is referring to the cuddly-looking, leaf-sucking beasts that swing in the rainforest trees. But that’s not the kind of sloth I’m talking about. The sloth I’m talking about is, once again, like pride, envy and anger, something that is found deep inside and, like these other deadly sins, it threatens our life with God.

Now if someone has ever accused you of being a sloth, of the ten-toed variety, they were probably accusing you of being lazy. That’s the generally-accepted synonym for sloth. Slothful people lie about and do nothing. They refuse to put themselves out for anything or anyone. They just don’t seem to have a whole lot of ambition. That’s how this line of argument usually goes.

Now if that’s the case, sloth might seem to be a problem, and maybe even a character flaw, but we’d hardly describe it as a deadly sin. In fact, in a society where nobody seems to have enough time for anything…when 24/7 is the standard measure of how much we want to be available to work…when families are stretched because of work schedules, ball schedules, music lesson schedules and even church schedules…when everything is rushed (even on the Eastern Shore!)…when high stress lifestyles lead to high blood pressure problems…when there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all that we feel we have to do…you know, a little bit of sloth might be a healthy thing.

In fact, there is a health researcher in Germany who has suggested just that! Professor Peter Axt, in a paper entitled “The Joy of Laziness,” says, “The benefits of procrastination are grossly undervalued in modern society. People are working longer hours and trying to fit more into every day. But when you are already stressed and anxious, it can be much better to do nothing than rush to the gym for a workout…People who would rather relax in a hammock than run a marathon certainly have a better chance of living to old age.” And they may be smarter.[i] Now that’s my kind of study.

So sloth, if it is laziness, sounds like a pretty minor sin. And not only that, it might even be healthy. There is a group out in San Francisco called the Lazy Eight Foundation, (I kid you not), that says, “Quality laze-time can give rise to the most creative, inspirational and original ideas.”[ii] That may go against the American Protestant work ethic, but it sure sounds nice.

But what if sloth is something more? Surely it must be since it made the list of the Seven Deadlies. What was it about sloth that made this sin seem like such a threat to our very souls?

In my first pastorate in Virginia I worked with a young man who was very gifted. He was bright, sociable and had all kinds of potential. He had a lot of things going for him. He had all these things going for him despite the fact that he had a lot working against him, too.

He was being raised by a mother who had overcome her own drug addiction to straighten her life out. She had been through a resurrection of sorts, leaving behind the death that her old ways represented and creating a new life for herself and her two boys. She had done this with the help of family and with the help of God who had given her this new life and who was opening her up to give to others.

This young man, in other words, had a great mother, who had a strong faith, but she didn’t have a lot of money and she worried over her son. He often got into trouble and, even though he was smart, he didn’t get the best grades. Even so, when he graduated from school she worked hard to get him into college.

It was late in the summer before he got a place and they were sure of being able to pay for his tuition. A generous scholarship from the school helped. Then he started school with all of his potential and all of his gifts.

But something happened to him at school. The dark shadows that often overtook him followed him there. Despite all that he had and the support that he had and the promise that this new life represented, he made some bad choices that got him kicked out of school. What finally did it was smoking pot in his dorm room, but something worse than drugs had gotten him. Something worse than laziness. He had given in to his own joylessness and given up on being what even he knew that he could be. What struck him was the sin of sloth.

The ancients used to call sloth “sadness” and by that they meant a deep despair that kept people from living up to the potential they had. The desert monks of the fourth century referred to it as “the noonday demon” because it crept in in the middle of the day when the sun was at its hottest. It’s the time of day when the life and energy they experienced in the early morning was burnt off by the heat and what was left was a sense of the pointlessness of work in the midst of a desert day. Why not sleep? Why not give up on the work they were given to do?

I know this experience. I know it well. How many times have I met with people at the beginning of a project when everyone is excited by a new idea! We all sit around the table and say, “Yes, we will start an evangelistic campaign!” “Yes, we will draw up plans for a new building!” “Yes, we will read through the Bible!” And everyone is intoxicated by the notion and assignments are made, plans are put in place. Then a few weeks later, the energy has flagged. Everyone still agrees that it is a good idea, but the work has ground to a halt. Nothing seems to be moving forward. Sloth has set in. It’s as if there is a great drowsiness in the land.

We all know the old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is for this reason that Jesus didn’t say to folks, “Let your mind transformed. Believe differently. Try on a new mental paradigm.” He did want our minds to be transformed, but he wanted us to do more than that. He wanted us to bear fruit.

This is the point of the parable from John which we read this morning. When Jesus says that he is the vine and we are the branches, the next step is for the branches to produce fruit. If we only hear the word…if we only listen and believe…but then do not go on to live the word and put into practice in our lives, then what good is the word to us or to the world? God’s desire is that we bear fruit and in that way be Jesus’ disciples.

Sloth is the sin that threatens that fruit bearing. It is, as Thomas Aquinas said, “that sluggishness of mind which neglects to begin good.”[iii] It is the impairment in our souls that prevents the motion we feel towards God from being expressed in action. It is when it seems that we are collapsing in on ourselves, like some dying star. You know how when a star collapses it becomes so dense that not even light can escape it and eventually it becomes a black hole? (Somebody can correct my astronomy later…that’s how I envision it happening.) We also can experience a collapse so that we can’t see the good in doing good…the light which we are supposed to be for the world cannot go forth from us…and eventually we become inert. Maybe we even drag down those around us.

This is a lot more than laziness. Even busy people can suffer this kind of sin. Wendy Wasserstein, who wrote a satirical book all about how to be slothful, says busy people in our society are the ultimate examples of slothdom. They are übersloths. She admits that it’s hard to imagine: “Any woman who is obsessed with her Palm Pilot, her Blackberry, and her cell phone can’t possibly be construed as” a sloth, but they are. “When you achieve true slothdom, you have no desire for the world to change. True sloths are not revolutionaries…It doesn’t matter if the world evolves, because your purpose is not to get things done. Sloths are neither angry nor hopeful. They are not even anarchists. Anarchy takes too much work. Sloths are the lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo.”[iv]

The lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo. Wasserstein suspects that there is no point to all of our work. It’s a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Are we really producing anything of value? Is all of our activity really leading us somewhere new? Somewhere important? Why are you so busy and is it working out for you?

It turns out that sloth is really not about laziness at all. It’s about paying attention to what really matters. It’s about paying attention to God. And whether you’re sitting in a Barcalounger with a TV remote 7 hours a day or working like a maniac 24/7 you can still be caught in sloth. Either one can be pointless and can lead you away from what really matters.

When Jesus goes with the disciples to the garden of Gethsemane to pray, what happens to them is symbolic of what happens to all of us. Jesus has only one simple request to Peter, James and John as he goes off to pray. Do you remember what it was? “Stay here and keep awake.” But what is it that they do? They fall asleep. Their intentions were good. They were willing to do whatever Jesus asked of them. But they were overcome by sleep.

Our sleep takes many forms. Our ability to be responsive to God can be impaired in so many ways. And even in America, where we have such a noble commitment to work, we can forget what truly matters.

Sloth is the shadow side of pride. If pride is thinking too much of ourselves, sloth can sometimes show up as thinking too little of ourselves and of our abilities. It is failing to claim the capacities that God has given us to be the people we were meant to be. Sometimes that comes across as low self-esteem, and how many young women are crippled by this? Sometimes it comes across as a busy-ness that distracts us from the abundant life Christ calls us to live. Either way, we fail to be what God has made us to be.

But the most devastating effect of sloth is how it saps our joy. When we lose the capacity for joy we have entered into the deadly realm. What the forces of evil want more than anything is for us to lose our ability to take joy in the world around us, to take joy in the people around us, to take joy in our lives, and to take joy in God.

The movie Life is Beautiful depicts the love of a father and son as they are taken off to concentration camps in the middle of World War II. The father is a born comic and he is able to convince his son that they are part of some great contest. It is the father’s ability to maintain his joy even in the midst of the most dehumanizing conditions that sustains the boy and sustains hope.

Jesus, when he went to the cross, was able to remind his followers that no one was taking his life from him. He was laying down his life willingly. He was suffering the worst that the world had to offer, but he was not giving up the joy, the hope and the promise that God had put into the heart of creation. Those things would remain. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he said. “And do not let them be afraid.”

God does not want sour-faced Christians who do not know how to experience deep joy. God wants you with all of your capacities for life and joy and fruitfulness. It doesn’t matter what obstacles you face. It doesn’t matter where you have been or what you have done. It doesn’t matter how far you have felt from God to this point…God is calling you to life. This is our hope. This is our strength. This is the promise that we know in Christ Jesus, who will not be defeated, even by our slothfulness. Thanks be to God.

[i] Anastasia Stephens, “Sloth-the cardinal virtue,” The Independent Newspaper, 2001.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Summa Theologica, II.2.35
[iv] Wendy Wasserstein, Sloth, [New York: Oxford University Press, 2005], p. 104.