Yesterday was our church garage sale. Several of the churches I’ve served over the years do one of these annually. When you do one of these every year, you begin to notice a few trends—trends like seeing the same stuff show up year after year. In seven years of doing yard sales in Park City, for example, we had the same poker table show up in sale every year. Now, you can ruminate about a Methodist church selling a poker table, or about the table’s apparently bad mojo, if you’re into that. But the bottom line was that it never really “stuck” in someone’s home.
Another thing we used to see over and over again was exercise equipment—exercise bikes, treadmills, etc. Most of it was lightly used—mostly as a clothes hanger and not for exercise! Bev Carlson donated one to this year’s sale and I asked her whether she and Ken had used and she said, yes, almost every day for 17 years! That has to be some kind of record. Most of that stuff, however, is in yard sales because it never got used.
Oh, sure, it was no doubt bought with good intentions—if I spend the money on this, then I’ll use it every day, I’ll finally get in shape, I’ll look like the guy or the girl in the infomercial. They went at it hard every day for a week, maybe a month, and then, well, it became kind of a hassle. I don’t have time for that today, I’ll do it tomorrow. Oops, pulled a muscle opening a can of Diet Coke so can’t do it today. There’s just too much to do the next day, so it sits. And then, once the laundry gets hung on it, well, that once noble piece of equipment that was going to be a vital part of a healthy lifestyle becomes a yard sale item which someone else will buy and continue the cycle.
I think that the exercise bike is really a kind of metaphor for the deadly sin we’re talking about today—the sin of sloth. We like to think of sloth as simple laziness and the word translated in the King James is “sluggard.” Think of a slug that moves slowly and leaves a trail of slime behind it—someone who’s not expending any energy whatsoever and who appears to have no usefulness at all. That’s the kind of image we get from this passage in Proverbs, where the writer tells the sluggard to go out and watch the ants, if he’ll get off his lazy butt and go do it. The ants don’t have anybody telling them what to do and yet they’re always busy hunting for food, gathering up food, preparing for winter. The sluggard (lazybones in the NRSV), however, is only focused on resting today—“a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest”—I’ll do it tomorrow. But the sluggard comes to ruin and poverty because tomorrow never arrives. In an agrarian culture like ancient Israel, the failure to work the fields meant that you were probably going to starve. Sloth had deadly consequences.
Such a concept might seem a little foreign to us, however. After all, we’re no longer an agrarian society. The hardest work that most of us have to do to get food is to pull out our wallets. Yes, we have to work to earn a living, but that’s not a problem for most of us. We are Americans, after all—the products of a deeply ingrained Puritan Protestant work ethic that drives us to be industrious and productive. According to a Forbes magazine survey of the hardest working countries, we work an average of 1797 hours a year, which puts us 9th on the list behind countries like Mexico, Greece, Poland, and the Czech Republic. South Korea is the hardest working country in the world with an average workload of 2,357 hours per year.
Even at ninth, however, we’re still a hardworking people. Sloth would not seem to be an American value. Indeed, much of our political rhetoric reveals that we’re pretty down on sloth, believing that it’s the reason for poverty. We’re very clear about our distaste for those who will not work, often quoting Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 when he says, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”
But we have to remember that all poverty is not the result of idleness, and neither is all sloth the result of simply doing nothing. Indeed, people in the ancient world believed that there’s another kind of sloth that may be even more insidious than pure idleness. In both Greek and Latin, the word for that kind of sloth is acedia.
The fourth century monks called it the “noonday demon” after that feeling you get in the middle of the day when you just don’t feel like doing anything but sleeping. To put it simply, acedia is really the failure to care—a sleepy, listless, lethargic, apathetic approach to the things that really matter. That’s why it’s associated with the sloth—who hangs in the trees and does seemingly nothing all day long and moves so slowly that it can eat the algae grows on it.
Writer Regina Barreca wrote an article for the Chicago Tribune in 1996 that describes this slothful acedia in simple terms: "Sloth is insidious. It whispers that you might as well do it tomorrow, that nobody will know if you cut comers here and there to save yourself some trouble, that the world will be the same in a hundred years no matter what you do, so why do anything? Sloth says, "Don’t strain yourself," "What’s the big hurry?" and "Just give me five more minutes."
Sloth hits the snooze alarm, hits the remote control and hits the road when the going gets tough … Sloth cheats on exams, drinks straight from the milk carton and leaves exactly two sheets on the toilet roll so that it will have to be replaced by the next poor soul who finds out too late that the remaining paper is nothing more than a mirage. Sloth does slightly less than the right thing. It doesn’t bother returning something to the lost-and found, but pockets it instead; it doesn’t tell the clerk he has undercharged. Sloth has never written a thank-you note, sent a birthday card on time or entertained angels. All this simply asks too much effort."
Acedia is failure to care, failure to do the right thing, and when we are grabbed by the sin of acedia we stop paying attention to the people around us. I have a theory, for example, that the problem in many marriages is simple acedia—we fail to the do the right thing, we stop paying attention, we don’t do the little things that really matter. That old song, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore” was written from the perspective of a victim of acedia.
Indeed, if you want a visual example of acedia, think of a dying houseplant. How many of those do you have at your house? I can never keep them because I don’t take care of the little things—watering, food, light. Fail to care for a plant and it dies. Fail to care for a relationship and it dies, too.
That includes our relationship with God as well. Much of the biblical material about sloth is about failing to invest in our relationship with God and failing to care about what God cares about. In Matthew 25, for example, Jesus tells three parables about how acedia can keep people from entering God’s coming kingdom, one of which has to do with a master giving each of his servants money to invest while he is on a journey. Two of the industrious servants manage to double the master’s money through their shrewd investments and diligent work. The third servant simply buried his portion, unable or unwilling to do the work and to take the risk of investing the master’s resources. When the master returns, he is in big trouble and gets shut out of the house.
Jesus then goes on to say that the criteria for entrance into his kingdom isn’t about one’s theology or one’s system of belief but, rather, did you care about the hungry, the thirsty, the sick and the naked? If you did, you cared for Jesus and you are welcome in the kingdom. If you were guilty of acedia, and you failed to care for the least of God’s children, then you’re doomed.
Friends, I really believe that the biggest problem that the church of Christ faces in our day is a kind of spiritual acedia. We’ve become so focused on defending the tenets of our faith that we forgot that faith is always tied to works. The Reformation reminded us of Ephesians 2:8,9 that tells us that we are saved through faith and not through works, but the Reformers forgot to read verse 10 which says that we were created for good works. Indeed it says that good works are to be our life style. Writing to the church at Ephesus, Paul wants them to know that their faith isn’t just a holy head trip—it’s 24-7 vocation that must be worked at constantly, paying attention and caring about what, and who, God cares about.
You know, as Joe and I have been saying through this series, each of these deadly sins is also personal for us pastors as well. Indeed, pastors may be some of the most egregious perpetrators of acedia on our congregations. It’s not that we’re not busy—indeed, we are probably over-busy. It’s just that in our busyness we sometimes miss the things that matter and we fail to care where we should. I was reminded this week that I missed a very important event in the life of one of our kids who was having surgery a few months back. I was too busy being busy and I failed to care for someone and her family who were facing a very difficult time in their lives. I have been wrestling with that all week, and I am very sorry for that sin of omission. I can only say that I’m sorry to others of you who have felt that way and have been disappointed that I passed by without stopping to care. I ask your forgiveness.
Maybe we’re trained that way, however. When I was at General Conference, for example, I saw just how busy the United Methodist Church is around the world—busy doing some very good things but, also, doing a lot of busy work that doesn’t really matter. Our acedia allowed us to spend nearly two weeks and $9 million on a conference that ultimately produced no significant changes to our denomination’s focus and mission. We’re busy counting heads, busy generating program, busy raising money, busy, busy, busy—but we’re so busy that we have failed to care for the things that really matter—the things that Christ wants us, as his church to care about.
But while the church and its pastors are busy, so, apparently are the congregants. In fact, I saw a survey this week that was conducted by Lifeway research that gave the top ten reasons people stop going to church. Number one reason? Simply got too busy! We’re too busy to focus on what really matters. We’re too busy to even pay attention to God’s commandment to have a Sabbath day.
There’s an old saying that says what begins as an excuse, soon becomes a habit and then ends as a cage. Acedia is all about making excuses that become habits and then trap us in a never-ending cycle of failure to give a rip about what really matters.
In many ways, the 21st century can be very much like that first century church in Ephesus that Paul planted. Paul, in fact, seems to have spent more time with the Ephesian church than any of the others he established around the Mediterranean world. First Church Ephesus became a Christian success story as a result—by all the metrics a growing and vital church. Tradition tells us that sometime after Paul left Ephesus, the apostle John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, was appointed there as pastor, bringing along with him Mary the mother of Jesus.
A few years later, however, John was exiled to the remote Greek island of Patmos by the emperor Domitian because of his preaching at Ephesus. While on Patmos, John learned that his former church, which had been thriving, was now slipping into a kind of spiritual acedia.
The book of Revelation, which John wrote while on Patmos, includes letters to seven churches in Asia Minor, one of which is Ephesus—indeed, they are the first church John addresses because they are close to his heart. Writing through the words of Jesus, he begins by saying,
REVELATION 2:2
“I know your works, you toil, and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers…I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my (Christ’s) name, and that you have not grown weary.” In other words, I know, church, that you are busy doing a lot of good things, that you are working diligently at being the church, but…”
John writes under the guidance of Jesus, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” That’s what acedia is at its most basic level—we forget and abandon the love we had at first—whether it’s love for Jesus, love for our spouse or children, love for the world, love for those who are in need. We have a deficit of caring about the little things, a busyness that produces nothing of lasting value. When we abandon our first love, we abandon the ability to care and we are deep in the sin of acedia.
So, how do we beat this sin? What do we need in order to get off the spiritual couch and no longer be pew potatoes? How do we remember and engage our first love?
Well, speaking for Jesus, John offers three things that will beat back acedia and sloth. The first is:
Remember from what you have fallen. Remember what is like before. Remember what it was like when you first came to Christ—the excitement and wonder of those early days when you couldn’t wait to know more, you were sensitive to every move of the Spirit. You were alive with joy at realizing what Christ had done for you! Most churches, and many of the people in them, suffer from a collective memory loss about the power of God in Christ. When we were young and excited, we couldn’t wait to go forward.
When I was ordained, we ended the service by singing, “Here I am, Lord! Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, where you lead me.” Yes! But then, 20 years into it, sometimes the hymn sounds more like, “And Are We Yet Alive?” The key to being the church of Jesus is remembering who we are and where we’ve come from.
You know, I think that’s true for any relationship. You want to change your marriage? Remember where you came from! Remember what it was like to fall in love, to have that spark. Remember that there is a reason you’re together. If you’re struggling with a career, remember what it was like to dream about what you wanted to be when you grew up. Wherever in your life acedia is keeping you from caring, remember what it is you cared about in the beginning!
The second thing that replaces acedia, John says, is repentance. Repentance is essentially turning 180 degrees away from the life of sin and acedia to life in Christ. We have to decide that we want to change—to put ourselves before God and those we’ve wronged, to ask for forgiveness and, then, to begin walking a very different way of life. Repentance is a reminder that we can change, that the life we have isn’t the life we are stuck with. We can choose to get out of the rut of acedia and back on to the path of discipleship.
What do you need to repent from today? What has been keeping you from living the abundant life Christ offers? To whom do you need to confess and ask forgiveness?
And the last thing we can do to beat acedia, says John, is to “do the works you did at first.” To put it in 21st century terms, that means “going back to basics”–to go back to the beginning and start over with the basic habits and practices that made you a vital disciple of Jesus.
What are those habits and practices? Well, we Methodists have traditionally been very good at this in our history. John Wesley had three simple rules for Methodists to follow: Do no harm, Do all the good you can and attend to the public and private ordinances of God—the basic daily habits of Christian discipleship. We vow to uphold those basics when we join a United Methodist Church: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. We will have our confirmands come up here in a little while and say, at the beginning of their walk with Christ, that they will commit themselves to these practices—to daily prayer and Bible study, to weekly worship, to giving sacrificially of their resources, to serving others, and sharing their faith. And every time we ask new members to affirm these vows, we ask the whole congregation to do so again. If we’re going to beat acedia and sloth in the church, both here at Tri-Lakes and around the world, we have to be willing to repent of the fact that we haven’t paid very much attention to these basic things and start doing those works we did at first.
I am convinced that no program, no initiative, no Episcopal proclamation, no conference, no system will make the United Methodist Church as a denomination or Tri-Lakes as a local church be more vital. Only a return to the practices that made us a discipleship movement will do so. We need to recapture the power of holy habits and, when we do, we will begin to see all the areas of our life—our relationships, our work, everything—begin to be shaped like Christ. What are you prepared to do?
This fall, we will be launching a whole church emphasis on developing and sticking to these holy habits. We’ll be going back to basics. In the meantime, where can going back to basics help you in your marriage, your work, your relationship with your children, your life? What do you need to start doing again in order to start fresh?
Remember from where you have fallen. Remember what it was like.
Repent.
Do the works you did at first.
Our faith is very much like a yard sale exercise bike. It doesn’t do us any good unless we’re willing to get on it and work at it every day. Like the old Nike commercial put it so aptly, “Just do it!” That’s as good a cure for sloth as any!
But if we fail to do it, if we fail to reclaim our passion for the work of Christ, then we might as well look like this…
