SLOTH

Copyright July, 2003, Kenneth W. Phifer

This could have been one of the shortest sermons on record had I succumbed to the temptation to demonstrate rather than speak on sloth. Then I would not have thought about sloth, not prepared any remarks on sloth, and certainly not delivered this sermon. I would have been slothful as a way of showing what it means.

But I am an American. As one of my colleagues noted, ever since the Puritans we Americans have not been so much guilty of sloth as of its opposite. We overwork. We overstructure. We keep busy. As Theodore Parker observed 160 years ago, "that which we do, we overdo. Alone of all the nations in the world, we have added rockers to our chairs…"that we might stay in motion even when we are at rest.

So instead of your being able in the next 30 minutes to just "bide your time", I am going to fill that time with some comments about sloth. For even though we are not on the whole a slothful people, there are lessons to be learned in thinking about this alluring temptation to quit doing and quit caring.

The first thing to note is the pronunciation of the word, which is in some dispute. The English pronunciation as given in the Oxford English Dictionary is "slowth" rhyming with growth. The American Heritage Dictionary and Webster’s Dictionary give three pronunciations, beginning with sloth as I have been pronouncing it. The second pronunciation is "slowth", and the third one has a nice pronouncing symbol above the "o" which no one in the church office could figure out—slewth, sleeth, slith, slayth????—we do not know. But it appears that almost any way you say these five letters—s-l-o-t-h—is acceptable.

I will say sloth since I have been saying that since I was a youngster and began doing crossword puzzles in almost every one of which there was a clue: "South American two-toed sloth." It was not until college that I learned that sloth had a more important meaning as one of the seven deadly sins.

This list of really bad behaviours was put together by Gregory the Great in the late sixth century. It consists of three so-called "hot" sins—anger, gluttony, and lust—and three so-called "cold" sins—avarice, envy and pride. "Hot" sins are passionate and aggressive. "Cold" sins are calculating and full of hatred. Sloth is neither hot nor cold, neither passionate nor calculating.

Thomas Aquinas called this group of sins "capital," that is, sins that cause other sins. Since capital crimes merited punishment by death, the sins described as capital also came to be known as deadly. They were deadly because they were soul-destroying, literally putting one’s eternal soul in jeopardy.

The rise of Protestantism took some of the edge off these sins and the mortal peril in which they supposedly placed us. Protestants tended to place emphasis on a personal relationship with God more than keeping account of when and how often we commit sins.

When secularism replaced Christian theology as the dominant tone of western society, deadly sins were replaced by felonies and misdemeanors punishable not by God but by courts of law.

Later advances in our understanding of mental diseases placed medical labels on many of the bad behaviours in which we engage, pushing farther back into the corners of western society a sense of moral failure when we do wrong.

Whether described in theological terms or moral terms or any other, there is no question that the Seven Deadly Sins do represent bad behaviour. If we want to live good lives, we do not want to be filled with anger, indulge in gluttony, and act on our lustful fantasies. We do not want to be avaricious, or torture ourselves with envy, or be filled with unwarranted pride.

If we want to be good and to do good, we certainly do not want to be slothful (however we pronounce it).

Let us take a brief look at what this word has meant, why it is harmful, and what we might do to counter it.

First, there is the sloth of laziness, idleness, passivity, especially in the face of tasks that need doing The author of Proverbs wrote that " I went by the field of a lazy man, and by the vineyard of a man void of understanding, and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles covered it over, and its stone wall was broken down."

That is what happens when we are slothful. Our fields are covered with thorns and nettles and our walls break down.

Gardeners know about this, how quickly weeds can overwhelm flowers and bushes if we get lazy about pulling up these unwelcome visitors.

Householders know as well that if we do not keep up with our housework, dust will accumulate, filth will cover our tables and chairs, stains will mar the beauty of our furnishings, left-over food will rot and smell, clothes will pile up in dirty heaps.

We have all seen gardens and homes like this. Some of us have even lived in them. They are uninviting, unappealing, even dangerous.

Slothfulness is no way to live a good life, a healthy life, a happy life.

Sloth is about refusing to do the work of the world.

Food is part of the work of the world. Food must be grown, cleaned, and prepared before it can be eaten. Then the dishes must be done. In a few hours we start the same process over again. We may find this business of fixing meals quite tedious, especially if we prepare for a family each member of which has finicky tastes. But even if we fix food only for ourselves, we must prepare it and when we have eaten it, we must clean up after ourselves.

One sign of sloth in our society is how much eating is done at fast-food restaurants. The food is notoriously un-nutritious. The speed with which we are supposed to eat is a detriment to the fellowship of family and friends. The methods by which much of the food is derived are environmentally harmful.

It is understandable why fast-food restaurants are so popular. Our overworked, fast-paced, advertising-laden society makes it hard to resist the lure of "a quick meal" that someone else has fixed, even if it is lousy food and lousy for us.

Bess Myerson once said that "Sloth is to see what should be done and not do it." Or, we might add, sloth is to see what should not be done and do it anyway because it is easier.

One of the most powerful illustrations of sloth is found in The Parable of the Talents. Jesus tells his disciples of a man going on a journey who calls his servants to him and entrusts to them his property. He gives to each according to what he feels that servant’s abilities are. To his most trusted servant he gives five talents, to the next most capable two, and to the least of the three a single talent.

The first servant goes out and does some trading and doubles the money. The second servant does the same thing. But the servant who has been give the one talent simply buries it.

When the master returns, he asks for an accounting. The first servant tells him what he has done and presents him with ten talents. He is praised by his master and rewarded for his stewardship of the property. So it is with the second servant and he too receives a reward for his good work.

The third servant tells his master that he has buried the talent because he was afraid of his master. He gives back to him the one talent entrusted to him. The master is angry, and calls him "a wicked and slothful servant," telling him he ought at the very least to have invested with bankers so that the master would have received back his talent plus interest. This servant is cast into outer darkness as a punishment for his lazy ways.

Like the servants, we too are entrusted with "property:" our lives, our relationships, the public commons that are our streets and sidewalks and parks and buildings, our families and cities and nations and religious communities.

Laziness, idleness, passivity in the care and nurture of these "properties" is wrong. It is not right to pay no attention so that these "properties" languish. We have an obligation to help sustain them and help them to grow in power and in beauty. That way, when we go, like the master, on a journey into another country, what we pass on will be strong and resilient and maybe even a bit better than what was given to us.

The sloth that is laziness is best countered by two things: hard, disciplined work and the development of good habits. The theist can say that God helps those who help themselves. The non-theist can say that if we do not do the work of this world, who will?

Sloth is laziness, idleness, passivity, and as such is truly bad behaviour.

Sloth is also boredom.

Some years ago there was a book titled, "WHERE DID YOU GO? OUT. WHAT DID YOU DO? NOTHING." That is sloth as boredom.

When we care so little about where we go that when asked where we have been we can only answer with the vague word, out, we are bored.

When whatever we do is of so little interest to us that when asked about our activities all we can do to describe them is to say, nothing, we are bored.

The poet C.P. Cavafy wrote these lines about boredom:

"One monotonous day follows another

identically monotonous. The same things

will happen to us again and again,

the same moment come and go.

A month passes by, brings another month.

Easy to guess what lies ahead:

all of yesterday’s boredom.

And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow."

Nothing is of interest. Nothing seems worth doing. The slightest task seems too hard and larger projects are inconceivable. Life is boring.

Some of us have had teachers who are bored. Forced by circumstances to remain in the classroom, they have no interest whatsoever in the subject matter or the students.

I have known ministers, especially in a time of a crisis of faith, who are just not interested in the work or in people any more.

I’m sure there are bus drivers and lawyers and secretaries and sales people and bureaucrats and waitpersons who are very bored by what they are doing.

Many of these people live the life of Herman Melville’s character, Bartleby the Scrivener, a Wall Street clerk.One day he decides that he is no longer interested in the work he is paid to do. He sits at his desk and to every request for him to do something, he responds simply, "I would prefer not to," and indeed does nothing.

Perhaps Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov captured this slothful attitude best in his novel, OBLOMOV, the very name of which became a synonym for sloth itself. Goncharov writes of his main character that "Hardly any outside attractions existed for him, and every day he grew more firmly rooted in his flat…At first he found it irksome to remain dressed all day, then he felt lazy about dining out with intimate bachelor friends, at whose houses he could take off his tie, unbutton his waistcoat, and even lie down and have an hour’s sleep. Evening parties soon wearied him also; one had to put on a dresscoat, to shave every day…His friend Stolz succeeded in making him go and see people…but without him Oblomov again wholly abandoned himself to solitude and seclusion that could only be disturbed by something unusual, out of the ordinary routine of life; but nothing of the sort happened or was likely to happen…The flower of life blossomed and bore no fruit. Oblomov sobered down; occasionally, at Stolz’s advice, he read this or that book, though without hurry or eagerness, lazily following the lines with his eyes. However interesting the passage he was reading might be, if it was time to go to bed or to have dinner he put the book face downwards…If he was given the first volume of a work he did not, after finishing it, ask for the second, but if the second were brought to him he slowly read it. As years passed he found even a first volume of a work too much for him and spent most of his leisure time with his elbow on the table, leaning his head in his arms…"

Oblomovism, boredom, is inactivity based on the feeling that nothing is worth doing. Oblomov’s motto, the motto of the bored person, is: why bother?

Boredom leads people to avoid responsibility.

Bill Watterson has his wonderful character Calvin say to his pal Hobbes, convince people "that the problem is not their fault and that they’re victims of larger forces. That’s easy, because it’s what people believe anyway. Nobody wants to be responsible for his own situation."

Perhaps Calvin’s absolutism overstates the case, but certainly there are many who always want to blame someone else for the bad things in their lives. We all face that temptation at one time or another. Sometimes we give in to it.

This is a form of boredom because we know that nothing is so exciting and so stimulates our minds and hearts as knowing we are responsible for someone or for something that matters. Lacking that stimulus for whatever reason can easily leave us bored.

This can often lead to what James Lincoln Collier describes as a selfish focus on rights to the exclusion of responsibility: "the right of everybody and anybody to take whatever they can get without any responsibility for putting something back into the pot."

One very telling illustration of this lack of interest in being responsible for what happens in our society is the scandalously low percentage of people who vote. The highest percentage is barely 50% and that only once every four years when we elect a president. No democracy has such a shameful record. Too many people are bored by politics and so evade the minimal responsibility of going to the polls.

Boredom manifests itself as a lack of involvement in life and a lack of responsibility for the kind of society we have now and might have in the future. In a democratic society, such boredom is both a danger and a moral failing.

The way out of boredom is very simple: get involved in some institution, cause, or project. Accept nothing without feeling a corresponding sense of responsibility to return to society in measure as we have received.

Sloth is lack of involvement and lack of responsibility, boredom.

Finally, sloth is despair.

Despair is hopelessness. Despair is the belief that there is no way out. Doom is all that awaits us. It is a deadness of soul.

More than the other two meanings of sloth, despair is what inspired the early Church leaders to include it as one of the seven really bad sins. The Latin word used was acedia. It has been translated variously as melancholy, dreariness, and discouragement. But no English word suits it better than despair, a sense of absolute dejection in the face of life’s difficulties.

We are easily drawn into despair when grim truths confront us.

We are told we have a fatal disease. We are confronted with a crippling malady. We lose our job and because of our age or our skills and experience have no likely chance of finding work in our field again. We are betrayed by our best friend and our partner, who go off into the sunset together leaving us behind, emotionally devastated.

It is easy to get down, way, way down, because life is full of messy and miserable things that happen to us and to those we love. Despair is right around the corner if our way of responding to the harshness of life is to lose heart.

It is sometimes not personal things that can overwhelm us and cause us to lose hope. Anyone who has followed even peripherally the journey of the President through Africa has to feel at least some sense of discouragement at the enormity of the problems faced by the people of this continent.

AIDS is a dominant theme with millions upon millions of people infected with the HIV virus, with drug prices too high, with enormous difficulties in the way of stopping the spread of the disease.

Civil war rages in several countries. Thousands have died, been wounded, lost livelihoods and property, felt the world turned upside down on top of them.

Girls are still being forcibly circumcised at young ages, women are stoned to death for adultery, and corruption is an ordinary feature of several governments.

Consider the impact on the lives of Muslim people in Bosnia as the bodies of thousands of their relatives and friends are uncovered in mass graves, just like the mass graves found in Iraq in the last few months.

And on and on and on through all the countries of the world as we hear about suicide bombers in Moscow, ravaging diseases in Canada, upheavals in Peru, and in our own land grave threats to our civil liberties.

Despair is in the air. We can inhale enough of it to paralyze us. Suddenly the flowers no longer look pretty. Music fails to stir us. A good book is unreadable. Our favorite hobby seems infantile and stupid. Our dearest companions feel remote to us. Life has lost its savor. Every little and big thing is distasteful and not worth the bother.

This is sloth. It is, as an early Christian theologian called it, " a soul-scourge." To lose all hope is to destroy life itself. Worst of all, such despair touches other people and often sucks them down into the whirlpool of dismay.

That is why, even if one does not believe in God, despair is to be fought against. We need hope, and we need to give each other hope. There is surely no one here who has not known a moment when life really seemed utterly awful. How we needed the caring word, the gentle hand, the encouraging presence of someone who helped us by one means or another to climb out of the pit and get back into life.

I remember hearing Viktor Frankl say once in a lecture that one of the ways by which he was able to survive several years in a Nazi concentration camp was by finding something every day that reminded him of the beauty of life, the joy of life, the goodness of life.

It could be something very small like a crust of bread that he found in the morning and nursed in his pocket all day to feast on in the evening in his barracks.

It could be an image of beauty like a wildflower spotted as the inmates marched out to work in the morning, an image he carried with him in his mind through the harshness of the day.

It could be a surprising act of kindness like a Nazi guard helping out an aged prisoner and even giving him some extra food. This act told Frankl that even in the worst of human beings there are elements of decency.

It could be a memory of his connection to a transcendent purpose, the purpose of human welfare to which as a psychiatrist he had given his life, or the purpose of living so that the he could bear witness to what had been done to Jews and others considered subhuman by the Nazis.

These are the tiny pinpoints of the light of hope that helped this man to make it through hell.

Of course, many were not able to do what Frankl did. Many gave in to despair. Many became ruthlessly selfish. Some killed themselves. And some just quit functioning altogether.

But Frankl was not alone. What he did in those horrifying circumstances, any of us can do in lives much less stressed and at risk than his was.

To counter the temptation to give way to despair, we can look for something good in our lives every day: the surge of green in our lawns after the rains, the gentle sharing of two small children after an earlier squabble, a generous gift from a man of ordinary means who saved all his life and created a scholarship fund for young people at a college, a daily reminder that we are part of transcendent structures that will carry on even if we cannot: family, business, church, nation, the human race.

Despair is the meanest and most dangerous form of sloth. Hope is the antidote.

Sloth is laziness.

Sloth is boredom.

Sloth is despair.

We can overcome laziness by disciplined hard work and the development of good habits.

We can overcome boredom by seeing the preciousness of every bit and piece of life and by becoming responsibly involved in activities and relationships.

We can overcome despair by looking for and finding joy in every day, by creating happiness wherever we can, and by remembering the many acts of kindness and decency that are as much a part of life as less worthy deeds.

One of the reasons I enjoy being a minister in this congregation is that sloth is at the bottom of the list of our sins, driven there by hard work, vigorous involvement, and radiant hope.

If UU’s had been around when Gregory the Great drew up his list of the Deadly Sins, there would only have been six.

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Gregory the Great’s Seven Deadly Sins

Hot Sins

1.Anger

2.Gluttony

3.Lust

Cold Sins

4.Avarice

5.Envy

6.Pride

Progenitor of all sins

7. Sloth

Henry Fairlie’s Ordering of the same sins:

Perverted Love

1.pride

2.anger

3. envy

Defective Love

4. Sloth

Excessive Love

5. Avarice

6.Gluttony

7. Lust

Mohandas Gandhi’s Seven Sins in the World:

1.Politics without principle,

2.Wealth without work,

3.Pleasure without conscience,

4.Knowledge without character,

5.Science without humanity,

6.Commerce without morality,

7.Worship without (self) sacrifice.

Pindar’s List of Virtues

1.Justice

2.Courage

3.Temperance

4.Wisdom

5.Piety

Plato’s List of Cardinal Virtues

1.Wisdom

2.Courage

3.Temperance

4.Justice

Aquinas’s List of Cardinal Virtues

1.Prudence

2.Fortitude

3.Temperance

4.Justice

5.Faith

6.Hope

7.Love