Sloth – the noon-day devil – as it is sometimes called…
Sloth, one of the seven deadly sins, is subject to gross misunderstanding and underappreciation in terms of the peril it puts us at.
You may want to review the portrayal of Sloth by Hieronymus Bosch on the wall banner hanging across the hall from the church offices. I preached on this painting and the seven deadly sins during Lent in 2023. Some of you may not have been there and the rest probably forgot. So I thought it was worth a review.
Sloth, you may recall (though probably not) entails far more than mere laziness. Laziness is just one of the symptoms of sloth. It’s not always manifest. Sloth, in fact, can be characterized by, and often is, extreme busyness.
A better word for sloth today might be despondency. Malaise and apathy are reasonably good synonyms as well.
To be slothful or despondent involves the deep-seated conviction that what you do doesn’t matter. Remember the words of the preacher from Ecclesiastes in his famous refrain. “Meaningless, meaningless; all is meaningless.”
It’s easy to feel that way. And it can lead to apathy or laziness (the figure in Bosch’s painting is seen nodding off to sleep). But sloth may just as well result in frantic activity: throwing oneself into busyness as a way of trying to avoid the looming crisis that your actions are negligible. Buried in a blur of activity, one flees from the reflective or contemplative life that, it is feared, might reveal an emptiness inside that is too terrible to face.
Modern man is sorely afflicted by sloth.
The traditional antidote to sloth is fervent prayer. While I don’t wish to denigrate prayer, prayer is a sort of activity itself which may prove ineffectual for the simple reason that it is something that we engage in. Curing ourselves generally doesn’t work well.
I think I’d rather suggest the Divine Service as a response. Granted, you still have some role to play. You have to get up, get dressed, and get yourself there. You have to drive yourself to the pharmacy as well to get your meds. But you make the effort to get to the pharmacy with the recognition that the medicine, more than your exertions, will heal your infirmity.
What has the Divine Service to offer you?
Meaning and purpose. You can do nothing more meaningful all week than attend Divine Service. You are nourished and fortified against sloth, the noon-day devil, by being absolutely invaluable and essential in the work of promoting the gospel of your Lord Jesus Christ as the hope of the world.
If you get little else done during the week, or little that seems to you to be of any real, lasting value, to gather in our Lord’s presence is a great work.
What degree of resistance are you able to overcome to participate in this mighty work? To have made it you are enabled to say – “Whatever else I did or didn’t get done this week, I achieved this – I gave testimony to my Lord and my Savior and so, served my neighbor. What really needs to be done more than this?
You can do it. You can do something meaningful. The world depends on you.
In Christ,
Pastor Picard