Sloth

SLOTH

7 Verses on Sloth
1. “How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep?” (Proverbs 6:9)
2. “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!” (Prov. 6:6)
3. “Keep away from every brother who is… We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies” (2 Thes. 3:6, 11)
4. “Warn those who are idle” (1 Thessalonians 5:14)
5. “The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway” (Proverbs 15:19)
6. “If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks” (Ecclesiastes 10:8)
7. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9)

7 Quotes on Sloth
1. “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil” (Elie Wiesel)
2. “Too little attention is paid to passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect” (E. Roosevelt)
3. “Sloth is the sin of today’s college students, who not only fail to get the ‘big picture’ after their studies in college, but also no longer even expect that there is a picture to be gotten from their studies” (Will Willimon)
4. “To spend too much time in studies is sloth” (Francis Bacon)
5. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke)
6. “Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there's all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped; acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens” (Arthur Gordon)
7. “It is one thing, says Aquinas, to be humble about your limitations, but it is sinful to be so humble about one’s God-given gifts that one fails to use them” (Will Willimon)

I was going to post yesterday, but I just didn't feel like it.

I have heard it said (many times) that Americans work the longest and hardest hours. Even if true, this must refer only to developed (and perhaps western) nations. The Deadly Sin of Sloth is usually equated with laziness and in my observation (mostly of myself!) laziness is a real problem in America. That being said, I've blogged about laziness before. I want to take the Sin of Sloth in a different direction.

Perhaps even more of a problem in America (and especially in my generation) is Apathy. I think the Sin of Sloth is less about laziness and more about missing passion. The opposite of Sloth is not hard-work, but joy and vigor. Many of my peers, including myself, hate to make decisions. It's not so much that we don't have preferences (we do), but we question what difference our choices really make. We begin to despair that our choices actually have significance.

Sloth, then, is the sin of despairing that life and the choices therein ultimately matter. It is deeper than laziness. Some lazy people are very passionate about ideas, but they are unwilling to be the one to act. But the slothful appear (and become) lazy because they've lost hope. Sloth leads us to say 'whatever' and 'I don't care' over and over again. Many major movies in the past couple of decades have had slothful lead characters whose lives have lost all significance. And the scary thing is, many of these movies suggest sloth as the appropriate response to reality.

But we need not despair. We need not be apathetic. There is hope and a reason for zeal. But the movies are right that hope and zeal cannot be found outside of Christ (where the main characters are looking). Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.