Sloth Versus Those Who Mourn

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 11:17-27, 32-44:

Just a little over two year ago, the bookkeeper at the church I was serving literally dropped dead one morning. He was sitting on the couch reading and his wife walked into their bedroom to grab something, and when she came out a few minutes later Don was on the floor without a pulse. It was one of those reminders of the fragility of life. But we had already had a reminder of that at the church because just a few months before that, the head of our praise band came down with the flu, which rapidly turned into double pneumonia, and four days later she died. And then on top of that, two weeks after Don died, Elizabeth was born, and she spent the first four days of her life in the NICU and came home on continuous oxygen. I think I definitely could have managed one of these events in my life, and perhaps two of them, but three were just too taxing to me in every way possible. And so while I was still working, I was only focusing on what I considered the most important things, trying to take care of the fires, and everything else fell to the side.

We didn’t buy pumpkins that year, and I spent Halloween day trying to find some for the girls to carve, which we couldn’t find. and those of you who saw the parsonage last year lit up with Christmas lights now how much I love Christmas, but I didn’t put up a single light that year. We did get a Christmas tree, and to be honest, if we didn’t have children, I doubt we would have even done that. The grief and exhaustion were just too much; and as much as people wanted me or needed me to do things, I just couldn’t get anything done. I know that many of you have been in a similar space after a loss. The mourning and the grief are just too much to be able to live as normal. And in fact in some cases we just shut down. And so as we are thinking about the Beatitudes and the seven deadly sins,  and looking at Jesus’ blessing of those who mourn  it seemed natural to link it with sloth because they seem to have similar behaviors. But they are not the same.

Before we get into that, however, just as a quick recap, and if you didn’t see or hear last week’s first message on pride and meekness and those who are poor in spirit, I would encourage you to go watch that message. While each of the seven deadly sins is found in scripture, they are never found as a complete list in the Bible. Instead the list was put together by the early desert fathers who created the monastic movement as a list that monks and nuns were to use in their spiritual devotions as things to be aware of and to avoid, as these were the sins that were thought to be destructive of community. So it’s not that these were the absolute worst things we can do, but that these sins are root sins that branch out and lead to other sins.  But, for people living together, these were the things that could drive wedges between people that could make the communities untenable.

The other thing to keep in mind is about what Jesus means when he says in the Beatitudes that certain groups of people are blessed, and notice that no one responds “well everyone is blessed.” The beatitudes represent Jesus’ vision for the Kingdom of God and what that looks like, which turns the world on its head. If we were to make a list of people who society says are blessed, it certainly wouldn’t look like this list, and that’s important. Shortly after preaching on the beatitudes a number of years ago, my nephew Wyatt, who was 9, died very suddenly, and I remember praying at his bedside that while we are told that blessed are those who mourn, it certainly didn’t feel like a blessing. And we wouldn’t know of that blessing without being told, because it felt more like a curse. And I think that’s part of the point. Now sometimes you will hear or read people who say that instead of blessed we might hear this as happy. A number of years ago, Robert Schuller even wrote a book entitled the Be Happy Attitudes. But saying happy are those who mourn doesn’t really make sense, and that is definitely not what Jesus is saying here. Because the opposite of blessed in this setting is not sad, or unhappy, but instead the opposite is cursed, or woes. We can see this most directly in Luke’s version, found in chapter 6 and known there as the sermon on the plain, as Luke has Jesus say “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” but that is followed by “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” And, in fact, all of Luke’s beatitudes are followed by woes, something also seen in Matthew has the famous phrase “woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites.”  We don’t see the same thing happening in Mark or John, who do not give us the beatitudes.

But still do you feel blessed when you are mourning? No, and so Jesus says blessed are you who mourn, for you will be comforted. That ending of comfort is an eschatological claim, and that’s one of the $60,000 words that I have to use now and again to justify my seminary education. Eschatology means it’s about the end of times, or the fulfilment of God’s creation. And we see that especially in chapter 21 of Revelation. In John of Patmos’ vision, he says “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away... And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God... And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ In this vision, God will wipe away every tear, God will comfort the people. But I believe that the comfort that is being talked about by Jesus is more than just the comfort we might receive from God as we see in Revelation 21, because it’s also up to us, and that’s where sloth comes into play.

In the passage we heard from John this morning, we are told that after Jesus sees Mary crying, along with all those who came with her, that he begins to cry as well. So we already see the community gathering around the family to provide them with comfort. Mourning is not something we are supposed to do by ourselves, it is done in community, or at least it should be. But, we as a culture are not good at death, and we’re getting worse at it. We want to hide it or deny it, we certainly don’t want to talk about it or face the reality of it. In the newsletter a few weeks ago, Opal Lee did a brief book review for Stephen Ministry on Being Mortal, by Dr. Atul Gawande in which he addresses death and end-of-life issues, and I would also highly recommend it, as he deals with the topic from a medical perspective about what we should be doing and what our doctors should be doing for us. Once upon a time, death was a community event. In Judaism the family would sit Shiva for seven days. In the more traditional practice, people were not allowed to speak, unless the family spoke to them, which eliminates that whole “I don’t know what to say” thing, and people were expected to do everything for those who were grieving, including at some points feeding those who mourned. The Kaddish, the prayer recited by Jews who are mourning, can only be recited when there are 10 other Jews present, which is to say that the grieving are not to be alone. As Amy-Jill Levine says, “the individual dies, but the community lives on” and the community comforts.

Now people not doing anything for themselves and having others do it for them, or it’s just not done, could be seen as a form of sloth, but of course it’s not. And while sloth certainly does have a connotation of not doing anything, or being lazy, or of shirking work responsibilities, that is not the only definition, or even the best definition of sloth. Because, in fact, people who are workaholics or people who try and keep busy all the time can be just as guilty of the sin of sloth, as those who are doing nothing. And it’s also important sometimes to do nothing, to just be, as we see through the practice of Sabbath and a day of rest. That time of rest is not only to allow our bodies to recuperate, but also for our souls to recuperate and to focus attention on our relationship with God. But the sin of sloth is not about that type of rest.

You may remember that I said last week that there have been different numbers of sins on this list, and what those sins are has also varied over time, but the sloth comes from two different sins. One was tristia, or melancholia, which had to do with sorrow and sadness, but not in the sense of mourning, but in a sense of hopelessness, of having no purpose or plan or passion for life. There is no reason for us to get out of bed in the morning. The biggest problem with tristia in not just this melancholy, but the fact that it indicated a separation from God. But, I feel the need to say that being depressed, or having depression is not a sin, and to also say that there is help available to get you better, to give you a sense of hope. But the more common use of the term sloth referred to acedia, which means a lack of caring or indifference towards our responsibilities to God but also towards our responsibilities to others. In general, tristia is best understood as apathy. And so this form of sloth can be seek in workaholics who those who are busy all the time as a distraction us distance us from emotional or spiritual problems. And so this might best be summed up by Nobel Prize laureate and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel who said “The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference.” It’s not paying attention to, or caring about what is happening to others, so sloth is different from the other six sins in that they are about the sins of commission. The sin of sloth is about the sins of omission. Things we didn’t do, but should have, things we said were not our business, but were, things we were not concerned about, but should have been.

That’s why the mourning that Jesus is talking about in the beatitudes is about more than just mourning the loss of someone or something, it’s also about the mourning of our own sins, the ways we have trespassed against others and against God, the ways we have broken relationships and the ways we need to return to healing and wholeness. And so we have to remember as we think about our sins that repentance is necessary, and repentance is linked with the Kingdom of God, which is what the beatitudes are about. And so we should be mourning the ways in which we fall short, and to then also know that there is comfort for us. But mourning is also necessary for societal sins, for systemic sins. That’s not something we talk about all that much, but it’s certainly something that God talks about, especially through the prophets. 

After all, Jesus weeps not just for Lazarus, but the other time he weeps is over Jerusalem and their inability to accept him. We need to mourn the ways that structures are stacked against certain groups or individuals, especially the least, the last and the lost. And it’s not enough to just be aware of it, but we have to do something about it. We are told that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days when Jesus arrives, and that number of days is significant. It was said that the spirit would stay around the body for three days in case something happened, but by the fourth day it was sure that death had taken hold, and in the desert you can also be assured that decay had also started, and so Lazarus was long past hope. Resurrection is seen as an impossible task. But when Jesus raises him up, and he comes out of the tomb, does Jesus unbind him from his burial clothes? No, Jesus tells the people, “unbind him and let him go.” Much like when he does mass feedings, he says “You do it.”

So, seeking not to be involved, not doing the work necessary, or saying that societal problems are just too big to tackle or solve is not an excuse. Instead, it is sloth, apathy towards the needs of others. Jesus says, you have to be involved, it takes us to mourn the sins of the world and to seek to bring comfort to those afflicted, to let them know they are not alone, that when they suffer, when they mourn, that we suffer and mourn with them. And it’s about recognizing and calling those things out when they do happen.  But then it’s also about working to end them, to unbind them from society. This week the grand jury report in the killing of Breanna Taylor came out, which led to new cries for justice, and the statement that apparently they were more concerned about the drywall in other apartments than they were about her life. We should be concerned about police officers being shot or dying in the line of duty, just as we should be concerned every time that the police kill someone, whether it is justified or not, because they all represent a failure in a multiplicity of places. And  let me say that you can support the police and also be opposed to police violence and want them held accountable when necessary. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Just as you can support clergy and want clergy who abuse people to be held accountable for their actions, and that’s a perhaps good comparison because we are supposed to be held to a higher standard.  

And the fact that if the police shoot an unarmed person that that person is four times more likely to be black then they are to be white, should upset us and cause us to want to do something. Just as this is suicide awareness month and the fact that American Indians are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than is the general population, and the CDC reports that number has increased by 139% in the past 20 years. That should also concern us and cause us to want to act.  And it’s not to say that others are not important, but to recognize the specific pain and grief and mourning of these populations and communities and say that we are listening and we are going to provide comfort and grieve with you.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that the people who made him most upset were not the racists, because at least he knew where they were, it was the ones in the middle because they were the ones that allowed the status quo to continue. “I must confess,” King said, “that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not… the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods…’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’” Apathy in the face of injustice, in not hearing the cry of the least, the last and the lost, and not standing up to do anything about it is the sin of sloth. And it’s not just God who provides comfort; it’s up to us as well. We are called to offer “the power of resurrection to people and communities bound by the grave clothes of war, genocide, disease, systemic abuse and systemic oppression.”

If we believe that we are made in the image of God, then we must also believe that everyone else is made in the image of God as well, which means they are our brothers and sisters, which means we are to love them and care for them for we are our brothers and sisters keepers. That when they mourn, we mourn, and when they rejoice, we rejoice. We are, in Paul’s words, to carry one another’s burdens, to comfort one another, just as God comforts us. Indeed, the Greek word for comfort here comes from the root word parakletos, which means something like “the one who walks beside”, which is also used for the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the comforter, the advocate, the counselor. Which means those who mourn will receive the Holy Spirit. We mourn when we lose someone we love, and we mourn our sins and we mourn societal sins, and God comforts us and loves us through those moments, and we are called to do the same, because the sin of sloth is not just inactivity, it is the sin of apathy, of not providing comfort, or even caring for those in need. It’s been said that a heart those how to grieve is a heart that knows how to love, and vice versa, and we are called to love the world and  Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.