Sinful Sloth

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
September 5, 2004

Sinful Sloth
Luke 14:25-3
Revelation 3:14-22

I was asked not that long ago why I have never preached
on the Seven Deadly Sins.
Does the term sound familiar to you:
The Seven Deadly Sins?
Can you name one, two, perhaps even three?
If I asked you where you might look in the Bible to find a reference
to the “Seven Deadly Sins” could you do it?
Does it sound like something Jesus might have talked about?
Or perhaps it was some Old Testament Prophet;
most of them were grumpy enough
to have come up with a list of sins.
But then again, it might have been in one of Paul’s letters
as he spoke against the sins of the flesh
and encouraged us to live in the Spirit.

The fact is that you could look through the Bible all day
and not find a reference anywhere to “the Seven Deadly Sins”.
Not in the Old Testament,
Not in the Psalms or Proverbs
Not in the New Testament.
The list of Seven Deadly Sins is not biblical.

It was a leader of the early Christian church
who came up with a list of sins that he called the Deadly Sins.
Other church leaders liked the idea and refined the list
until it took on its present shape of Seven Deadly Sins
about 600 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.

The first on the list is Pride:
that is arrogance, conceit,
vanity, hubris.
The person filled with pride thinks far more of himself
than he should.
Probably the best known Bible verse addressed to this topic
is found in the book of Proverbs.
You’ve probably heard it as “pride goeth before a fall.”
but the actual verse is even stronger,
“Pride goes before destruction and
a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov. 16.18)
The Bible teaches us again and again the importance of humility,
the importance of being humble.
Prideful people are judgmental people,
self-righteous people.
Prideful people have more in common with the Pharisees
than they do with faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

The next deadly sin on the list is Envy:
Envy comes from not being satisfied with what you have,
Envy comes from wanting what someone else has:
the car, the job,
the bank account,
the house,
the buff figure
the grades.
the clothes.
The list is endless.
We always seem to want what we don’t have;
we always seem to want what someone else has.
When we are filled with envy, we are filled with a sense of
discontentment, restlessness, even resentment.
Envy leads to coveting,
and one of the first lessons we learn in Sunday School
is the Commandment not to covet what someone else has.

The third deadly sin is Gluttony,
We have only to hear the word
and we immediately think of a person stuffing himself
with food and drink.
The image that comes to my mind is Henry the 8th
seated at a groaning board, a leg of mutton in one hand,
and a tankard of ale in the other.
But gluttony isn’t just about overeating or drinking.
We are gluttons when we overdo anything,
when we take more of anything than we need.
As we watch oil prices continue to climb,
we are beginning to realize that we have been
a gluttonous nation when it comes to using oil.
God calls us to be faithful stewards of all we have been given
and to live in faithful moderation in all things.

Lust is the fourth deadly sin.
We hear the word and we immediately think of an obsession with sex,
not something we should talk about in polite company,
much less in church on Sunday morning.
But lust isn’t limited to the carnal.
We lust after money,
We lust after possessions,
We lust after power,
Lust is an unnatural, unhealthy obsession with anything or anyone.
But sexual lust can be particularly damaging
since it can lead to manipulation, violence, and abusive behavior.
Do you remember Jesus’ response when the rich young man
asked him which was the most important commandment?
Jesus told him the first was to love God with all his heart and soul
and strength, and the second was to love his neighbor as himself.
The person filled with lust toward another
ignores the second of Christ’s Great Commandments.

Sin number five is Anger.
We talked about anger a few weeks ago:
Anger is a human emotion, something we all feel.
It can turn deadly though, if we let our anger get the better of us.
Anger can kill another’s spirit, another’s joy and happiness;
It can take a person’s life, without a drop of blood shed.
The greater sin, though, happens when you hold onto your anger;
when you don’t forgive;
when you don’t show mercy;
when you don’t follow our Lord’s command to us
that we are to forgive one another
just as our Father in Heaven forgives each of us.

The 6th sin on the list is Greed.
Greed is tied to gluttony.
We grab all we can and we don’t share.
We forget that everything we have comes from God.
We forget God’s command to us
that we are to return our first fruits to God.
We forget that we are called to look after the poor,
the young, the sick, the elderly,
and all those on the margins of society by sharing what we have.
When we are greedy, we think of what we have as all ours,
forgetting that our treasure is made up of earthly goods,
goods that can be taken from us in an instant,
goods that are nothing more than dust.
You remember our lesson from a few weeks back:
the wealthy man who had so much that he boasted that he was
going to have to build a bigger barn to hold all that he owned.
Jesus said, “You fool! This very night you will forfeit your life.”
When we are greedy, we fail to build up our treasure in heaven,
as our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to do.

Now there are six of the Seven Deadly Sins,
But we still have one more to go,
and it is the one that intrigues me the most.
Sloth.
The very word is wonderful,
it just rolls off the tongue, without even taking much effort, “sloth”
saying it almost makes me want to sit down;
the mere word draining every bit of energy from me.
We think of the slothful person as the epitome of laziness.

Many of you may be planning a bit of a slothful day tomorrow
to mark Labor Day,
so it’s more than little unfair of me to zero in on sloth this morning.
After all, the whole point of Labor day is to give everyone who works
day in and day out a day off.

But sloth is not laziness.
It isn’t indolence.
The slothful person is not one who just lies around.
No, as Frederick Buechner helps us understand,
the slothful person is one who just go through the motions;
he or she flies on automatic pilot.
Slothful people let things run their course.
They focus on just getting through their lives.”
(F. Buechner, BW 371)

Sloth is not laziness as much as it is indifference.
Slothful people have no commitment, no focus.

We Christians are often slothful.
We go through the motions,
We fly on automatic pilot
We let things run their course.
The best example is the response to some new idea,
some new way of doing something in the church:
“But we’ve never done it that way before.”
That’s a slothful response.

It is slothfulness that Christ condemns in the people of the church at Laodicea
The people were not lazy, they were industriousness and, as a result,
were wealthy and comfortable.
But when it came to their faith, they were just going through the motions.
You heard Jesus’ harsh words:
“You are neither hot nor cold,
and so because you are lukewarm,
I spit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3.16)

For Jesus the opposite of sloth is not industriousness,
it is passion;
it is commitment,
it is having fire in the belly.
What Jesus was looking for before his crucifixion
is exactly the same thing he looked for following his ascension:
complete commitment:
God first,
God always first.

It is precisely the point of the difficult words we heard in our gospel lesson:
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
yes, and even life itself
cannot be my disciple.”
Could Jesus be any clearer?

How would you respond to Jesus if he walked up the aisle to your pew
and looked you in the eye and asked you,
“Are you willing to give your very life to follow me?”
Most of us would waffle,
most of us would hem and haw,
Most of us would ask Jesus if we could have time to answer,
or say to him, “Sure, but you don’t really mean it, do you?”

Jesus was a man who loved life and was filled with joy
and he wants us to feel that joy,
but he also wants us to know that there is a price
for the gift of grace God has given us.
And that price is that Jesus wants us all to become losers
yes, losers.
He wants us all to put on t-shirts that say “Loser”
because he wants everyone of us to be willing
to lose our life that we might gain our lives.

The gift that God gives us through his mercy is life eternal
That’s where our focus should be,
not on creating our own little castles here on earth.
Jesus wants us turn from sloth,
where our lives our focused on things of this earth,
and turn to things of the Spirit, the heavenly life,
the Godly life.

But something holds all of us back,
all of us, even ministers.
Something holds us back from complete commitment.
Something causes us to be more slothful than faithful.
And that something is Fear.
Fear that perhaps all that Christ promises won’t come to fruition.
Fear that God doesn’t really hear our prayers, much less answer them.
Fear that comes from being asked to walk by faith and not by sight.

Perhaps the early leaders of the church would have done us a favor
had they given us a list of “Eight Deadly Sins,
and added “fear” to the list.
Not the normal, healthy fear we feel when our lives are in danger
but fear of committing ourselves to Christ.
Fear that keeps us lukewarm;
fear that leads us to sloth.

What’s your fear? What is it that holds you back?
What keeps you from responding resolutely and confidently to Christ
when he asks whether you are willing to give even your life to follow him?
You have only to lift your fear to God through Christ.
and ask for strength
ask for renewed faith, stronger faith
faith that fills you and you’ll find your fear evaporating,
disappearing, gone.
In the book of Deuteronomy we find the words,
“and underneath are the everlasting arms”
Underneath us are God’s arms, always around us to protect us.
With God’s loving, protective arms around us,
why would we have any fears
and why wouldn’t we be able to answer Jesus with a firm, “YES”?


As you stretch out later today or tomorrow
for a well-earned nap,
why not first offer up a prayer to God
that your life of sloth might end here and now
as you take up Christ’s cross
with renewed conviction and determination.
Why not first offer up a prayer to God
that your life of lukewarm faith might end here and now,
as you take your step behind Christ
to follow him in confidence and faith.

And then as you drift off, let your fears, your worries,
all your anxieties drift up to God, away from you
as you feel God’s everlasting arms are wrapped firmly,
lovingly around you.
Drift off with a smile as loser,
no longer slothful,
Drift off a fervent, faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

AMEN