The Good, The Bad, and The Whole
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 7, 2015
by Rev. Craig M. Nowak
Some of the most memorable moments of my preparation for the ministry occurred when I was a chaplain intern. One day I was making my rounds and entered a patient’s room. As usual I introduced myself as the chaplain and asked if he wanted to talk. The man sat up in bed, turned and placed his feet in the floor...”I’m so glad to see you, Pastor”, he said...”is it okay to call you Pastor”, he asked. “How about Craig?”, I said. “Okay”, he replied, and then continued to refer to me as Pastor.
For nearly ten minutes he spoke nonstop about how he loved God and how God loved him and things were just about as good as they could be. When he finished his warm and fuzzy faith story, I asked him why he was in the hospital. He said he had a lung condition...eventually he told me he was addicted to cocaine and still using it. When I brought up Narcotics Anonymous he dismissed it, said he didn’t like the people there or that the meeting times didn’t fit his schedule. Then he said, “God will tell when it is time to stop.” “How much time do you think you have left?” I asked him. He paused and looked straight into my eyes. I continued, “You told me you loved God and God loved you.” “I don’t think you believe a word of it”, I said. Tears began to roll down his cheeks.
Another time I was working with a man who had just had major surgery. Our relationship was something of a rarity at the hospital in that it was long term. Most of the people I only saw once, maybe twice before they were discharged. But this man was there for a long time. His wife would show up frequently, always in a frenzied rush. During our conversations she was always multi-tasking, checking her phone, thumbing through papers. She was like the Energizer Bunny; she kept going and going and going. I was concerned for her and one day as she was checking her phone and thumbing through papers, I blurted out, “What are you doing for self-care?” She stopped and looked at me like I was crazy and then fired back, “Self-care? That would just be selfish.”
Our sermon today, or at least part of it, concerns that seemingly most mellow of sins, sloth. Sloth is the last sin we’ll explore in our series on the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth is generally understood as laziness. More broadly however, sloth is a kind of spiritual laziness, where we avoid or put off what is truly important and may include the avoidance of physical or emotional work or both.
One of the best and most succinct insights into sloth I’ve come across was offered by a Christian minister who described sloth as being lazy about love.
In his 1st letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love is also not apathetic nor too busy...but sloth is. Apathy and busyness are two ways sloth is manifest in those of us who don’t think of ourselves as particularly lazy. Indeed, the Dali Lama has called busyness a form of laziness... spiritual laziness. Both apathy and busyness are ways that keep us living lives which seem to contradict what we say is most important to us. Busyness in particular can contribute to our feeling stuck, powerless, or helpless. Both are employed to help us avoid the sometimes difficult work of love.
Sloth manifest as apathy prevented a man from being able to see himself as an agent and potential partner with God in his own struggle with addiction. Sloth, disguised as busyness, kept a woman from taking care of herself as she struggled to care for another.
If we thought sloth was a kinder, gentler sin, their stories put that notion to rest. Indeed, of the Seven Deadly Sins, sloth may very well be the one we are most susceptible too in this age of political and economic despair coupled with a hurry up to keep up way of life.
As apathy sloth is that little voice that tells us some act of love...be it caring for another, caring for ourselves, working for a good cause or towards a beneficial goal, isn’t worth it or can be done later. It’s the voice that, in the face of despair, says nothing will ever change so why try? It sees things like activism, spiritual practice, civic and social engagement as something other people do, a fool’s pastime. As busyness sloth turns human beings into human doings. It tells us a full schedule equals a full life. At best it sees things like enjoyment of leisure or self -care as a waste of valuable time, at worst it sees these as selfish, even sinful.
Neither manifestation of sloth has any regard for time and this is what makes sloth a deadly sin. Sloth blocks or prevents us from coming to terms with the fact that we are finite beings...that our lives will end some day. Sloth keeps us from living an engaged life by either keeping us too busy or stopping us in our tracks.
The heavenly virtue prescribed to counter sloth is diligence. I would precede diligence with commitment. Commitment to the work of love...engaged diligently.
Once the man with the cocaine addiction saw through sloth’s hold on him through apathy...the tears came, then, then he and I could begin taking about the work of love...and a relationship with the God...and we did. He promised to commit himself to treatment for his addiction...a work of love in partnership with the God he longed to know. Whether he kept his promise, I don’t know, but I think of him often.
After prodding the busy woman at the hospital about self-care to the point of near nagging, she slowly began to see her busyness as avoidance and admitted she longed to take a breather. She committed to making time each day for herself, a work of love, a chance to be still...a chance to just be. Again, I don’t know if she followed through, but I hope so.
All of us experience apathy and Lord knows we know what it is to be busy. Sloth, like all the Seven Deadly Sins are part of our shared human experience...indeed they are part of who we are.
This is why, throughout this series, we have talked about ways to counter Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Anger, Greed, Envy, and Sloth rather than rid ourselves of them.
The Jewish fable offered as our second reading this morning, is predicated on a belief in Judaism that the yetzer ha-ra translated by Rabbi Harold Kushner as “the egotistical principle” or selfish inclination, is placed in each human being by God. The fable offers a whimsical take on what would happen if we succeeded in riding ourselves of some part of who we are...namely we would cease to be.
The Jewish tradition also holds that there is something called the yetzer hatov that develops after childhood, it is translated as the “good inclination” or a moral sense. We develop this as we go through life...by living and working with other people, learning about or exploring new ideas and ways of doing things, and asking questions about life, its meaning, and our place in the world. The yetzer-hatov is what counters or keeps the yetzer ha-ra in check.
My point here is not to conflate Christianity’s Seven Deadly sins and corresponding heavenly virtues with the Jewish concept of yetzer ha-ra and yetzer hatov, but rather to remind us that when we speak of being whole, we’re talking about knowing and accepting all of who we are...the good, the bad, and everything in between. It is about cultivating peace in the heart, which as our first reading teaches, is necessary if there is to be peace in the home, between neighbors, in the cities and nations.
Throughout this series we have talked of sin as a sort of obstruction, something that keeps us from knowing some truth. The so-called Seven Deadly Sins are deadly to the degree to which they keep us from knowing the truth of who we are, the truth of what it is to be human.
Some religious traditions would say that because every single one of us is susceptible to and dare I say has been guilty of each of the Seven Deadly Sins, even multiple times, that this is a sure sign of human weakness, even depravity, but I say, and a good many Unitarian and Universalists past and present would agree, the fact that we sin...that we must wrestle with our urges, impulses, and inclinations toward selfishness in order to forge a life of integrity....a life worth living, is a sure sign of our wholeness.
It is evidence, in my view, of a sacred trust...that we can and do learn from our mistakes, that our lives are more than solitary journeys in a world of strangers, that our thoughts and actions however seemingly small or insignificant matter...and because our thoughts and actions matter, we and all those around us, matter.
We began our series on the Seven Deadly Sins by exploring words from the Hindu Scriptures....and it is with these same words that we end our series.
“There is a path of joy and there is the path of pleasure. Pondering on them, the wise (one) chooses the path of joy; the fool takes the path of pleasure.”
The path of pleasure is where we experience gluttony, lust, pride, anger, greed, envy, and sloth and either indulge in them with abandon or deny them with equal passion. Either way, we deny our wholeness...we reject our humanity...and I can think of nothing more deadly to the soul.
The path of joy, on the other hand, is not the path free of sin, ...but rather, the path where when we experience the pang of gluttony we learn pause to chew, developing an appetite for mindfulness; the path of joy is the place where we apply the fire of lust and learn to differentiate wholeness from perfection; It is where pride is met with courage...the courage to be humble and anger is embraced and cared for before it is let go. The path of joy is where greed and envy provide opportunities for us to practice living lives of vulnerable trust and to learn to want what we have...and sloth...is taken as our cue not to rush forward, but to go deep, to live rather than merely exist. The path of joy is the path where we learn what it is to be human. It is the path of wholeness...the path that ultimately leads to peace in the heart.
And so as our series come to a close, remember,
Be whole....be human...and may our path be joy.
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
June 7, 2015
by Rev. Craig M. Nowak
Some of the most memorable moments of my preparation for the ministry occurred when I was a chaplain intern. One day I was making my rounds and entered a patient’s room. As usual I introduced myself as the chaplain and asked if he wanted to talk. The man sat up in bed, turned and placed his feet in the floor...”I’m so glad to see you, Pastor”, he said...”is it okay to call you Pastor”, he asked. “How about Craig?”, I said. “Okay”, he replied, and then continued to refer to me as Pastor.
For nearly ten minutes he spoke nonstop about how he loved God and how God loved him and things were just about as good as they could be. When he finished his warm and fuzzy faith story, I asked him why he was in the hospital. He said he had a lung condition...eventually he told me he was addicted to cocaine and still using it. When I brought up Narcotics Anonymous he dismissed it, said he didn’t like the people there or that the meeting times didn’t fit his schedule. Then he said, “God will tell when it is time to stop.” “How much time do you think you have left?” I asked him. He paused and looked straight into my eyes. I continued, “You told me you loved God and God loved you.” “I don’t think you believe a word of it”, I said. Tears began to roll down his cheeks.
Another time I was working with a man who had just had major surgery. Our relationship was something of a rarity at the hospital in that it was long term. Most of the people I only saw once, maybe twice before they were discharged. But this man was there for a long time. His wife would show up frequently, always in a frenzied rush. During our conversations she was always multi-tasking, checking her phone, thumbing through papers. She was like the Energizer Bunny; she kept going and going and going. I was concerned for her and one day as she was checking her phone and thumbing through papers, I blurted out, “What are you doing for self-care?” She stopped and looked at me like I was crazy and then fired back, “Self-care? That would just be selfish.”
Our sermon today, or at least part of it, concerns that seemingly most mellow of sins, sloth. Sloth is the last sin we’ll explore in our series on the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth is generally understood as laziness. More broadly however, sloth is a kind of spiritual laziness, where we avoid or put off what is truly important and may include the avoidance of physical or emotional work or both.
One of the best and most succinct insights into sloth I’ve come across was offered by a Christian minister who described sloth as being lazy about love.
In his 1st letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love is also not apathetic nor too busy...but sloth is. Apathy and busyness are two ways sloth is manifest in those of us who don’t think of ourselves as particularly lazy. Indeed, the Dali Lama has called busyness a form of laziness... spiritual laziness. Both apathy and busyness are ways that keep us living lives which seem to contradict what we say is most important to us. Busyness in particular can contribute to our feeling stuck, powerless, or helpless. Both are employed to help us avoid the sometimes difficult work of love.
Sloth manifest as apathy prevented a man from being able to see himself as an agent and potential partner with God in his own struggle with addiction. Sloth, disguised as busyness, kept a woman from taking care of herself as she struggled to care for another.
If we thought sloth was a kinder, gentler sin, their stories put that notion to rest. Indeed, of the Seven Deadly Sins, sloth may very well be the one we are most susceptible too in this age of political and economic despair coupled with a hurry up to keep up way of life.
As apathy sloth is that little voice that tells us some act of love...be it caring for another, caring for ourselves, working for a good cause or towards a beneficial goal, isn’t worth it or can be done later. It’s the voice that, in the face of despair, says nothing will ever change so why try? It sees things like activism, spiritual practice, civic and social engagement as something other people do, a fool’s pastime. As busyness sloth turns human beings into human doings. It tells us a full schedule equals a full life. At best it sees things like enjoyment of leisure or self -care as a waste of valuable time, at worst it sees these as selfish, even sinful.
Neither manifestation of sloth has any regard for time and this is what makes sloth a deadly sin. Sloth blocks or prevents us from coming to terms with the fact that we are finite beings...that our lives will end some day. Sloth keeps us from living an engaged life by either keeping us too busy or stopping us in our tracks.
The heavenly virtue prescribed to counter sloth is diligence. I would precede diligence with commitment. Commitment to the work of love...engaged diligently.
Once the man with the cocaine addiction saw through sloth’s hold on him through apathy...the tears came, then, then he and I could begin taking about the work of love...and a relationship with the God...and we did. He promised to commit himself to treatment for his addiction...a work of love in partnership with the God he longed to know. Whether he kept his promise, I don’t know, but I think of him often.
After prodding the busy woman at the hospital about self-care to the point of near nagging, she slowly began to see her busyness as avoidance and admitted she longed to take a breather. She committed to making time each day for herself, a work of love, a chance to be still...a chance to just be. Again, I don’t know if she followed through, but I hope so.
All of us experience apathy and Lord knows we know what it is to be busy. Sloth, like all the Seven Deadly Sins are part of our shared human experience...indeed they are part of who we are.
This is why, throughout this series, we have talked about ways to counter Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Anger, Greed, Envy, and Sloth rather than rid ourselves of them.
The Jewish fable offered as our second reading this morning, is predicated on a belief in Judaism that the yetzer ha-ra translated by Rabbi Harold Kushner as “the egotistical principle” or selfish inclination, is placed in each human being by God. The fable offers a whimsical take on what would happen if we succeeded in riding ourselves of some part of who we are...namely we would cease to be.
The Jewish tradition also holds that there is something called the yetzer hatov that develops after childhood, it is translated as the “good inclination” or a moral sense. We develop this as we go through life...by living and working with other people, learning about or exploring new ideas and ways of doing things, and asking questions about life, its meaning, and our place in the world. The yetzer-hatov is what counters or keeps the yetzer ha-ra in check.
My point here is not to conflate Christianity’s Seven Deadly sins and corresponding heavenly virtues with the Jewish concept of yetzer ha-ra and yetzer hatov, but rather to remind us that when we speak of being whole, we’re talking about knowing and accepting all of who we are...the good, the bad, and everything in between. It is about cultivating peace in the heart, which as our first reading teaches, is necessary if there is to be peace in the home, between neighbors, in the cities and nations.
Throughout this series we have talked of sin as a sort of obstruction, something that keeps us from knowing some truth. The so-called Seven Deadly Sins are deadly to the degree to which they keep us from knowing the truth of who we are, the truth of what it is to be human.
Some religious traditions would say that because every single one of us is susceptible to and dare I say has been guilty of each of the Seven Deadly Sins, even multiple times, that this is a sure sign of human weakness, even depravity, but I say, and a good many Unitarian and Universalists past and present would agree, the fact that we sin...that we must wrestle with our urges, impulses, and inclinations toward selfishness in order to forge a life of integrity....a life worth living, is a sure sign of our wholeness.
It is evidence, in my view, of a sacred trust...that we can and do learn from our mistakes, that our lives are more than solitary journeys in a world of strangers, that our thoughts and actions however seemingly small or insignificant matter...and because our thoughts and actions matter, we and all those around us, matter.
We began our series on the Seven Deadly Sins by exploring words from the Hindu Scriptures....and it is with these same words that we end our series.
“There is a path of joy and there is the path of pleasure. Pondering on them, the wise (one) chooses the path of joy; the fool takes the path of pleasure.”
The path of pleasure is where we experience gluttony, lust, pride, anger, greed, envy, and sloth and either indulge in them with abandon or deny them with equal passion. Either way, we deny our wholeness...we reject our humanity...and I can think of nothing more deadly to the soul.
The path of joy, on the other hand, is not the path free of sin, ...but rather, the path where when we experience the pang of gluttony we learn pause to chew, developing an appetite for mindfulness; the path of joy is the place where we apply the fire of lust and learn to differentiate wholeness from perfection; It is where pride is met with courage...the courage to be humble and anger is embraced and cared for before it is let go. The path of joy is where greed and envy provide opportunities for us to practice living lives of vulnerable trust and to learn to want what we have...and sloth...is taken as our cue not to rush forward, but to go deep, to live rather than merely exist. The path of joy is the path where we learn what it is to be human. It is the path of wholeness...the path that ultimately leads to peace in the heart.
And so as our series come to a close, remember,
Be whole....be human...and may our path be joy.
Amen and Blessed Be
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