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| A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
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March 2003
It’s an old-fashioned word, but still it is a very modern malady. And the word I mean, the malady we often suffer from, is this: sloth. Typically, sloth is thought of as a harmless form of physical laziness and so we joke about being couch potatoes or how long it’s been since the carpet has had a good vacuuming. But one author has pointed out that sloth is much more than laziness. “It is an inability to concentrate on serious matters,” she writes, “and a profound weariness of soul.” It is numbness, an inability to feel, and a refusal of joy — sloth is unable to rejoice in the gift of life or even in the beauty of the day. The author knows about sloth first hand. A well-known writer on spirituality, she found herself this past year unable to write a word, not even a postcard. She’s always been industrious, she says, good at meeting deadlines. Her strength has always been that of the woman warrior, good at crisis, good striving against odds. But then her husband suffered an incapacitating stroke and her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She became their care-giver and while she was able to meet her responsibilities to them as well as give support to her mother, she slowly went dead inside. She dreaded waking in the morning, and sometimes she went straight from the bed to the couch, where she would watch television and do crosswords until it was absolutely necessary to rouse herself to action. She became absolutely numb and was enveloped by despair. She comments that sloth also seems to have struck many following the 9/11 attacks. For a brief time, people came alive — to the importance of faith and family and friends — but then very quickly serious matters were forgotten and the trivial took over. In other words, we returned to normal: wondering who would win on Survivor, what Jennifer Lopez would wear to the next awards ceremony, why did the Braves let Tom Glavine go. And normal, for many people, meant going numb, quietly despairing, forgetting what mattered. And maybe we ourselves know something about this. The numbness, the inability to rejoice even in the beauty of the day, fulfilling responsibilities but feeling dead inside, the despair. Of course the question is: What’s the cure? Well, for the author, life and feeling began to return when she saw again that grace is found even in the barren places — that God has the power to make barren places bloom, strike water from the rock — and that God often uses the barren places to grace us with gifts, because only then are we truly grateful. The American version of Christianity sees God only when things are going well for us and we’ve got what we want. Scripture, however, reminds us again and again that God is with us in all things, that night is the same as day for God, darkness and light are both alike to God. It also reminds us that there is no “progression” to the life of faith — it is rather a matter of “a constant withering and blooming, sin and repentance, exile and return.” To see this, to see grace in the worst of moments and when we’re at our worst, is the beginning of the return of hope and feeling and life. It is to turn toward God with nothing in our way, finally and truly open to God. And the Season of Lent can be part of the cure, I think, with its emphasis on turning toward God and seeing God in the barren places. It is the purpose of Lent: to come alive again, to feel again, to see each day as belonging to God and to see grace in the day, and at last be able to rejoice in the Lord once more! God be with you, Jeff
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