Sloth

Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorite authors.  She was mystery author (creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, aristocratic amateur English sleuth), translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy, playwright, and Christian apologist.  In this latter role she wrote an essay called “The Other Six Deadly Sins.”  In this essay she makes a case that the Church has been guilty of an overemphasis on sexual sin (Lust) and near silence on the “other six” – Pride, Gluttony, Avarice (or Greed), Wrath, Envy and Sloth.  In this she is not recommending lightening up on Lust, but rather getting serious about the rest.

At the risk of committing the same error with a different vice, I wonder if we have been serious enough about Sloth.  I take up this strain because the cry of Advent is that we not be found sleeping.

Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.  (Mark 13:35-36 ESV)

In Matthew 25 we read about the wise and foolish virgins, all of whom fall asleep, but only half of whom came prepared to the slumber party.

Sleeping and slothfulness go together for us.  We think of slothfulness as laziness or lack of initiative.  Or perhaps as an aversion to hard work.  Slothfulness is certainly these things, but it is also more.  Slothfulness and its indolence are not limited to the physical realm.   Boredom, for instance, is a sign of intellectual or spiritual sloth.  The careless attitude, and by this I do not mean cheery and virtuous care-free, but real lack of interest in anything – this is Sloth.  The constant need to be entertained, perhaps because we are bored, is a presenting symptom of Sloth.   And to be entirely counter-intuitive, our frenetic activity and busy-ness, as much as it is our way of coping with or escaping boredom, is also a sign of Sloth.

And it is deadly.  Because it lulls us to sleep.  And sleep is death.  The New Testament speaks of those “who have fallen asleep” meaning those who have died.  Asleep we are not attentive to the presence of God.  Nor are we appreciative of the presence of God.   Our slothful boredom conditions us to pay no attention to anything unless it is “exciting.”  Elijah discovered that God was not in the exciting things, like the earthquake, wind and fire (1 Kings 19) but in the still small voice.

The warning of Advent is to watch, to awake, to attend to the still, small voice now. For if we do not we will find, at the last day, that his coming is more exciting than we would prefer.

Wakened by the solemn warning

Let the earth-bound soul arise

Christ, her Sun, all sloth dispelling,

Shines upon the morning skies

E. Caswell - translated from Latin of 6^th century