Sloth: Mere laziness or something far more malevolent?
Sloth
What, you may be wondering, does sloth have to do with suffering? It ties in to my contention that we in the West, particularly in America, respond poorly to suffering and, in a real sense, believe we are entitled to live a life free of suffering.[1] Sloth, as I’m going to explain, is a “resistance to the demands of love.”[2] In the ancient Christian tradition, the demands of love are toward God and, by extension, to others.
If you’re like me, you’ve seen the world (and our relationship with God) through the American lens of: if you do the “right” things, you’ll get the “right” outcome and, if you don’t, it’s not fair. Reality demonstrates to us that, frequently, this is not the way life works. I’m hoping this little sketch on sloth might be the beginning of exchanging those lenses for ones which will help us get to where we really want to go: to the depth of love with God and others only possible by not resisting love’s demands.
Sloth has long been considered one of the “Seven Deadly Sins.” Going back to the Desert Fathers, the Greek word, acedia (akēdia), literally means “lack of care.” Contrary to how it is now thought of, i.e., laziness, someone in the grips of acedia may exhibit laziness, or they may fill their time with busyness. The Desert Fathers—monks—were focused on how the “demon” of acedia affected their monastic life and spiritual vocation but subsequent to them, Thomas Aquinas juxtaposed the vice of sloth with the virtue of charity (love), thus, expanding the application to all who have a relationship with God.[3]
Does love make demands?
If sloth (acedia) is “resistance to the demands of love,” what, then, are the demands of love? Whose love? Or, love toward whom? First and foremost, they are the demands of the love we owe to God in response to his love. What is that? In short, the demands of love toward God are to cooperate withhim in his love for us. This cooperation with God will result in our sanctification—us being conformed to the image of Jesus. This is often a painful process, because we humans generally want what we want when we want it. We want our way, and we like our lives comfortable and pain-free. Conforming us to the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:29), however, should not be counted on to be pain-free (Mt. 16:24-25). C.S. Lewis said it inimitably well:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.[4]
Love demands all—and gives all
Sloth, in essence, is the refusal—in whatever form, be it laziness or restless activity—to cooperate with God in his transforming work in our lives. It is wanting to hang on to the “old man” rather than being made new by the work of the Holy Spirit. That transforming work is painful—it requires death, in fact—and we should not pretend otherwise.
But it is not the demands of love toward God alone that the vice of acedia works in us to resist: it is also the demands of love toward others. Sometimes loving others as we love ourselves is extremely costly to us, and we’d rather not pay the price. We all want to love and to be loved. But do we want to pay the cost that that love requires of us? We want deep friendship, but what if that friend has a need that will cost us time, money, or discomfort? We want a lifelong partner, but we fail to consider that, like us, that person has flaws which will irritate, frustrate, and hurt us.
Aside from doing the work it takes to make it through those times, there is also the inevitable failure of health. I lost my mother to cancer last year, and I (and other family members) did things for her through that process we never would have imagined. We loved her and wouldn’t have done otherwise, but it wasn’t easy or pleasant.
Acedia resists the demands that the love of others places on us. As Rebecca DeYoung points out, “On Aquinas’s relational conception of sloth, slothful people want all the comforts of being in a relationship—with the identity, security, love, and happiness that it brings—while ultimately resisting or refusing to let love change them or to make demands of them.”[5]
This was a difficult newsletter, I realize, but in truth, I hope you’ll find it encouraging. First, we’re all in the same human boat together and have the same challenges—so you’re not alone! Second, the Lord, in his lovingkindness toward us, continues to draw us to himself—never in condemnation, always in kindness and faithfulness. He knows better than anyone the suffering love can cause (and cost).
[1] I won’t argue for this here to keep the newsletter brief; I’ll only point to our reactions to our or loved ones’ suffering: i.e., angry, “why me?”, feeling victimized, etc.
[2] DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndk. Glittering Vices. Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, MI. 2009. Pp. 98-99.
[3] DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndk. “Sloth: Some Historical Reflections on Laziness, Effort, and Resistance to the Demands of Love.” Virtues and Their Vices. Timpe, Kevin and Boyd, Craig A. (eds.). Oxford University Press, Oxford.P. 191.
[4] Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Pp. 175–176.
[5] DeYoung. “Sloth”. P. 192.