5. A Spiritual Sloth is an Unfruitful Garden
5. A Spiritual Sloth is an Unfruitful Garden.
‘You must think of yourself as of one setting out to make a garden in which the Lord is to take His delight.” (St. Teresa of Avila).
Spiritual Sloth: (Greek, “Acedia”); spiritual laziness; indifference and apathy at the deeper levels; lack of spiritual ambition; joyless in sacred pleasures; spiritual ennui; careless attitude toward spiritual matters; a dispassionate lack of mindfulness and soul-care; a listless ignorance of what is eternally important; empty of the energy to escape self-centeredness; a lack of motivation to follow through on spiritual duties and activities; a spiritual sluggard; a sickness of the soul that results in boredom with God; a vague sense of dissatisfaction with anything spiritual; a cold sin of omission that drifts away from any hope of locating life’s true purpose and meaning; the unwillingness to be a diligent seeker of God and His Kingdom; a strong temptation from the evil one to remain spiritually empty and unfulfilled. A spiritual sloth is content to, spiritually speaking, follow the pace of the real sloth by moving at ten feet per minute, 1/9th of a mile per hour, and sleep twenty hours a day.
Descriptions of Spiritual Sloth:
- “It is like dying in advance.” (Pope Francis);
- “It is a deflation of the soul that hinders spiritual resolve.” (anonymous);
- “It renders a person idle and useless for every spiritual work.” (John Cassian);
- “It is a sort of heavy, oppressive sadness that presses down on a person’s mind in such a way that he wants to do nothing and no activity pleases him.” (Thomas Aquinas);
- “It is a joylessness when faced with God as our supreme joy.” (Peter Kreeft);
- “It is a supernatural torpor that doesn’t want to take the trouble at asking the great spiritual questions.” (Blaise Pascal);
- “It is the sin that is so dead that it doesn’t even seem to rise to the level of sin; a sin so sinful that it isn’t even sin.” (Peter Kreeft).
(1.) Walking with God in the Garden of the Heart. “Both Adam and Eve heard the voice of Yahweh God as He strolled through the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day when there was the soft evening breeze. The man and the woman hid from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees in the garden…” (Genesis 3:8).
Ignoring the Garden. After the original miracle of creation, God demonstrated another act of love. He descended into His creation and sought to have fellowship with Adam and Eve. This would be like a master painter, after having finished his work of art, jumping into the painting and interacting with the characters in the painting. Out of love, God created mankind. Then out of love, God became involved with mankind. God extended Himself into a personal relationship with Adam and Eve in the Garden. In Genesis 3, God is pictured strolling in the Garden in the cool of the day, the evening breeze making everything comfortable for His regular interactions with Adam and Eve. They heard the sound of His walking in the Garden, and they hid themselves among the trees. God seemed to miss their expected meeting and looked for them. Adam and Eve finally revealed to God that they heard His voice and fearfully hid from Him. They were naked and ashamed of themselves for the entrance of sin into the universe. So who was Adam and Eve talking with in the Garden? God, in the form of a man? They certainly weren’t walking and talking with a formless spirit, or a pillar of cloud. They weren’t interacting with the fiery flame of a consuming fire. They were instead having personal fellowship in the flesh, with a man, friend to friend. There was an audible sound of God walking, and His presence was found among the trees. They enjoyed human interaction with actual words, a primordial language of some sort. Adam and Eve had a friend in the Garden, and that friend was Jesus Christ. This is the first time Jesus made an appearance in the Hebrew Bible. God in the form of a man, having fellowship with Adam and Eve. He continues to yearn for our friendship by walking with us in the garden of our heart. A spiritual sloth doesn’t tend his garden, and so his heart is not even a place to enjoy companionship with the Lord. Through sheer spiritual laziness, the sluggard doesn’t maintain this intimate place for fellowship with God. Perhaps ignoring the garden of the heart is a passive way of hiding from God in the trees?
(2.) What Does a Fruitful Garden of the Heart Look Like? “The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23).
The Fruit is Love. In Paul’s phrase “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5, the word for fruit is singular. The passage does not say “fruits.” One fruit, one product, one result of the Holy Spirit’s effect on our life. It’s as if there is one cluster of grapes, the cluster of love, the first fruit on the list. And every delicious grape in that cluster points to aspects of that love. Another way of thinking of it is that Love is indeed the one, singular, unifying fruit of the Spirit, and the list of virtues following are all aspects of Love. Just like aspects of a fruit might be aroma, taste, color, shape, size, texture, nutrition, ripeness. Just as those are qualities of a fruit, the list of virtues are qualities of Love. The fruit is love, and the elements of love are mentioned in that passage: loving–joy, loving-peace, loving-patience, loving-kindness, loving-goodness, loving-faithfulness, loving-gentleness and loving self-control. Those are the products of the Spirit’s work in the garden of our heart. Those qualities are what love looks like, the outworking of love. Love is this cluster of virtues produced by the Holy Spirit in believers as they abide on the nourishing vine of Jesus. That is the only way to stay fruitful in the Christian life, the only way to grow in the fruit of the Spirit. Paul says much the same thing in Colossians 3:12-14, when, after listing much the same in terms of character qualities, he says, “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (NIV).
(3.) Spiritual Laziness is Crass Disobedience. “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second son and said likewise. And the son answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of this father?” (Matthew 21:28-32).
Passive Rebellion. The ironies here in the parable of Jesus are delicious. The son who ignored his father’s request ended up going to work, and the apparently industrious son decided to sit on his duff. The disobedient son ended up doing the Father’s will, while the obedient son ended up being rebellious. The disobedient son changed his mind and repented of his attitude. The obedient son changed his mind and had no intention of repenting. The disobedient son realized he was not righteous and went about doing the right thing. The obedient son thought he was righteous enough to do whatever he wanted. So, the disobedient son ended up being obedient, while the obedient son ended up being disobedient. Both sons changed their minds, the first for the good, the second not so much. The one did God’s will, the other didn’t. In both cases the sons did exactly the opposite they said they would do. The disobedient son ended up being celebrated for his humble repentance, and the obedient son ended up being rejected because of his laziness, deceit and hypocrisy. The first son didn’t feel like going to work, but then had a change of heart and applied himself. The second son said, ‘Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord!’ but then revealed an inner heart of laziness and rebellion, and didn’t do what God asked. God approves of those who put faith into action in order to proves one’s status off the heart. The spiritual sloth in the end did not experience the profound delight of doing God’s will.
(4.) Watering the Garden of the Heart. “If you take away the yoke of oppression and the unfair systems in your midst, the malicious finger-pointing, the blaming of victims, the spreading of slanderous and vicious rumors, the gossiping about other people’s sins. If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desires of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in a parched land of drought and renew the strength in your limbs; and you shall be like a well-watered garden…” (Isaiah 58:9-11).
Participating with the Ultimate Gardener in Tending the Garden of the Heart. Jesus clearly demonstrated and spoke of what it takes to flourish in the Faith, what it means to follow Him in His royal law of love. The fervent believer that enjoys maintaining the heart-garden goes out of his way to bear the burdens of others faced with overwhelming loads to carry. God helps us water the garden of our heart when we come alongside others in need and help to shoulder their burdens. We participate with the Lord when we join Him in His work on earth… when we befriend those on the margins; when we are happy to be a friend of sinners; when we show compassion to the needy and grace to the undeserving; when we fearlessly touch the untouchable; when we invite the outcasts to join God’s in-crowd and the down-and-out to become the up-and-in; when we practice the physical acts of mercy such as feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and those in prison; when we practice the spiritual works of mercy such as admonishing the unrepentant, teaching the untrained, counseling the troubled, comforting the sorrowful, forgiving the hurtful, bearing with those who are difficult, praying for everyone in need. When we reflect the heart of Jesus in this way, we are intentionally inviting the Gardener to help us tend our heart-gardens and turn them into ones that prove to be just like heart of Christ.
(5.) The Fertile Ground in the Garden of the Heart. “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across the field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” (Matthew 13:3-9; Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-8).
The Spiritual Sloth Impedes the Sower of the Seeds in the Garden. Jesus is explaining to them in this familiar story that He is the Sower, and His job is to sow seeds of God’s truth in the world. He is to broadcast seeds of Kingdom life, of God’s message, into people’s hearts as He continues in His ministry. In fact, sowing IS His ministry. The sad truth is that in the heart of the spiritually lazy, the sown seeds often meet with resistance, the growth process is often frustrated, and the seeds are lost or taken away or made unfruitful. Jesus the Sower rejoices when He finds fertile soil in the heart of the listener, but He isn’t surprised when He finds His purposes thwarted. One type of garden soil He finds is the common footpath, the hardened soil that is not open to the truth, the ground that is so hard that the seed cannot penetrate beneath the surface. On the footpath of the hardened heart, the truth cannot grow roots and can be easily blown away by the wind or eaten by the birds. The spiritual sluggard doesn’t take the trouble to soften the ground to make it fertile. Then there is the gravel, the ground that has no topsoil, is covered with little rocks that might seem to invite the truth, but is not nearly deep enough for the truth take grow root and grow. The spiritual sloth doesn’t lift even a finger to rake off the graveled topsoil and provide a deeper soil ready to help the seed flourish in his garden. The third type of infertile soil is the presence of weeds in the garden, which point directly to the laziness of the farmer who doesn’t even bother to maintain the garden, to tend it in such a way that weeds don’t overwhelm the fertile ground. The sluggard here ignores the ongoing needs of the garden and allows the harmful weeds to overrun the plot that is designated for life and vitality and growth. The spiritual sloth is not motivated enough to care for the heart-garden, and allows his life around him to choke out the garden-life and render his spiritual life unfruitful. The industrious gardener of the heart works hard to keep the ground soft and open to the sown seeds; will rake away the gravel and stones in order to provide much more than mere shallow topsoil; will carefully tend the garden and keep clearing it of weeds and other unwelcome plants that would keep the garden from flourishing. The fruitfulness of the garden of the heart depends on God’s grace and human effort as we cooperate in providing fertile soil for the seeds of God’s truth.
Solomon’s Word to the Wise: “One day I passed by the field of a lazy man, obviously a slacker and a sluggard. And I also noticed the vineyard of a man lacking common sense who was clearly a complete fool. And there it was, overgrown with thorns and thistles, the ground was covered with weeds and nettles, and its stone walls once built for protection were crumbling down and lay in ruins. I observed this and took it to heart. I thought about what I saw, and I learned a lesson…” (Proverbs 24:30-32). When tempted to become spiritually lazy, may we also take this lesson to heart.