Tomorrow Is Another Day
Our two scripture texts today are a study in contrasts. In the first, Jesus is defying the Jewish and Roman authorities by riding into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey… a symbol of royalty… to cheering throngs waving palm branches. And, in the second, Pontius Pilate is bowing to the will of an angry mob and turning Jesus over to be crucified… even though he knew that Jesus was an innocent man. Both events happened in Jerusalem during the annual celebration of the Passover. Two men in the same place at the same time… one choosing to act and act courageously in the face of significant opposition… and the other refusing to act and taking the easy way out by passing the buck to someone else in order to please the crowd.
Most of the time, when we come to church on this day, we celebrate the triumphant ride of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. When we return the following Sunday, we celebrate his resurrection from the dead. These are two of the most joyful and triumphant occasions in Christian worship. What we tend to forget is the six days between these two Sundays… and the pain… the suffering… and the death of an innocent man that happened between those two celebrations. It was the pain… suffering… and death of our Lord… the pain… suffering… and death that he chose to bear for us… for our salvation. And yet, in first century Palestine, no one was really paying any attention to the suffering of this one man. Much of the drama surrounding his trial and death happened while people were sleeping. If they noted it at all, it would have been just a footnote in the events of that week in Jerusalem… a tiny item buried on page six in the newspaper… nothing like the wonderful obituary I received from Jennifer Carey this week. Yet it was an event that changed the world forever… and changed our lives as Christians.
I don’t want you to forget the triumph and the joy of this day… triumph and joy that the disciples celebrated along with Jesus and the crowds who were in Jerusalem for the Passover. At the same time, I want you to be fully cognizant of the courage that it took for Jesus to come to Jerusalem when he knew the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. He did not shrink from the task, but carried it out with courage. Pontius Pilate had the same opportunity to act with courage… to do what he knew was right… for he knew that the man standing before him was an innocent man. But rather than act with courage, Pontius Pilate chose not to act… chose, instead, to avoid a confrontation… and, in an act that has for centuries been used to describe people abdicating their responsibility, he washed his hands of the whole affair.
Today, we conclude our examination of the “Seven Deadly Sins” by taking a look at the sin of sloth. There are several different ways in which sloth is defined by religious texts. The one most familiar to us is the definition of habitual laziness or apathy… and it can be either spiritual or actual laziness or apathy. Under this definition, we put off what we know we should do… or what God has asked us to do… saying to ourselves, as Scarlett O’Hara said at the end of the movie, “Gone With the Wind,” “Tomorrow is another day.” Today, we call it procrastination, but that’s just a fancy word for sloth.
Sloth, when taken to extremes, results in nothing being accomplished at all… not just that which we know we should do… but anything at all. The original word for sloth came from a Greek word which means the “absence of caring”… the absence of caring about anything: yourself… your God… other people… the world… and so on. Today, we recognize extreme forms of this “lack of caring” as a symptom of depression that may be brought on by a traumatic event or sudden loss. The deep grief that individuals experience after such events can slide into the blackness of depression where nothing matters and where there is, truly, an “absence of caring.” But, when we talk about sloth, we are not talking about a mental illness… we are talking about pure laziness… the lack of desire to do anything simply because the effort to do it seems too great at the time. I have a cartoon cut from last week’s newspaper that shows Dagwood talking to Blondie about his promise to clean the attic that day. She then questions why, with all the work that needs to be done, he is lying down on the couch. He replies that just the thought of doing all that work makes him dizzy. That is sloth.
The Apostle Paul was vigorous in his condemnation of laziness. In his second letter to the Thessalonians, he says, “For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.”
The church was not built in a single day by a single person, but by thousands who have labored over the centuries without thought of rest or reward. Without their continuous labor, where would the church be today? When I think of the growth of the church around the world since the commissioning of the first disciples, the example I love to use is one of building the great cathedrals of Europe. The famous cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was begun in the year 1163 and not completed until the year 1345. No one who was alive when the building was started was alive to see it completed. Yet, throughout the centuries, workers continued to work on the building, adding their pieces to the puzzle, until the magnificent edifice was complete. Given an average life expectancy of 45 years, it was the great-great-great-great-grandchild of the original builders who witnessed the completion of the cathedral. If that first generation had never begun the building because the task was too great… or they were too lazy… we would not have this wonderful structure today. So it is with success accomplishments in every part of our lives today. The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright said, “I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.” There is no room for laziness. As the old proverb says, “Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.”
Another definition of sloth includes wasting something due to lack of use… or allowing something to waste away… rust… die… or be rendered unusable due to our own neglect… or lack of maintenance… or lack of support… of that thing. Some things that can atrophy with lack of use include our bodies… our minds… our God-given gifts and talents… the relationships in our lives… even our plans for the future. The list is endless. These things can suffer and die because of our own neglect. How many of us have lost touch with a friend because we failed to answer a letter or return a telephone call? How many of us have had to throw a tool away because we neglected to clean it properly or keep it oiled? How many of us have lost a talent we once had because we have not used it in years… whether that talent was the ability to run like the wind… or to play a musical instrument… or write poetry?
And finally, sloth can also include what the Roman Catholic church used to call the “sins of omission.” We, in the Protestant Church don’t use that term, but in our confession of sin, we often ask forgiveness for “not doing those things which we ought to have done.” Even the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Rome, says, “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” Today, I have chosen Pontius Pilate as my example for sloth, because sloth also includes the avoidance of any action or decision because that action or decision is seen as too difficult or too challenging. Pontius Pilate made a conscious decision not to interfere with the condemnation of an innocent man… and, for that act… for choosing to avoid a confrontation with the crowd and the Jewish leaders… for choosing to allow the crucifixion of Jesus to go forward when he could have stopped it… he will be remembered for all time.
All of us have a “to do” list… things we know that we need to do… things we have put off doing because we are simply too tired or too lazy to do them… or the thought of doing them overwhelms us… or the difficulties and challenges of doing them stop us. Some of those things include things that we have “promised to do” for God… or for our own spiritual growth. We have given a host of excuses for not doing these things… a litany of reasons for avoiding the task… but how much of it is just plain laziness on our part? When will we begin to take time for daily prayer? When will we set aside time for daily devotions? When will we go visit someone who is homebound or ill? When will we send a card to someone we thought about this week?
Mark Twain once said, “Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.” In the Bible, the letter to the Hebrews makes it even more clear. In chapter three, we read these words: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore, I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.' As in my anger I swore, 'They will not enter my rest.'" Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Let me leave you with this thought: What if Jesus had decided not to bother with this trip to Jerusalem? What if he had decided that death on a cross was a task too difficult… too challenging for him to attempt? Where would we be today? And what would we celebrate next Sunday? So, when should we begin these tasks that God has laid before us? Oh, I suppose, when we get “a round tuit.” Thanks to our youth today, we no longer have an excuse. Let’s do them today. Amen.
Matthew 27:11-24