Being part of the world yet part of God's kingdom also…

In Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1961, To Kill a Mocking Bird, we are presented with the small town lawyer, Atticus Finch. A genuinely good man, one of Atticus' children, Jem, considers his father to be staid and not ruggedly tough, like the other men of the town. By the close of the novel Jem's perception of his father has transformed: "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived". Atticus Finch occupies a number of vocations; he is a lawyer, a father, and a member of his local community. As the lawyer we witness him defending the right to life of an impoverished black man, wrongfully accused of a heinous crime; as the widower father we see Atticus as the man who strives to teach his son and daughter right from wrong in a world which itself struggles to know one from the other. As the active citizen we see Atticus, a man who when all others run, takes up a gun to kill the rabid dog in the town streets. Atticus is a simple man, leading what many people perceive to be a simple life, yet his life becomes extraordinary through the implementation of virtue in its every facet.

The Gospel of St. Matthew issues the call of the Christian to be a part of the world, perhaps even an integral part, yet all the while being first and foremost a servant of God. We see Christ questioned by the Pharisees on the issue of taxes, giving his classic retort that one should: "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." (Matthew 22: 21, NRSV) We understand that there are duties we must provide to the world, but higher duties which we must perform, and ensure we perform, to a Divinely inspired goal. These duties can lead us to the very outskirts of Calvary, as the life of Atticus Finch revealed.

John Stuart Mill (Click pic for biographical info)

Sloth, seems at first reckoning to be an odd bed-fellow among the list of the Catholic Church's deadly sins. Less of a scandal, than lust, less of an obvious fault than greed, less of a newspaper headline than anger, one wonders what harm there is in a person desiring to live a life half-lived. Certainly, John Stuart Mill, the author of On Liberty, and of the maxim that a person should be free to do anything which leaves no third party disadvantaged, would not provide too great a case against the individual, who outside of fulfilling basic work responsibilities and the requirements of survival, does little or nought else for his fellow man or God. According to Mill's political and economic analysis, who can such a man be harming?

Yet the Catholic understanding of sloth, is a far deeper reading of the word. We all know, deep within our spirits that there is far more to life than paid work, of giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Inherently, we feel compassion and sorrow for others, and something within teaches us that there is the greater responsibility one owes to God and to one's self, and flowing from this the duty to one's neighbour. There is in sum, the imperative of the vocation — the discernment of, and obedience to, a Divine calling. Work for the world, only speaks so much. History reveals that there have lived a great many whose paid work has not highlighted their true claim to greatness, be they: St. Paul, the tentmaker; St. Ignatius of Loyola, the soldier; St. Peter, the fisherman; J.S. Bach, the choirmaster; Gottfried Leibniz, the librarian; or Jesus the Christ, the carpenter.

Sloth does not refer singularly to laziness. In this era of workaholism we are not denied of examples of people wishing or required to work hard, overly so. Sloth, points at how and why we work, it asks of us to discern how best to use the one gift of life which God has prepared for us. It asks us, what our part will be in the building up of God's Kingdom. St. Luke the Evangelist cites Christ reminding us: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry".' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'" (Luke 12: 15-20, NRSV) The attainment of wealth, is not an evil, but that it become the overriding goal of one's life, certainly is.

The stewardship of our wealth…

	St John Chrysostom

Wealth has a far greater purpose than the acquirement of conspicuous consumption, it requires prudent stewardship. Without this stewardship all the effort has indeed been sloth. Chrysostom adds in one of his sermons that too often: "The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor". Chrysostom had been inspired in the cause of social justice by the teachings of Christ: "For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" (Mark 8: 36, NRSV)

To combat sloth, one does not need to work at a hectic pace, producing either an ulcer or a guilt-inspired neurosis — it requires a healthy spirituality and an equally healthy work ethic. It requires the balance to prioritize Caesar, but not above God; to look after the material wants of life, but not above the spiritual needs. We can not do everything, but we can do, what we can, within the schema of our talents and the constraints of our time.

When a person is slothful in their labour for the Kingdom of God; when they refuse to implement their talents, we have the abortion of possibility, a killing of the future within the present. Andrii Sheptyts'kyi's denouncement of infanticide is equally applicable to all people who do not make full use of their talents, for the benefit of the whole: "Children were a nation's guarantee of the future, its potential leaders, scholars, artists and writers, and the loss to society of every individual life was incalculable, for no one could ever know the potential contribution to the common good that was thereby erased".

The sin and evil of sloth, lies in its defeat of goodness, by the individual choosing to do nothing, when it is quite within their capabilities to do good. Edmund Burke tells us: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Evil will kill justice if no one will speak up; evil will fester among the youth, if no one is willing to teach otherwise, evil will spread, like an insidious disease, if no one has the courage to make a stand, perhaps even to the Cross. Sloth is an attempt by evil to anaesthetise the Truth.

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©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

[Index of Commentaries by Dr Andrew Kania]