Feeling sloth-like? 2 Timothy
The pastor and writer FrederickBuechner once said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep
gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[1]
… I think it is a profound statement. Our calling is where we use the gifts God
has given us to serve God and our neighbor in the world. It means that God is
calling us to where we will find our most profound happiness. … God has given
us all a gift. That gift is to be used in our particular lives to bless the
particular people in our lives. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world”
(Matt 5:14). I think this is what he was
talking about. You are God’s person in your particular place. God has placed
you were you are for a particular reason. If your light doesn’t shine in your
place then it will be dark there. God has given us gifts so that we can be the
lights of the world.
We have to get away from this idea
that we can only use our gifts to do religious stuff in the church. We have
bought into an idea of sacred and profane that is not very Biblical. There really
isn’t a separation between what we call sacred and profane. If we believe that
God is the Creator then it is all, in a sense, sacred. Our gifts might have
something to do with Sunday morning, but they might not. Our gifts might mean
that we are serving people in our daily lives through our jobs or through our friendships,
or our families. Our gifts might mean cutting the lawn at the church, or
visiting and encouraging a neighbor who doesn’t get out of her house much. Our gift might mean joining our pastoral care
team, or it might mean doing your job as Jesus would do it- which means doing
it well, with integrity, and honesty, and with a heart to serve those you work
with. Using your gift might mean that
you are actually in the wrong field of work and that you should seek more
training or another job. … But, our gifts don’t always have to be about our job
either. It’s nice when your gifts overlap with your job, but they don’t always.
Sometimes our job gives us the finances to free us up to use our gifts. … The
exercising of our gifts is sometimes called “ministry”. As Christians we all
have a ministry. It can be active or it can be inactive, but we all have a
ministry.
Paul was reminding Timothy of this
when he said, “For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is
within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a
spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of
self-discipline.” (2 Tim 1:6-7). Paul is reminding Timothy of his gift which
seems to be lying dormant. Christians in general, and Paul in particular, had
been persecuted. In verse 8 we read “Do
not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner,
but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God”.
Paul is telling him to not be ashamed, which means he is tempted to be ashamed,
or possibly afraid. Perhaps if Timothy activates his gift then it is more
likely that he too will end up in chains. That is pretty powerful motivation to
not use your gifts. Paul tells him to “rekindle” his gift. It is as if his
gift is glowing embers and Paul is telling him to put some wood on the embers
and blow on it until it becomes a flame. The fear and shame seems to have caused Timothy
to neglect his gift and so it has become glowing embers rather than a roaring
fire.
The danger that Paul is highlighting
here is sometimes called “acedia” or “sloth”. We sometimes think of sloth as
laziness, but it really has more to do with using our gifts. Sloth is really
about when a person stops using their gifts. This means that sloth can come
across as a kind of lack of activity or sluggishness, … but it can also look
like a kind of feverish activity. … Both are sloth. We can avoid using our gift
by running around avoiding it, or by just ceasing to do any activity. The sickness
in the soul is the same. It is the desire to avoid using one’s gift.
Take the story of Jonah, for example.
In the story God told Jonah the prophet to go to Nineveh and call the people
there to repentance. Jonah did not want to use his gift and so he
busied himself and boarded a ship sailing in the opposite direction. Jonah
could have just as easily could have stayed home and sat in his house and
watched TV (or the ancient equivalent). The disease in his soul would have been
the same even though he could have presented two very different symptoms.
If we look at our lives with honesty
we will see our tendency. Do we shut down and sit on the couch? Or do we run
around like maniacs with way too much to do? It is possible that in both cases
we are dealing with sloth. … Of course it could be something else entirely, but
we should consider sloth to be a possibility.
Sloth can come about for a number of
reasons. Maybe when we are trying to use our gifts we meet with some resistance.
Maybe God is calling us back to school and we feel the weight of not having an
income, and of sitting in a classroom, and the pressure of taking tests. When
we allow those obstacles to get in our way it is possible that sloth could appear.
… So our desires being denied, or when our plans fail, then sloth can sneak
into our hearts. We throw up our hands and say “why bother”. So we stop, or we run
in all kinds of other directions. Both are avoiding using the gift God has
given us and the life he is calling us into.
Sloth can then become a kind of
sadness about God, or a boredom with God, or a feeling of indifference to God.
When we are living lives listening to God and trying to follow the footsteps of
Christ there is an energy and passion that is present. … But, when we ignore
God’s call on our lives and resist him, then our hearts will be marked by those
decisions and we will become bored or indifferent with God.
The cure for sloth is difficult, but
the church does have advice. For those who are tempted to run around and fill
their time up with other good things, they need to slow down. They actually
need to stop if they can and reevaluate their lives. Their excuse is that they
are too busy to use the gift God has given them. They are probably doing very
good things. The problem is that God has not given anyone too much to do. And they
feel like they have too much to do. God
gave a Sabbath to his people and told them to take it very seriously. God wants
us to rest to appreciate all he has given us so that we will have thankful
hearts. This also renews our relationship with God and gives us space to sense
where He is calling us. So those of us
that are hurried and frantic people are to take more time to meditate on God’s
word. We are to slow down and approach God in quite extended times of prayer. God gives us enough time to do what he is
asking of us.
For those whose sloth is more likely
to look like sitting on the couch eating potatoes chips they are instructed to
get a pattern and stick to it. Do everything they can to fight the urge to do
nothing. They are encouraged to work with their hands and get their muscles
working. They are to stay away from those who tend to drag them into idleness,
and instead surround themselves with people who are motivated. They are also
encouraged to look at their lives from the perspective of standing before Jesus
to give an account of their life. Those of us that suffer from this should turn
to God and pray for a heart filled with desire to seek God. The joy we discover
as we draw closer to God will destroy sloth.
Timothy was likely not respected
because he was young (1 Tim 4:12; 1 Cor 16:10-11) and he was also being
intimidated by the persecution he saw Paul dealing with. Paul tells Timothy “…for God did not give us a
spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of
self-discipline” (2 Tim 1:7). To not use our gift is a kind of
cowardice. The spirit we have been given is of power, love, and
self-discipline. Each of these is important in order to defeat sloth in our
lives. Timothy is told to “hold to the standard of sound teaching” (v 13), and
to “guard the good treasure” (v 14). The gift he has been given is precious and
it is sinful to not use it.
We are in the midst of a stewardship
campaign at the moment. Part of stewardship is to consider how we spend our
money out of gratitude to God who gave it to us. Another part of stewardship is
time and talents. Time, talent, and treasure are really a way to talk about our
whole lives in a simple way. Time and talent are just as important to consider.
Jesus said, “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”. There is no
shortage of work for the children of God. Sloth can get in the way. It can get
in the way by neutralizing us, so we are stuck on the couch instead of using
our gifts. Or we can become so frantically busy that we don’t actually have any
time left to give to the church or to develop the gift god has given us.
May God
grant us passion and spiritual hunger, not to avoid sloth, but to be alive in
the life God has given us. May God give us a rekindled passion for our calling,
which is where our “deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[2]
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