Sermon for 5th Sunday after Trinity, 2021

Homily for Trinity 5, 2021

Fr. Tony Melton

Theme: Acedia is the denial of Communion with God.

Purpose: To instruct the church about the sin of Acedia and to exhort them to attentiveness to the life that God provides in His Son, Jesus.

There is an evil that one Anglican writer says is the perennial sin of the modern Church. This evil infects every parish, it attacks every person. It has enormous effect on the divorce rate, the suicide rate, and the instances of depression in the Church. At certain times, the name of this evil was a part of common speech. The reason it has been able to spread so far and so deep is that we no longer know what to call it. And when you don’t call a sin by its name, it will grow under the protection of another name. The name of the evil is Acedia. 

This week, we continue in this first part of Trinitytide with our preaching on the vices. Having walked through our redemption in Jesus from Christmas to Ascension, Trinity begins a season where our soul is brought into further union with Jesus. In order to have further union with Christ, our souls must be purged from sin and vice. This week, our Prayer Book directs us to purge ourselves from the sin of Acedia.

First, we will name the sin. Define it, observe it, learn its nuances and patterns. Then we will see how our Propers speak concerning it. What is its opposite virtue? How do we combat it? What cures are there for this disease? I’ll close with the Collect so that you might pray diligently this week against Acedia using the words of our Prayer Book.

First, what is Acedia? Acedia can be defined in many ways. Acedia is a rejection of the soul’s good through lack of care. It is what prevents us from praying when we know that Communion with God is on the other side of Prayer. The most common word for it is “sloth.” The monks called it the “noon day demon.” Spiritual laziness. A better definition joins together sloth and dejection. We fall into the sin of Acedia when we ignore the multitude of reasons in God’s green earth for being happy and active for our own soul’s Good. In Dante’s Inferno, there is a special swamp reserved for the “accidiosus.” Wedged in the slime, they say: “We had been sullen in the sweet air that’s gladdened by the sun; we bore the mist of sluggishness in us: now we are bitter in the blackened mud.” This passage ties together well what Paget describes as the three elements of Acedia: gloom, sloth, and irritation.

A good way to imagine the way this sin looks is the Netflix binge. It doesn’t matter the show, it could be Friends, or Lost, or (God forbid) Gilmore Girls. But when you watch 2 seasons in 7 days, you eat terribly, you don’t sleep as much as you should, the dishes stack up, you don’t brush your teeth, and you’re cranky. It begins with sloth, it produces gloom, and it ends with irritation. And it steals away the desire to do anything that would actually be good for your body. It results in apathy. That’s a decent picture of Acedia.

What causes Acedia in our hearts? We fall into the sin of Acedia when we are possessed by earthly cares. Like the workaholic, our soul, from lack of nourishment, begins to crave that which does not satisfy, it grows lazy, it grows bitter, it gets cranky, it gets busy, overwhelmed, joy flees, depression invades, we think to pray, but we don’t feel like it, too much to do, and so we get used to a life continuously occupied with the business of the day, day after day, and we can’t get through the day without our glass of wine, or the Gilmore Girls. We grow depressed because we are unsatisfied. We grow bitter because we cannot actually control our possessions, our family, our country. We complain about our car, our President, the weather, oscillating between working ourselves to death and then slumping on the couch and turning off our brains. And though we are consumed with cares, our lives are defined by a deep lack of care, or apathy towards our soul’s Good, and we do not pray. Acedia.

Our modern society, with the amount of things that we possess and the ability to occupy so much of our time through our technology, has crowded out the activities that have nourished the souls of the saints for millennia, so that we can go through an entire week without offering up an Our Father. This week we began our Clergy Check-In Calls. One of the goals is to work with each parishioner to at least begin their day with some prayer. One of the ideas is to send out a text reminder at 7:30am for those that want it. This way of bookending a busy day with prayer is a way of breaking the cycle of busyness and entertainment. We are working ourselves to death and we are amusing ourselves to death, and all of this keeps us from praying ourselves into life in and with God.   

This morning during Mattins, we heard the morning prayer readings for this Sunday. They are from Ecclesiastes 2 and Matthew 19. Solomon says, “I will deny myself nothing. I will pursue all ends. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity. So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me.” Matthew 19 is about the rich young ruler, who is told to sell all his things and follow Jesus. The text says, “When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” Both men consumed themselves with the cares of this world, both ended in despair and sorrow. In the case of the rich young ruler, he chose the comfort of his possessions over a life lived with God. A slothful distain for the soul’s good because of an inordinate pursuit of earthly cares resulting in a bitter and dejected attitude. Acedia. 

In our Gospel, Peter is the opposite the rich young ruler. Jesus said, “Follow me.” Peter forsook all and went. He was not consumed with earthly cares. He saw God Incarnate and assumed the opposite posture of an accidious man. He bowed down and said, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Notice that both Peter and the rich young man are sorrowful, but what a different sorrow they have. This is what Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” The young man chose riches and felt sorrow of the impenitent. Peter left two boatfuls of fish and adopted the sorrow that lead to repentance.

What does this mean for us? We must a church who prays. We say that we are centered on Communion; that is one of our core values. Centered on Communion is referring to the Holy Communion, but also to that orientation of all life where we walk with God in communion. To be centered on Communion is to see growth in prayer and contemplation as priorities. Prayer involves work, but it is not busy. It is the quiet joy that descends on us in our humility and obedience when God blesses us with His presence, when He affirms us and calls us.

And let us not stop at Peter as our example and contrast with the rich young ruler. The sacred heart of Jesus is always our example, as well as our solution. Jesus lives perpetually in the life of God, forsaking all that does not satisfy, He sought out a quiet place to pray, though He lived in constant communion with God during his years of service. I hope that these four people: Peter & Jesus, Solomon & the Rich Young Ruler—provide for us a good picture of Acedia and its opposite. Humility and Obedience will lead us out of Acedia.

If the Gospel illustrates the attitude and action that is contrary to the sin of Acedia (humility “Depart from me, O Lord” and obedience “Follow me.”), the Epistle, likewise, exhorts us to live quiet and joyful lives within God’s blessing.  “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.” When we neglect the quiet joy of the Lord and ignore the manifold gifts that He offers us for the good of our soul, we have failed to live within His blessing.

The world has a whole different way of blessing than God does. We can choose to surround ourselves with the World’s blessings or God’s blessing. One will produce Acedia and the other a spiritual attentiveness that produces joy. To get very practical, what do you decorate your home? Is it a poster of the Beatles or is it an icon of Christ? Does your music lead you into worship of Jesus Christ or the god of Youth and Self-Expression? We can remind ourselves constantly of God’s blessing by surrounding us with tangible things that reflect the life of God. A prayer corner, prayer beads in your car, placing your Prayer Book next to your coffee pot. Those that went to the Family Retreat spent time painting prayers to be put in their house. Like, “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” near your bathroom sink. These are all things that can snap us out of our accidious funk, and lead us into that centered, holy place where God is present with us, we live in His blessing, and not overly attached to the shallow things of the world.

The whole emphasis on a Rule of Life that we are discussing on our Clergy Check-In Calls is really a strategy for combatting Acedia. Just like we do with our physical health, we plan little kick starts of Prayer so that we don’t devolve into spiritual apathy.

I’ll close with an exposition of the Collect. “Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness.” Joyful service. Godly quietness. The Collect seems to predicate these on a peaceable ordering of the world. Let me ask you a question: Would you say that the world is peaceably ordered? Where did your mind just go? Did you think of Washington? The White House? The Supreme Court? The Middle East? Your house? Your in-laws’ house? Work? What is the center of your world, because where your mind went when I asked, “Is the World peaceably ordered,” is probably near the center of your world. I invite you to place this Table as the center of your world. Around this Altar, we ascend into heaven. All life flows from that Altar. All time revolves around that Altar. All life is either a preparation for or a recession from that Altar. God answers this Collect every time every time the Eucharist is celebrated. Is there anything in the world that is more peaceably ordered than the Table of God? It is here that we can live perpetually in joyful service and godly quietness. It is a distain for that Table that is the root of Acedia. 

Therefore, I invite you to the Table of God. The center of the world that He so peaceably orders. The fountain of nourishment to our souls. If you attend to the health of your soul, come. If you need comfort, come. If you need strength, come. If you want a hearty desire to pray, ingest it. If you long to be closer to God, imbibe Him. Whatever you lack, ask of God and He will gladly give it to you from His Table. Shake off the sloth and despondency of Acedia and center your world on the Altar of the Living God who governs all things peaceably for the joy and quietude of our souls. Amen.