March 7, 2010

Deuteronomy 5:6-21, I Corinthians 13:4-7     

The Seven Deadly Sins -Lent Sermon Series  Part 3

Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, Willow Grove Presbyterian Church, Scotch Plains, New Jersey

In the movie "Amadeus," I was captivated by the story. I could well understand why it won an Academy Award. Portrayed in the movie was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The movie showed us a young Mozart who was blessed with talents which set him apart from all his contemporaries. Mozart's music was complex, moving, exciting, inspired. It was clear that God had endowed him with extraordinary gifts. Nevertheless, Mozart was also immature, vulgar, obscene, lustful, and irreverent.

The other main character was Antonio Salieri, court musician to the King of Austria. Salieri had dedicated himself to serving God, promising to write music that would glorify the heavenly Father. From his youth on he dreamed of composing music that would lift the hearts of people heavenward. Salieri was committed to serving God and asked only that God might permit him to create the kind of music that would reflect His glory. However, God had not endowed Salieri with such gifts. Salieri was able to compose pleasant tunes, but not masterpieces. He could compose music which would entertain its hearers, but never immortalize its composer. Despite his immense popularity, Salieri knew that his was a mediocre talent and that his uninspired work would soon be forgotten.

Salieri sat through Mozart's concerts and programs and the beautiful music sent tears down his cheeks. Oh if only he could compose such music! But it was not to be. He didn't have Mozart's talents.

The story line shows us what happens when a good man like Salieri is filled with envy. We have to say that Salieri was consumed by his envy of Mozart's talents. Salieri's envy led him to scheme and plot against Mozart at every turn. He stole Mozart's compositions, bribed Mozart's servants, and informed the king about Mozart's indiscretions. Salieri's envy eventually drove him to insanity. The movie ends with Salieri cursing God for denying him the talent which He gave to Mozart. (1)

Envy is the sin no one talks about. We boast about other sins, but envy is not one Christians usually admit to. People brag about their accomplishments. They show off their new possessions. People make jokes about their procrastination, which is the sin of sloth. People aren't shy about gluttony, either. On the Discovery Channel I once watched a show about men who were preparing for a hot dog eating contest. It's actually a sport in America. But envy; very rarely will anyone ever suggest they've sinned in envy.

Envy is probably the most vicious or destructive sin in our list of seven. Yoda in the Star Wars movies once said "Envy leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to hate, hate leads to anger, anger leads to the dark side."

Envy Defined
What is envy? It is a desire to have what another person has. It is not simply a longing to also have what the other person has; rather, the envious person wants to have something instead of the other person having it.  It is possible to be envious of almost anything. Like Salieri, you can be envious of another's musical talents. You can also envy someone's ability to hit a baseball, score a basket, lose weight, get a job. You can envy someone's intelligence, wisdom, knowledge. You can envy someone's ability to talk or pray in public. You can envy another's possessions and money and want them to be yours alone. You can envy another's spouse or children or family. You can envy another's position, job, or career.

Scripture tells us that envy is sin that has to do with attitude. The glass is half empty.  Envy is found everywhere. It is found in the church. It is found in the world. None of us, I'm afraid, are immune to it. It can strike any of us at any time.

Many adults want to be objects of envy . Think about the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37.  Jacob gave Joseph a beautiful coat.  God was speaking to Joseph in the dreams.  Yet, I have often wondered what could possibly have possessed Joseph to tell his brothers about those dreams and tell them while he was wearing that amazing technicolor coat? Did he, perhaps, want to generate their envy?

Advertisers today have discovered that one way to sell a product is to create envy among those who don't have it. That's why Rolls Royce can sell and Lamborghini can sell. The buyers know that possession of these cars displays to others how rich the owners are. This same principle of creating envy extends to clothing, houses, and furniture. I have even seen this principle used in choosing a marriage partner. Some people choose their mates to be the envy of their peers.

Envy is Destructive
The Bible warns us against the sin of envy. It tells us about the consequences of envy and generating envy:

"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."   (Proverbs 14:30)

To put it simply, envy is destructive. The church fathers of the Middle Ages tell us that envy is one of the seven deadly sins.  As the story of Salieri shows us, unchecked envy can alienate a person from God as well as other people.  We see unchecked envy in the story of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph's brothers envied his coat, they envied his dreams of position and grandeur, they envied the love their father gave him. Joseph's brothers envied him. So what did they do? Scripture tells us, "they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him." And, when given the opportunity, they sold him as a slave to Ishmaelite traders. Their envy resulted in years of unresolved grief, pain, and anguish for their father and almost brought him to a premature grave. 

Dwight L. Moody once told the fable of an eagle who was envious of another that could fly better than he could. One day the bird saw a sportsman with a bow and arrow and said to him, "I wish you would bring down that eagle." The man said he would if he had some feathers for his arrow. So the jealous eagle pulled one out of his wing. The arrow was shot, but it didn't quite reach the rival bird because he was flying too high. The first eagle pulled out another feather, then another--until he had lost so many that he himself couldn't fly. The archer took advantage of the situation, turned around, and killed the helpless bird. Moody made this application: if you are envious of others, the one you will hurt the most by your actions will be yourself.

The Bible abounds with other examples of envy and its dire consequences. I think of the story of Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel because he envied the favor which Abel gained in the eyes of God (Gen 4:5). The plans of Saul to kill David resulted from Saul's envy of David's popularity (1 Sam 18:6-9).

The sin of envy appears in a most familiar way in the Ten Commandments; "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Now despite the fact that humans in that time were considered possessions, the notion is pretty clear that wanting what the neighbor has is a transgression of the worst kind.

True envy is not simply a light-hearted wish, that we could sing like Pavarotti, or write like Maya Angelou, or vacation at resorts frequented by Bill Gates. It's more insidious than that.

Envy resents the good being experienced by another. We might not express it, but underneath there's a kind of ill-will involved. In the Oxford Dictionary, I found there was an obsolete definition to envy. At one time, the definition included, "malignant or hostile feeling, ill-will, malice, enmity."

Envy diminishes our humanity. It's actually a form of self-hatred. Envy may start with a sort of self-love, because I want something to supposedly better myself. But when I am envious, I am not loving myself. I am not grateful for, or happy in, what I am or what I have. The sin is deadly, because it will not let me live as myself. And envy not only disparages self, it disparages others, and it disparages the One who created us both.

The good news is that we are made in the image of God. We are beloved.  We are valuable.

Envy tricks us in to thinking we are not, we are not enough.   But we are.   If we trust that we are good, we are valued by God, that who we is a blessing, then we can stop envying other people.

If you want to get envy out of your life, you must first stop comparing yourself to others.  Be grateful for what you have and who you are.  Instead of focusing so much on what you don't have and what didn't happen, be grateful for what you do have. This has to be learned. It doesn't come naturally to me and probably not to most of us. The Apostle Paul wrote, "I have

learned to be content." It was a learning process. So instead of complaining like these workers did about what wasn't happening, what they didn't get, you learn to realize that you'd have nothing without God,

When Envy is Good

I will close with a story about the good part of envy.  Robert Fulghum is a minister. In his book, subtitled "The Rituals of Our Lives" he contends that our lives are a series of rituals, whether they are consciously celebrated or not, and whether they are observed in a so-called "religious" setting or not. One such ritual is the class reunion--a setting that is rich with possibilities for comparisons, contrasts, and even a little (and maybe a lot) of envy. He, Fulghum, writes here not of his, but of his wife's college reunion:

My wife has just returned from the twenty-fifth reunion of her college class. When she came home she talked for two days and is still working through the experience. She's going with a friend to a Grateful Dead concert--something she would not have done before the reunion. Revisiting the music of one's youth is part of the reunion with self.

My wife's moment of truth at the reunion was the memorial service for the members of her class who had died. Twenty of them. She's a doctor, and she knows about death. But this was different. Twenty people her age--people she knew, people like her--had already come to the end of their lives. Finitude. Life is short .

And like most of those who go to such occasions with their eyes open, she came home with a revived sense of what is consequential and who is significant and what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. A new set of hopes and dreams tempered now by the view from the middle of life and the experiences of the road taken so far.

She compared her life to her peers' and saw what there was to like about herself and what she still might become. And in seeing how time and experience had molded some seemingly confused ... college students into pretty fine and serviceable human beings, she felt good, knowing she was one of those.

And I am the beneficiary of her reunion, even though I did not go. She saw the men she might have married. And is glad she waited for me. (2)

"She compared her life to her peers' and saw what there was to like about herself and what she still might yet become..." That's as good a statement as any I've found about what it means to be on the positive end of the envy spectrum--to see in your peers what you like about yourself and what you might yet become. And what she brought back from her reunion is something I hope we can each and all find here:  ...a revived sense of what is consequential and who is significant and what we want to do with the rest of our lives; a new set of hopes and dreams tempered by the experiences of the roads taken so far."

As we travel through Lent, may we seek God's forgiveness for envy and begin again to be content, to know again that we are made in the image of God, to invite Christ into our hearts and to know we are beloved by God.  That is the measure of our worth.  Amen.

(1)  Rev. Adrian Dieleman, "Envy," August 12, 2001. Trinity United Reformed Church, Visalia, CA,             http://www.trinitycrc.org/sermons/gen37v01-11.html

(2)  Robert Fulghum, From Beginning To End: The Rituals Of Our Lives, quoted by Rev. Kimi Riegel in  "Envy: The Sin of  the Glass is Half Empty," February 5, 2006,  http://www.northwestuu.org/index.phpmodule=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=22