orothy Sayers once described
sin as a “deep interior dislocation of the human personality.” Sin makes us
out of joint deep within our soul. And just deleting sin from our vocabulary
will not get rid of this bad stuff or improving our education and graduating
more therapists will not heal this deep interior dislocation. I want us to
discover how Jesus Christ can put our joints back together and heal us deep
inside.
This morning I want
us to consider what has been called the “nastiest, the ugliest, the meanest”
of the seven deadly sins, the sin that no one confesses. If we’re red with
anger, purple with rage, then we’re green with ____. Green is a gorgeous
color, but when it’s your complexion, green people just aren’t real healthy.
Did you ever wonder
where the phrase “green with envy” comes from? Maybe it stands for dollar
bills that we all envy. Or emeralds. Or the green grass. Actually, this
phrase goes all the way back to BC times in Greece. Greeks speculated that
envy made the liver work overtime, producing excess bile and adding a slightly
greenish tint to one’s complexion. Envy convinces us that the grass is
greener on the other side.
Make no mistake.
Envy is not just a little white sin. It is deadly. The writer of Proverbs
says “a healthy heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the
bones. If we don’t confront envy it will consume us, it will rot our soul.
Envy is not just
looking over the fence at the greener grass, it is wanting to torch our
neighbor’s lawn if we can’t have just as green of grass as they. If envy were
to write a bestseller, it would be called The Revenge of Failure.
That’s why Frederick Buechner describes envy as “the consuming desire to have
everybody else as unsuccessful as we are.” Envy does not just want something
that someone else has; it despises others who have something they don’t have.
In fact, it rejoices when others do badly or make mistakes. The Pennsylvania
Dutch have their own word for envy. It’s Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude
is the malicious joy at someone else’s misfortune. Schadenfreude is secretly
smiling when the school prom queen shows up at the 25th reunion
with 60 extra pounds and her third husband.
Envy imprisons people so that they can’t
celebrate the healing stories of Tom Merroth and Phyllis Tursack that we heard
this morning. Why? Because envy insists that they should receive the same
treatment from God as Tom and Phyllis.
The movie
Amadeus is a good example of how dangerous envy is. Antonio Salieri is
the court musician to the King of Austria. One day, he encounters a young man
who is dazzling on the harpsichord, Amadeus Mozart. Young Amadeus composes
complex compositions on a whim and they are moving, exciting, and memorable.
(I still can’t get one of his melodies out of my head.) But Mozart is
godless—he’s immature, vulgar, obscene, and adulterous.
What a
contrast Salieri is! He has dedicated his life to serving God; he has vowed
to write only music that will glorify the heavenly father. He’s always
dreamed of composing music to lift the hearts of people heavenward. The
problem is however, that God had not given Salieri such gifts. Salieri could
write pleasant tunes, but not masterpieces.
Salieri so
envies Mozart’s gifts, that he decides to plot his murder. If he can’t have
Mozart’s gifts, then neither will Mozart. In the end, both men are destroyed,
Mozart dies a mysterious and premature death, but Salieri dies in an insane
asylum.
In our
lesson this morning, Jesus tells an unsettling story about workers hired at
various times throughout the day. All of them had agreed on the wages to be
paid. When some of the workers who had worked longer, sweated more, gotten
more sunburn, complained that they should receive more, Jesus introduces a
probing question: “Are you envious because I am generous?”
Envy
finally got to Cain. Cain and Abel both offered God gifts of sacrifice. Cain
apparently didn’t follow instructions. And so God accepted Abel’s sacrifice,
but not Cain’s. Well, this really torqued Cain. He can’t sleep, can’t
concentrate, can’t even work knowing that God accepted his brother’s sacrifice
but not his. Finally he says to himself, “Well, if I can’t receive approval
from God, neither will Abel. So Cain murdered his brother. Envy has this way
of being miserable with others’ successes.
One day
Saul and his troops were returning from a successful battle. Well, the women
of the city cheered them upon their return. Even wrote a little ditty. “Saul
has killed his thousands . . . ” Saul must have been popping buttons that is,
until they began verse two . . . “and David has killed his ten thousands.”
“What?” Saul thinks. David gets credited with ten thousand wampums but I only
get a measly thousand? The Bible says that from that time on, Saul eyed him
suspiciously. That’s how envy has been portrayed – with slit eyes.
I wondered
what that might look like in this church? It would be like the choir singing,
“Hall has preached his ten great sermons, but Ben and Bill has preached
one-hundred great sermons.” Me? A measly ten? But Ben and Bill gets
complimented for one-hundred great sermons? Guess who would have slit eyes at
the next staff meeting.
“Okay.
Ben and Bill, could you preach again for me?
“In
March?” they ask.
“I was
thinking more like on Labor Day Sunday. 2005.”
When you covet another persons gifts, you’ll
become discontented with your own. When you envy another man’s wife, you’ll
become discontented with your own. When you envy another student’s grades,
you’ll underestimate your own abilities. When you envy another woman’s
attractive appearance, you’ll diminish your own value. Envy diminishes our
enjoyment of life because we can’t be content when someone else is more
gifted, more attractive, a better preacher, wealthier or smarter.
A
congregation in the grip of envy can never truly grow and extend their
influence to their neighborhood. Envy keeps everyone undermining the very
gifts that God has given to us, so that we never leave a legacy. We never
make a difference.
The first
truth we need to know in overcoming envy is to understand that envy is based
on lie that implies that God really doesn’t have your best interests at
heart. The truth is, God wants the very best for your life. God has
a special assignment for you in this congregation and in his Kingdom. God has
written the right gifts into your script, into you DNA, etched them deep
you’re your soul. So instead of being resentful for the gifts that you don’t
have, begin to entrust God the gifts that you do have.
The second
truth is that envy melts in the presence of thanksgiving. Learn to pray like
this: Thank you God for Homer who constantly does little errands for the
trustees. God, thank you for Ben and Bill, two men of integrity who are so
effective in the pulpit! Thank you for Valeria, God, who has given her voice
to you in this choir for many years. Thank you for Jim who has so guided me
in the SPR Team. And Diane who brings such gifts of music and joy to us on
the organ.
Let me
close with a true story. A vivacious young teenager is out swimming one day
and dives in shallow water. Her neck snaps and she becomes quadriplegic. Her
life of sports, travel, and fun seem to be over.
Can you
imagine what envy could do her mind every time she flipped through
Cosmopolitan or Mademoiselle and saw young beautiful models walking, jumping,
skiing down the slopes? If envy had a chance to kill someone’s soul, it
would have been Joni Eareckson Tada.
Instead,
by the grace of God, Joni discovered the same truth about her life, that God
wants us to discover about our life: rejoice in the gifts and graces that God
has given you and don’t worry about what others have. In the midst of tough
circumstances God gave Joni meaning and joy. She discovered that precisely
because of the horrible thing that had happened to her, she was equipped
to minister to other handicapped persons in a way that is impossible for you
or me. She’s written books, made recordings, lectured, traveled around the
world. She has become so famous that even physically healthy people could
well envy her.
And all
because she dared to believe that God deeply loves her and has given her
gifts. She nourishes the hope that someday she will walk, even if that
someday is in heaven. In the meantime, she’s having the time of her life.
How about you? Amen.
