Let’s begin by clearing something up: Nowhere in the Bible is there a specific list of Seven Deadly Sins. Although, lists of virtues contrasted with lists of sins are found in certain books of the New Testament, such as the Letter to the Galatians (6:16-26).
The modern concept of the Seven Deadly Sins is linked to the work of a 4th century monk, who listed eight "evil thoughts": gluttony; fornication; avarice; sorrow; anger; discouragement; vainglory; pride. The Seven Deadly Sins as we know them are attributed to both Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century and later to Dante Alighieri in his epic poem The Divine Comedy.
They are as follows: luxuria (extravagance, later lust), gula (gluttony), avaritia (greed), acedia (sloth), ira (wrath), invidia (envy), and superbia (pride). Each of the seven deadly sins has an opposite among the corresponding seven holy virtues. In parallel order to the sins they oppose, the seven holy virtues are chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.
This week we turn our attention to two more of these sins – lust and envy. In so doing, I begin by asking the simple question, “What happened to love?” To begin to understand what has happened to love, we must first understand what love was designed to be: I Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV
Paul described love with such eloquence in this passage that it has become a near universally accepted description of love. Perhaps for you, like so many, it was read at your wedding. Whenever I perform a wedding, one of the admonitions that I give the couple is that saying I love you is the easy part. The hard part is waking every morning and still choosing to love. Whether you are married or not, I think that we can all relate to that admonition – choosing to love is not easy. After all we live in a society that leads us to believe that love is something we fall in and out of at the drop of a hat – therefore there is no choice in the matter because love is just feeling that we have no control over.
I believe that love has become self-indulgent. It has given way to the ‘me first’ thought and God has became secondary in our love. Love is now driven by cultural definitions and therefore it is hard to grasp the love Paul describes. The reason this love (I Corinthians 13) is so hard to comprehend is that the love described by Paul can only be accomplished with God. By contrast, the love that we are left with as a culture is the love which we have created, or de-evolved, into Lust and Envy.
What have we made of love? Love now masquerades as sex and more subtly as lust and envy.
Pick a magazine off the rack at the grocery store and it will tell you how to find love, choose love, measure love, keep love, lose love, and even make love.
You see, love is now bought and sold and more importantly love is measured in dollars. Did you pay attention to the advertisements this past week? Did you succumb to their message? Did you shop at Jared’s? Did you buy the right deodorant? the right cologne? The right clothes? Did your purchases lead you to the love of your life? Was your love life immediately transformed?
Turn on the radio and listen to the music – doesn’t matter your genre – because on any given week the music playing will no doubt remind us of the love we have had, should have, could have, or have lost.
Based on music sales alone there are an ever increasing number of people looking for love and I might add in all the wrong places – perhaps there should be a song about that.
Consider that plastic surgery for the dead is now a growing industry as people to seek to look younger and more appealing after their dead. How can you be any more self-indulgent?
Consider the headline: ‘Sexy TV Shows tied to teen pregnancies’ that was offered recently by MSNBC (Laura T. Coffey MSNBC.com Nov 3, 2008). In the article, 2000 teens were interviewed from 2001-2004. The results were the ‘startling’ discovery revealed in the headline. Consider as well that since 2004 the amount of sexual content on TV has doubled. The US continues to have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world (what a great thing to be a world leader in!).
The reality is that by the time we are done with love all that is left is lust and envy.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante's definition of lust was "excessive love of others," which therefore rendered love and devotion to God as secondary. And perhaps that is exactly what has happened to love.
Church in the name of love we have sinned. We have taken that which was designed to be perfect and we have perverted it and instead of calling it sin we traded the names of lust and envy for love.
Sin is tricky. It does not reveal itself knowingly. No, it seeks to trap us unaware. None of us would buy the notion that we would willingly associate with Lust and/or Envy. And yet, we allow ourselves to be bombarded with the message (and we seem to be buying it at an alarming rate) that our lives are worthless unless we . . . have more free time, more money, more success, more love, more beauty, more lovers, more sex appeal, more, more, and more.
Envy and Lust do not attack head on, they creeps up on us. It begins as luxuria which is luxury or extravagance which then becomes lust. Once you have luxury or extravagance it is only a matter of time before you have envy of the luxury that others have.
It can begin with a simple question, “Why not me?” It quickly then becomes the ‘If only’ syndrome: If only I had a better a job, If only I had more money, If only I were better looking; had better clothes; drove a better car; had a better house, and on and on.
The subtlety of Envy is that it feeds our desire to have that which is not our own and that is Lust. And yet Lust is hiding behind much of what our culture is trying to sell. Lust and Envy go hand in hand and one leads to other and it does not matter which comes first.
As Christians we have a multitude of sins in our lives and all have been forgiven in the name of love – Jesus.
We must learn to reclaim that perfect Love in our lives.
We must rise above envy.
Envy must give way to kindness. We must be willing to celebrate with others the successes of the world or our envy will devour us and become lust.
We must rise above lust.
Our lust must give way to chastity, not just in sexual matters, but in our ever growing appetite for the love of things and people over our love for God.
We must reclaim and proclaim the love that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ.
We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
I Corinthians 13:12-13 The Message
Church if we who know perfect love can not proclaim this love and live this love in this world, who will?
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