Trinity VII Sermon 2025

 Graft in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us
true religion, nourish with all goodness, and of thy great mercy
keep us in the same.
(Collect: Trinity VII)
 
         
When we read the Epistles of St. Paul, you cannot help but come away with a sense of the Apostle’s uncanny ability to unite spiritual contraries to make his point. Perhaps this is a natural consequence of his momentous conversion, when, in a fit of zealous hot pursuit of Damascene Christians, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he was thrown down from the high horse of his feverish pride onto the dry and desolate road of his own sinful undoing. Paul the zealot, Paul the Pharisee, Paul the persecutor of Christians endured an extreme turnabout or volte-face of his entire character. He who thought he understood all things, was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. (Acts. ix 9) He who by the law judged that his righteousness gave him license to hunt sinners, became the sinner whom Christ hunted. One man, slowly but surely, became another. In time, the zeal with which he persecuted Christ became that zeal for all men’s conversion to Him. His zeal became contagious because his life testified to the power of the love of Jesus. Jesus used him as [His] chosen instrument to proclaim [His] name to the Gentiles,… their kings,… and to the people of Israel. (Acts ix. 15)    
          
Zeal is the virtue opposite to sloth. Sloth is a mortal sin, and it is to that sin that we must turn before considering the zeal that we must embrace. You might think it odd that we must study sloth today, since it seems to contradict St. Paul’s zeal before and after his conversion. In the Gospel, we read that a great multitude of people had been following Jesus for three days in the wilderness. (St. Mark viii. 2) With zeal they had been pursuing the truth that they found in Christ; with zeal they hoped that He was the promised Saviour. Like St. Paul, their zeal was the passion that comes from seeking the truth in Christ for salvation. Because of their zeal, the multitude in today’s Gospel were willing to fast as they fed on the Word of Jesus. Because of their zeal, their fast was endured with neither regret nor resentment. So intent were they upon the pursuit of their spiritual good that physical nutriment was ignored, if not entirely forgotten.  
         
But Jesus, perceiving an imminent danger, says, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat: And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far. (St. Mark viii. 2, 3) Jesus comes not to destroy human nature but to redeem it. He intends to bring to completion the good work which he has begun in them. (Phil. i. 6) They are in danger of fainting. To faint in Scripture means to fall by the wayside spiritually, to lose spiritual steam, and to become weak, languid, exhausted, and feeble. To faint means to lose one’s zeal. Men faint when they are hungry. One who faints has a faith that is in danger of dying and whose pious zeal might wither because the body needs food. Jesus knows the danger that looms in the hearts of those who are pursuing Him with zeal. The author of Proverbs says, if a man faint in the day of adversity, his strength is small. (Prov. xxiv. 10) Adversity here might be as basic as physical exhaustion, hunger, or thirst – the heat of the day. Should the soul’s good be pursued at the expense of the body, the earnest pilgrim might faint, fail, and fall away from Christ. He might be overwhelmed by sloth.
          
Potential fainting that threatens those who have followed Jesus into the wilderness is a temptation to sloth. Sloth is one of the Seven Mortal or Deadly Sins. Most people identify it as laziness or indolence that leads to physical neglect or even gluttony. The body’s vengeance upon spiritual asceticism – the imminent danger in this morning’s Gospel – certainly contributes to sloth. Physical hunger from fasting can generate ill temperedness, peevishness, and resentment. But the true nature of sloth is a far more debilitating and destructive mental condition. The fainting that Jesus seeks to combat most of all is spiritual sloth. He fears that the Word, which He has planted in the hearts of His followers, might die. Dorothy Sayers tells us that 

sloth is the sixth deadly sin. In this world it is called tolerance, but in hell it is called despair… . It is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it would die for… . It prevents men from thinking. Sloth persuades us that stupidity is not a sin but a misfortune. (An Address… October, 1941) 
 
Sloth is a deadly sin because it refuses to consider the truth, find it, apply it, or even fight for it. Zeal’s discovery of the truth in Jesus Christ might soon wither on the vine. Zeal needs to be cultivated and grown. If the proper conditions of human life are not met, sloth might turn it quickly into a superficial and short-lived fad. Sloth convinces the soul that its zeal for the spiritual good is too hard to practice. Sloth, according to St. John of Damascus, is an oppressive sorrow. (De Fide Orth. xiv) It convinces the soul to be sad and to despair of zeal’s intention to obtain salvation.
          
Today Jesus would rescue us from sloth. He desires that we faint not by the spiritual way. He knows, with St. Paul, that we are weak because of the infirmity of our flesh and are tempted to yield our members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity. (Romans vi. 19) For St. Paul, sloth is born of despair, found in the servants of sin, [who] are free from righteousness and live in spiritual death. His extreme zeal for the Gospel is triggered by Christ, who is freeing believers from sin to become the servants of God. (idem) He has been arrested on the road to Damascus by the love of God in Jesus Christ. Paul’s love in return generates fortitude, as Chaucer says, that causes us to undertake hard things, or grievous things…wisely and reasonably. (The Parson’s Tale) Zeal conquers sloth with the courage to endure hardship and penance for salvation. Zeal is the fire that must continuously fuel the mind to know God and enjoy His truth.
         
Jesus fed the four thousand long ago to overcome their temptation to sloth and perfect the virtue of zeal. Then, He took seven loaves of bread and a few small fishes to satisfy their earthly hunger and perpetuate their zeal for the Word of God. Divine generosity triggered zeal in them and should do the same for us. Christ, who nourishes our souls with His teaching, will feed our bodies also if we believe in Him. In fact, if, with the multitude in today’s Gospel, we are so caught up in learning the truth from Him, Jesus might have to remind us that we need to eat to fend off the dangers of fainting with sloth and being tempted to despair.

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that zeal arises from the intensity of love, because the more intensely a power tends to anything, the more vigorously it withstands opposition and resistance. (ST i. ii. 28, 4) Zeal is the virtue that arises from the intense power of love for Jesus Christ. Zeal increases in strength and desire the more intent a human being is in finding the truth from Him. If we put Jesus Christ first in our lives because we would learn the way to salvation from Him, our zeal will conquer our sloth. Zeal is a virtue when its energy is directed to being with Christ and persisting in finding what He longs to give. It will enable us to seek…. first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…. (St. Matthew vi. 33) And like the four thousand, we shall take no thought of what we shall eat, and what we shall drink. For our Heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of such things. (Ibid, 31, 32) All these things shall be added unto us as what strengthens the body that houses a soul, with zeal conquering sloth.
 
So today, let us qualify and adjust our zeal to heavenly ends. Let us not spend our zeal and spirits for earthly but for heavenly things, not for our own lust and honor but for God’s blessed will and pleasure. (Jenks, 274) Then, we shall embrace the gift of the Zeal of the Lord of Hosts in our souls, which will graft in our hearts the love of His name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of [His] great mercy, keep us in the same, for salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Collect: Trinity VII) 

Amen.
©wjsmartin.

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