Sloth and Pilate

Sermon from Sunday, July 6, 2025

The Rev. Megan Collins

Watch Listen

Dave and I have developed a new coping strategy that might be pointing to a subconscious desire to escape all the things in the world right now. We are planning a backpacking camping trip for the fall. We’ve done some camping, but this will be our first time truly backpacking, where you put all your gear on your back and hike several miles out into the woods to stay. It’s going to be a new challenge for us, and I’m not sure how successful we will be at it, but the idea of just completely unplugging and going out into the woods feels really enticing (even if it does involve a little shovel that you have to use to go to the bathroom). 

We really leaned into our planning/coping strategy one evening this week. This is a very real picture of the living room in Dave and I’s apartment on Monday.

That’s a tent, right there, next to our dining table. We set it up to check and make sure it was in good shape. Did I also crawl inside of it, and consider staying in the tent and never coming back out? Yes. 

Sometimes we just want to escape. I know you feel it too: the headlines and the breaking news, the nagging feeling of helplessness to stop all of the atrocities that are happening, and then you also have very real challenges in your everyday life, not just the big global things.  You are dealing with the demands of raising kids, a difficult job, receiving a hard health diagnosis and facing treatments. 

It’s hard out there. We want to be who God called us to be. We want to be really brave when we face these challenges. I know a lot of us desperately want to do something to help, to do some good.  But sometimes we also might want to escape out into the woods and maybe just stay there, just us and the bears.

Today we are going to talk about this impulse to escape. We are in a series over the summer called Vices and Villains. Each week we are looking at one so-called villain in the Bible, and the vices we can see in their lives. Then we are taking that information to look at ourselves, and where we might see this vice in us. We aren’t doing this series to shame you. This isn’t our attempt to ruin your summer by making you feel bad about yourself. (Have fun at the beach, sinners). Naming a vice in your life isn’t about guilt. It’s about healing. It’s about the wholeness that God can offer to you. 

Think about when you go to the doctor, especially for screening tests. I don’t love going to the doctor. You have to make an appointment, go to the appointment, have them figure out all the stuff that might be wrong with you and tell you to do something you probably don’t want to know or do.  It’s uncomfortable, sometimes even painful. But if I don’t go to the doctor, if I don’t let them figure out what’s wrong with me, I won’t get the healing I need. I won’t have the wholeness I want in my life. 

We are going to the doctor together this summer as we read these stories. We are letting the Scriptures poke around in us, look in our mouth and our ears, listen to our hearts, and tell us what vice might be keeping us from health. 

Today’s vice is something that happens when our desire to escape gets away from us.  One thing we have seen with vices already in this series, is that they often start as something God gave to us for our good. Last week, we saw that desire is something God gave to us, for our good. Lust is our morphing of desire into something that harms. These vices, if left unchecked, tempt us away from the two most important things: loving God, and loving our neighbor. 

The desire for escape, which really comes from our desire to rest, comes from something good. God created us to rest. God told us to work for six days but rest on the seventh. Jesus says “Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.”  Our yearning for rest is a part of who God created us to be. But what happens when our desire to rest in the tent for a few days becomes ongoing disengagement? What happens when our need to escape becomes a way of living that keeps us from loving God and loving our neighbor? This is what the monks who identified these quote “seven deadly sins” identified as our vice for today, sloth. 

Before we go deeper into sloth, let’s take a step back and make sure we really understand what they intended. Because when we hear sloth, we think about this guy:

We think of someone who moves slowly, lays around a lot, someone who doesn’t work super hard.  But what if I told you that you can be just as guilty of sloth when you never sit still? One of our favorite theologians, Frederick Beuchner, wrote this:

“ SLOTH IS NOT TO be confused with laziness. A lazy man, a man who sits around and watches the grass grow, may be a man at peace. His sun-drenched, bumblebee dreaming may be the prelude to action or itself an act well worth the acting. A slothful man, on the other hand, may be a very busy man. He is a man who goes through the motions, who flies on automatic pilot. Like a man with a bad head cold, he has mostly lost his sense of taste and smell. He knows something's wrong with him, but not wrong enough to do anything about. Other people come and go, but through glazed eyes he hardly notices them. He is letting things run their course. He is getting through his life.”

Sloth doesn’t necessarily mean we are being lazy. Sloth can happen when we are just getting through our lives. We have let our eyes glaze over. We are disengaged, detached.

When escape becomes detachment, when rest becomes disengagement, that’s when it becomes sloth. That’s when it stops being holy.

God welcomes your rest but not your resignation.

What is the difference then between a short escape, a short rest, and resignation? When does taking a break become neglecting God’s call to love God and love our neighbor? If we realize today we are at that point, we stayed in the tent too long, what do we do about it? Let’s take a look at what sloth looks like in our villain for today, who is Pontius Pilate. We’ll be reading his story with sections pulled from all of the gospels to get the full picture of his experience. 

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” (John 18:28–29). They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.” (Luke 23:2) Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over… But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” (John 18:33, 36–38)

Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.” (Luke 23:4–5) When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod… Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him… Then he sent him back to Pilate. (Luke 23:6–7, 11) Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people and said to them, “You brought me this man… I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty… Neither has Herod… He has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him. (Luke 23:13–16)

Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. (Matthew 27:15–18) While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.” (Matthew 27:19) But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.

Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” (Mark 15:11–14)

So when Pilate saw that he could do nothing but rather that a riot was beginning, he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” (Matthew 27:24) Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. (John 19:16)

If there was ever someone who wanted to escape the situation he found himself it, it was Pilate. We look at the decision he has to make and it’s so clear. Pilate, just do the right thing, the hard thing. Tell the crowds they are wrong. Reject their demands for senseless violence. Make the right decision, even if it’s scary.  But what does Pilate do? He disengages. His eyes glaze over. He washes his hands, saying “I am innocent. See to it yourselves.” He resigns and lets the crowd have their way. The vice of sloth for Pilate isn’t being lazy. It’s hiding from the right thing. 

We think, we could never do that. We would never be Pilate.

But couldn’t we?

The crowd today is calling, loudly, for violence toward vulnerable people. It feels so heavy, and we may think there isn’t anything we can do. We let our exhaustion turn into disengagement. We unplug. We scroll. We stay busy with anything else so we don’t have to look too closely. Like Pilate, we wash our hands. “This isn’t mine to carry. I’m not responsible for what they are doing.” 

Our desire to escape leads us to detach.

Our desire for rest leads us to a pattern of disengagement. 

God welcomes your rest but not your resignation.

Sloth thrives when we give up on loving our neighbor, because it’s hard.  I know it’s difficult.

I know we want to look away. I know we want to take a permanent walk out into the woods and unplug for good. But here’s the hard truth. We can’t.

We were made to love our neighbor, even when it’s hard, even when it means having a tremendous amount of courage, even when the crowd seems like they are winning because they are just so loud and there is nothing we can do to stop them. 

We can’t give up.  But here’s the good news. Our choice isn’t total burn out or sloth.  In addition to the call to love our neighbor, God first told us to do this: love God.  The opposite of sloth isn’t never resting. It’s seeking real rest. It’s rootedness. It’s digging yourself into the presence of God so that God’s love can fill you. It’s knowing that no matter what you are facing, no matter how hard things seem, that God is there. You don’t have to choose between giving up and detaching from the world or overfunctioning until you crash. There is this other way. It comes from rooting ourselves in God. 

That is where you will find the real rest you are craving, the healing and wholeness you need. You won’t find it in the second rate sloth solution. It doesn’t mean we won’t escape here and there. It’s okay to hide in a tent for a few minutes, or to watch a television show for an evening (I am currently loving Schitts Creek), to take that day and go to the beach.  But real rest, the kind that will restore you, doesn’t come from distraction. It comes from God.  What does this look like?

It can start with a prayer, just a whisper: “God, keep me rooted.”

It can be asking “God, what is mine to do?”

It can be taking a deep breath, and asking God for peace. 

It means remembering that you aren’t alone. 

It seems God knew what God was doing in making the church. God knew we would need one another.  This is a community, right here, that wants to give you that place to rest. This church family has decided to stay engaged, even when it’s hard.  You have chosen to lean in to what is happening, to name the harm being caused to vulnerable people, to see every person, no exceptions, as a child of God worthy of respect and compassion and care . . . and to do something about it. 

You have chosen to encourage one another to not give up, to keep going, to keep doing the hard work God calls us into. You have chosen to walk with one another when the hard things aren’t just out there, but in your personal life too, to not look away when someone is sick or grieving or afraid. 

You have even chosen to have joy, which is such an act of resistance, in our laughter, and in our singing, and in our eating together (because boy do we do love to eat). Joy says we still believe. We still hope. We still trust that God’s not done yet. That’s holy. That’s the sign of people who are rooted, not resigned

This is the community you need, right now. It’s a community a lot of people out there need right now too. It seems like every week recently I meet someone who tells me their story. They tell me that they want so much to feel connected to God, to have a church, but they aren’t sure if there is a place where they or their friend who is a part of the LGTBQ community would feel welcome. Or they want to be a part of a church family but they have heard Christians support and even delight in the mistreatment of immigrants. They want to be in a place that refuses to give up standing on the side of justice and it seems like Christians are more about their own comfort. It makes me sad to hear that there are so many places they have tried and haven’t found that. It also makes me so grateful I know a place where they can come. I hope you are inviting the people in your life to come too. 

They can rest here. 

You can rest here. 

You can let God pour back into you, maybe escape for just a few minutes. 

You can’t give up when you go back out there. 

Maybe we will need to take a church camping trip all together to take a break sometimes.  Maybe we will have a night when we just crawl into our tents and take a deep breath because it feels overwhelming.  Maybe sometimes that is an actual tent out in the woods. But maybe sometimes the tent is really this place, this sanctuary the place that lets us regroup, and find our courage to go back out there.  You can’t stay in the tent forever. The world needs you. God’s not done with you yet.

God welcomes your rest but not your resignation.

God will get us through it, together.

We will work hard together, standing up for the things that Jesus taught. Things like His teaching in Matthew that says: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”

We will play hard together too, because the joy we have is just another part of the way we experience God’s presence. Now one more thing, before we stop.

We talked today about how we might be Pilate, how we are admittedly tempted to trade rest for sloth, to wash our hands of doing the right thing.  We also know people who are in the crowd in the story for today. We know some of the people who are calling for violence, who aren’t just washing their hands of it, but the ones yelling crucify.  Maybe you have someone like that in your life right now. Your witness matters. They need to see you continue to be courageous and compassionate. Perhaps, for someone listening or reading this, maybe the person in the crowd, the one calling for violence, is you. I want you to know that it’s never too late to turn around. It’s never too late to ask for God’s redemption. You can decide today to let God change your heart. 

For all of us, God is still working, on the world, and on you:

To help you find the healing you really need.

To give you the rest you crave.

And then to send you out to love like Jesus.