Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
September 21, 2003 

"The Antidote for Envy"
Preached by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anderson

Scripture:  James 3:13-4:3; Mark 9:30-37

Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.  But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.  Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.  For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?  You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

--James 3:13-4:3

Jesus and the disciples went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again."  But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?"  But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.  He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."  Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.

--Mark 9:30-37

Envy.  That's the name of a recent book by Joseph Epstein.  I heard Epstein interviewed on Talk of the Nation a few weeks ago as I was driving out to LAX late one night to pick up Mark Smutny.  The interview was so engaging that, as eager as I was to see my dear husband, I was disappointed I had to turn off the radio.  I downloaded the transcript and bought the book.  It gives an adequate description of the forest but does not provide a pathway out.  I hope to point us to a path this morning.  

Envy feels horrible, awful, even shameful when we acknowledge it.  I know this from my own life.  In the hidden power it exerts in our life, and the tentacles it spreads into every dimension of human relationship, envy is both fascinating and difficult to address.  Envy is such a basic part of the human condition that it can only be alleviated by our resting in God with an attitude of humility, dependence and gratitude.

Envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, a list that dates from Gregory the Great in the 6th century and has been refined somewhat since then.  These seven behaviors or attitudes have been singled out because it seems that every destructive aspect of human life is rooted in one of them.  They  cause alienation from God and one another, and destroy the goodness for which we were created.  The seven that are considered the root of all other sins are: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Anger and Sloth. 

So what is envy?  Joseph Epstein says that of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.  I would agree.  Sloth, greed, pride, lust, anger, gluttony all have some type of pleasure in them.  But envy always feels bad.  Surely it is the one that we are least likely to want to own up to, for to do so is to admit that we are, to some degree, ungenerous, mean, and small-hearted.  At some level we know that envy is even a type of Rorshach test:  tell what you envy and you reveal a great deal about yourself. 

It's not surprising that the disciples didn't want to tell Jesus what they were arguing about.  Most of us could still sleep decently if accused of any of the other six deadly sins; but to be accused of envy is seriously distressing, so clearly does it go directly to our character. Yet envy is so widespread that it seems all known languages have a word for it.  And it operates at all levels of life: in families, between spouses, with colleagues and peers, neighbors and nations.

Envy is not the same as jealously.  Although this is an oversimplification, we are jealous of what we have, envious of what other people have, or of what we believe them to have.  We are jealous, for example, of our parents' love, our girlfriend's attention, our partner's time, our boss's admiration.  Nor is jealousy always bad:  we can be jealous of our dignity, civil rights, honor, integrity, meaning that we want to hold onto and protect them.  But except for the type of envy that leads us to imitate admirable qualities in another, envy is always negative.  Envy is also less about what we lack than about what other people have.

Nor is envy the same as general yearning, such as wanting to be younger or in better shape, or less stressed.  Envy is usually particular and specific.  And part of what makes it so insidious and destructive is that it operates in secret. 

We don't want to admit envy to anyone, even to ourselves unless it's something as small as that which Epstein calls entree envy. That's when you go out to dinner and everyone else's entree looks better than yours.  Most of us can admit to that one.  It's the bigger ones that we don't want to mention to anyone, and the most painful ones we work hard to hide from ourselves.  Lastly - and this is why it is so hard for good, loving, upright Christian people to acknowledge - envy has an element of malice, aggression, or hatred that wants to see the other person brought down not only to our own level, but if we are honest, a notch below.  Envy, at its most vicious wants its object destroyed.   

Epstein tells a joke that shows how this works.  An Englishwoman, a Frenchman, and a Russian are each given a single wish by one of those genies who pops out of bottles. 

The Englishwoman says, "My friend has a charming cottage in the Cotswolds.  I want a cottage like hers, but with two extra bedrooms and a second bath, and a brook running in front of it." 

The Frenchman says, "My best friend has a beautiful blonde mistress.  I want a mistress like that, but a redhead instead of a blonde, with longer legs, a bit more cultured and more chic. 

The Russian, when asked what he would like, says, "My neighbor has a cow that give a gives a vast quantity of the richest milk, which yields the heaviest cream and the purest butter.  I want that cow dead."  That is envy.

More commonly we experience envy this way: When we're confronted with a setback or something painful or tragic, we tend to ask the obvious question, "Why me?"  But when we see someone who has had greater good fortune than we do, we know we're feeling envy when we ask, "Why not me?"  Why should this woman be more beautiful than I?  Why is this man richer and more powerful?  Why do these others have an abundance of natural talents and gifts that I don't have?  Why was I left out?  Why not me? 

Everyone from Joseph Epstein to one of the mothers of psychoanalysis, Melanie Klein, agrees that different people have constitutionally different propensities to envy, and different abilities to move beyond it; but that every one of us knows the tug of envy, and each of us needs an antidote.

In this morning's Gospel lesson, Jesus provides us the recipe for that antidote.  His disciples seem to be in a state of full-blown envy, each wanting to take Jesus' place after he's gone, each exaggerating his own attributes and highlighting the others' flaws.

Jesus turns their notion of greatness, and ours, on its head, upside down and backwards.  "The last will be first," he says, "not those who bite and claw their way greedily to the top.  The greatest are those who can truly welcome little children as representatives of God." .

Jesus is talking about radical surgery here, about turning our hearts upside down, about looking at the world from a totally different angle.  In the preceding days, Jesus has told the disciples that he is going to be killed.  He has already told them that they, too, must take up their cross and follow him.  He has already modeled compassion and humility, strength and love, hospitality and welcome.  But they still didn't get it.  Or maybe, as we do, they did get the message periodically and then lost track of it again.  They are still trying to step over and on one another to get to the top of the heap.  They are still letting envy, pride and greed rule their hearts.

Imagine the scene: a group of six to twelve full-grown, strong men arguing about who going to take over as leader, who will be number 2, etc.  The very air gets tense and charged with aggression.  Jesus asks them what they are arguing about, but no one will 'fess up.'

So Jesus tells them all to sit down.  Then he takes a child, not teenager, but a little child, we're told. He puts that little child on his lap, enfolding that child in his arms, and in the midst of these men whose blood pressure is still probably really high, and whose faces are still red, says, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.  This is the criterion of greatness."  What a disconnect those men must have experienced with what they had just been doing and feeling. 

I imagine that Jesus sat for awhile holding that child, talking to her, asking her about her family and friends and what she liked to do.  I imagine he let those disciples just sit for awhile and think about why such a little child could be so important to God.  I imagine the disciples saw how safe and loved and welcomed that child felt, and the ease with which Jesus communicated with her as he held her to himself.  I imagine that at least some of them felt the difference between their envious rivalry and Jesus' humble graciousness as clearly as the difference between a cloudy midnight and the noonday sun.

It's not that children are free of envy or jealousy, or incapable of being mean to others.  Part of Jesus' point, however, is that there are aspects of being a child that we tend to lose as we grow up, aspects that we need to reclaim and develop in ourselves if we are to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ.  These include humility, dependency, and gratitude.

Children look at the world with wonder.  They can spend hours exploring what is under rocks, or mixing colors and painting images that only they fully understand.  They notice stars and trees, ants and grass, and are filled with amazement and curiosity.   Unless they have been terribly traumatized, a child's basic approach to the world is wonder and gratitude.  Children haven't asked for this world or fought with anyone for it.  For them it just is, and their role is to explore it and enjoy it.  Before they know the word, they live it:  gratitude. 

Children are also dependent.  They have no choice about dependency in the way we adults try to fool ourselves into thinking we do.  For the first year of life, a child is dependent on the breast or the bottle for nourishment and life.  For years they are dependent upon adults for safety and protection, for nurture and comfort.  They crawl, then walk away from their parents, then run back to make sure out that mom or dad is still there when they return.  Children are basically loving and trusting by nature, and if their world is responsive and caring enough, they learn to love freely and openly, to trust that their needs will be met, and that they can help to meet the needs of others. 

I invite you to sit with Jesus this morning, as he invited the disciples so long ago.  Calm the passions of your heart, the envy that leads to anger and resentment, aggression and hurt, by doing what Jesus told the disciples. 

Set aside your envy not only by welcoming the children you will meet today, but at this moment by welcoming the child within yourself. 

Let yourself feel a childlike wonder at the complexities of a leaf, childlike awe for the hugeness of sky, childlike appreciation for the engineers who designed the engine of the car that will take you home from church, childlike gratitude for the food that is on your table tonight, even if it will be lima beans.

Let your breath be taken away with childlike wonder when you hear the glorious sounds of the new organ. Welcome that little child inside you who knows how to be satisfied for hours playing with just a hose and a bucket of dirt, and feel your envious desire for more be washed away.

Welcome the child within yourself, and let yourself feel small instead of needing to be always big and mighty and powerful.  Let yourself feel small and trust that you can climb up on Jesus' lap, fully welcomed, fully loved.  Let yourself feel small and trust that you are held in the strong and tender arms of the God who gave you birth. 

Dare to stop struggling and grasping, biting and clawing for what you think you need, and receive instead the love and sustenance of God that is sufficient for all your needs.  Welcome that little child inside yourself who is capable of wonder, willing to be dependent, and grateful for the love that is always present, even before we reach out for it.

The antidote for envy?  Welcome the children among us.  Welcome gratefully the child within you and the gifts he or she brings.  For the child will lead you to Jesus, and then to God, who is the antidote for every illness that afflicts the human heart.  

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Joseph Epstein,  Envy: The Seven Deadly Sins; Oxford University Press, 2003

Melanie Klein, Envy and Gratitude, Envy and Gratitude & Other Works; 1946-1963, The Melanie Klein Trust, 1975

(c) Copyright 2003 by Barbara A. Anderson.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.