Envy
Galatians 5:13-23
When I served on staff at Rayne Memorial UMC on St. Charles Avenue, a young man named Arthur began attending. Arthur was a nice guy but was different, both in appearance and in personality. Arthur got involved in the young adult ministry I had started at the church and was accepted for who he was. It wasn’t long before Arthur became fixated on another guy in the group I’ll call Carl. Carl was a successful young man working in corporate America who was from a well to do family. He was amiable, friendly with everyone, had a heart of gold, was active in the ministry and often hosted events at his apartment in the Garden District. He was a member of a Mardi Gras Krewe, played golf at a local country club, was a member of the Young Republicans, the Young Leadership Council and another society club. Carl also drove a BMW. Arthur wanted to be like Carl. He asked to join the clubs that Carl was a part of and wanted to be Carl’s best friend. While Carl was gracious to Arthur, they were never going to be best friends. Arthur’s envy turned and one night, Arthur went over the Carl’s apartment, poured gasoline on Carl’s BMW and lit it on fire. He was arrested and served time in jail. This is the power and damage envy can have in our lives.
Today, we’re focusing on the last of the seven deadly sins. Envy is considered to be the second most deadly sin but it’s known to be the nastiest, ugliest and the meanest of all sins. It is also the most secretive of the 7 Deadly Sins. Many people will admit in public to the sin of sloth or gluttony but envy? Yet one thing we do know is that envy is universal. We all struggle with it at some point. You see it throughout the ages in people. Even in the Bible, we see the deadliness of the sin of envy. Cain was envious of Abel because God liked Abel’s offering more than his. So Cain killed Abel out of envy. In the New Testament, King Herod hears of another king being born and so Herod out of envy kills all male children under the age of 2 to preserve his power and station in life. In the Ten Commandments God addresses envy when He says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Exodus 20:17. It’s that envy of my neighbor’s ox which gets me every time!
In our culture we have a saying, “green with envy.” This comes because it is thought that someone who is envious is sick. We have another saying, “keeping up with the Jones.’” Envy changes how we look at things. One author writes of a friend who was happily married, had a good job and a respectable salary, lived in a good neighborhood and his children went to great schools and had good friends. But then he attended his 20 year High School reunion and saw people he had gone to school with, heard about their jobs which sounded a little more exciting, their salaries which were a little bigger than his, their neighborhoods which were a little bit more prestigious, their kids private schools and their spouses who seemed to be more educated and more beautiful. When he returned home, he felt inferior and now dissatisfied with his life. And yet absolutely nothing had changed in his life. What changed was how he thought about his life. This is the disease of envy.
We begin to see the person we envy up on a pedestal as we think their life is great and perfect and they have everything going for them. And then we look back into our own lives and we see everything at a deficit, making us feel inferior. That’s because envy attacks where we are lacking or we feel we are lacking. Envy moves from our minds then to our hearts and it spreads to our entire lives. “A heart at peace gives life to the body but envy rots the bones.” Proverbs.
There are four symptoms of envy. The first is that we compare ourselves to others. That’s something which begins at a very early age. Early childhood experts have discovered that at about age 7 we begin to see the similarities and the differences between ourselves and others. It must not be long after that we begin to compare ourselves to others. But we need to know that this tendency to compare is the breeding ground for envy. What we find is that we compare ourselves to people who are similar to us in age, background and circumstance but we avoid comparing ourselves to people who are vastly different from us and may lead lives which are viewed as unattainable. We don’t compare our paychecks with Donald Trump or Oprah. We don’t compare our athleticism to Drew Brees or Chris Paul. We don’t compare our homes and decorating skills with Martha Stewart. Part of the reason envy is so deadly is that it focuses on those who are around us: our spouse, our friends, our family, our neighbors and our co-workers and thus it can affect the relationships with others in our lives.
The second symptom is coveting, “I want what’s yours.” We want what others have. We find this most in children. If we put a new toy in front of two of our children at GUMP, what do they do? “I want that!” or “Mine!” But it doesn’t stop there because it continues through our childhood all the way through our life. It begins with focusing on toys or privileges like fighting to sit in the front seat and progresses to “Why does she get to do that? Well, I never get to do that! That’s just not fair!” But envy doesn’t stop with children, it progresses to adults as well. Envy can revolve around three things. First is personal traits: abilities, looks, brains or even the life someone else has. Second is possessions like someone’s home, car, clothing or even spouse. Third, it can focus on status or achievement: someone’s job, station in life, the admiration of their peers or even their awards or accomplishments. Which one of these do you struggle with: a character trait of someone, a possession or status and achievement?
Third, we want others to envy us. If we’re honest, we want to have it all and we want other people to look up to us, to measure themselves against us and find themselves or their own lives somehow wanting. This is how we feed our ego and it can lead to the sin of pride which we discussed last week. Intentionally or unintentionally, this manifests itself in one of two ways. We brag about things in our lives. We name what school our child goes to or what neighborhood we live in or we brag about a recent success or even a recent purchase all with the express purpose that others would envy us. Mark Twain said, “A man will do many things to get loved but he will do all things to get himself envied.” The second thing we do to gain the envy of others is we hide things that damage how we look to other people. We try to keep up an appearance that things are going well in every area of our life and life is easy for us.
Fourth, we secretly want others to fail. If they do, then we feel better about ourselves. And when they do, it brings small amount of joy to our hearts.
Fifth, we criticize others. Inside of us grows this resentment and one of the ways this is manifested in our lives is through criticizing others. So we say things to chip away at a person’s character by saying things like, “She’d be beautiful if she didn’t have that nose.” “She’d be fine to hang out with if she wasn’t so annoying.” “He’s got a really great lawn but what else does he have to do with his time?” One author says that 80% of our criticisms have their root in envy. The National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan studies the brain when we have envy and what they found is that we feel physical pain when we’re envious of others. The more we envy, the more the pain nodules in the brain flare. When those same participants in the study imagined something bad happening to the person they envy, the pleasure centers in their brain went off. How bad is that? Envy damages our love for others but it also damages our love for God. Our envy says to God, the life you gave me just isn’t good enough. I need more to be happy. I need more stuff, I need a life with more perks and so what happens is we reject the life that God has given us when we grow envious of others. So envy is deadly because it can separates us from God and living a life filled with thanksgiving.
In our Scripture today, Paul writes to the churches at Galatia and counsels them in how to act towards one another. He reminds them they are free in Christ and thus have a choice to live with envy or love. “Do not use this freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Then he warns them of how our behavior toward each can destroy us through sins of which envy is one of them. But then he gets to the Good News: “Here I say, Walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. God can get rid of this thorny disease and instead replace it with the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” First, walk by the Spirit, and allowing the fruit of the Spirit to be made manifest in your life.
Now the fruit of the Spirit are actually characteristics that are manifested when God works and lives sin us. When God dwells in us and guides us then there is not a place for sin in our lives. Literally, the sinful desires of our heart are pushed aside and replaced with new characteristics or traits, the fruit of the Spirit. But we can have a role in it. The first fruit is love and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to know the love of God. The Good News is that the love of God far exceeds the love, appreciation or envy of other persons. When we experience God’s love for us in all our fullness then we don’t need the attention and envy of others. As we continue to grow in our love for God then we recognize that we serve an audience of One. The second fruit is joy and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to find joy in your gifts. In the midst of envy, we do forget what we do have. So the first thing we need to realize is that each of us have God given gifts and abilities. So this week take a moment to write your gifts down or even ask those closest to you what you’re good at. The third fruit is peace and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to accept our weaknesses. We all have weakness in our lives, things which we need to improve or strengthen within us. So for the things you can change, seek the advice of others in our to do that and ask for them to hold you accountable in that. For the things you can’t change, come to a place of acceptance by knowing it’s OK to have weaknesses but also that it does not diminish your value or worth in God’s eyes one bit. The fourth fruit is patience and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to look closely at the object of envy. When we envy someone we often look through rose colored glasses. We put them up on a pedestal. Take a closer look at that person and realize that you don’t know the whole story. The fifth fruit is kindness and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to be kind. In other words, rather than seeking the blessing of others, how can you bless the people around you, even when they don’t deserve it. As our kindness increases, our envy decreases. The sixth fruit is goodness and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to celebrate differences. We each have gifts and it’s important to recognize and call out the gifts of others. Tell them what they’re good at and complement them. Help others see and use their gifts and know that where they are strong you may have a weakness. So rather than our differences driving us away from one another, we become more dependent for where I am strong you may be weak and where you are strong, I may be weak. The seventh fruit is faithfulness and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to serve God and serve others. Jesus tells us to be faithful to God is to become a servant and be obedient to the will of God. When we serve, we challenge ourselves to get out of comfort zone and minister and bless others different from us. The eighth fruit is gentleness and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to watch our words and actions. We want to be envied so we brag and hide. Instead, use your words and actions to build others up rather than tear them down. The ninth fruit is self-control and the action to cultivate this in our lives is to acknowledge envy. Recognize where you are envious in your life. When you bring envy out of the darkness and into the light, admitting publicly where you’re envious, then it loses its power over us.
Rather than being a victim of envy, we have a prescription to free ourselves from it. We through the power of God can live a different way with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. For all the sins we have learned about in this series, God offers forgiveness and an opportunity to live a new life, free from sin.
