Once upon a time in first-century Israel, ten virgin young ladies were excited about attending a wedding. They didn’t know exactly when the bridegroom was coming, so they had to make adequate preparations for their waiting time. Five of these young ladies wisely worked diligently to prepare for any length of time that the bridegroom would delay. Whenever he came, they would be ready to go into the wedding feast. The other five young ladies foolishly didn’t work diligently but assumed everything would work itself out.
As the time of absence of the bridegroom lengthened, the inadequate preparation of the five foolish young ladies became evident. They were running out of supplies. They asked the five wise young ladies to share what they had. The five wise young ladies told them that their foolish lack of preparation put no obligations upon them to give what they had collected in their wisdom. The foolish five need to go to the market to restock.
The five foolish ladies were irate. They accused the five wise young ladies of being the beneficiaries of “wise privilege.” They only had proper supplies because they were in this wisdom-foolish system constructed by “their kind” in order to privilege themselves through the oppression of others. Those who are wise shouldn’t have more than those who are foolish. The foolish are entitled to just as much as the wise.
After declaring their oppression, rioting, and fomenting guilt among those who had been the beneficiaries of wise work, they convinced the “wise-privileged” in power to give them what they wanted despite their foolishness. Because people accepted the guilt and gave the fools what they wanted, they subsidized even more foolishness and ensconced a sense of entitlement in the fools. Eventually, after everything was consumed, no one had anything because every person believed that foolishness was more profitable and easier than wisdom.
This retelling of Jesus’ parable illustrates what the foolish sloth does. Twice in Proverbs when he is called to work, he responds, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!” (Pr 22.13; 26.13). This is not only a silly excuse (lions were no more prevalent in the streets in ancient Israel as they are in any city of America), it is an excuse that seeks to turn the tables on the one calling the sloth to work. The sloth has an irrational fear of the dangers of his responsibilities for dominion, and his tone becomes accusatory to those who call him on it. “What are you trying to do? Get me killed? It’s dangerous out there!” They turn the wise into villains who care nothing about people in general or this person in particular. They seek to engender sympathy from others about the real threats that they face out there. “How dare you encourage me to work on my marriage/work hard at my job/train the children/!… Don’t you know that this is not good for my mental health? My therapist told me to avoid anything that might cause me stress; anything that triggers anxiety, and here you are telling me to walk headlong into stress. You obviously don’t love me. If you loved me, then you wouldn’t press me like this. You’re trying to kill me!”
The sad truth is that many times this turning-of-the-tables-guilt-manipulation works on us. “No, no. I love you. You’re right. I shouldn’t be asking you to do these things. Your friendship is valuable to me, and I don’t want to lose it.” The sloth finds validation in those unwilling to call them to own their responsibilities. When they get this validation, they will continue to manipulate the gullible who will then affirmingly hold their hands all the way to hell.
We must see through the excuse-making and blame-shifting in our own lives and the lives of others and own our responsibilities. Owning our responsibilities means that we must first define our responsibilities. We must know for what or to whom we are responsible. Those places are where we have authority. God doesn’t give responsibility where he doesn’t also give authority. He’s not going to hold you responsible for something you have no power to control.
Once responsibilities have been defined, you know where you are obligated, then you need to fully own the responsibility. This means that you embrace it, learn to love it, work hard at it, and accept the consequences of your decisions good or bad; no excuse-making, no blame-shifting. If things go wrong, you own it. You back up, evaluate, and learn. Could you have prepared better? What kind of training or correction needs to take place for me or the people I am overseeing to accomplish my responsibilities?
The fool is always trying to justify himself when he doesn’t do what he is supposed to do by blaming circumstances, others, and even potential problems. “My porn problem is due to the easy accessibility of it on the internet.” “My not attending worship regularly is because it is at a bad time. The elders should change it for me.” “I can’t drive to work because of the potential of a sinkhole.” (“There is a lion in the streets!”) On and on it goes; excuse after excuse. Seven wise men can refute everything sensibly, but the sloth is wiser in his own eyes than all of them (Pr 26.13).
Wisdom works. Wisdom is open to counsel from others. Wisdom doesn’t avoid responsibility through flimsy excuses and self-justifying blame-shifting. Wisdom owns it.
