“Lazy-Bellies”

Hebrews 5:11-6:3

¹¹About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹²For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, ¹³for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. ^6:1Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ²and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. ³And this we will do if God permits.

Luther alludes to the teaching in 5:11–14 in his preface to the Large Catechism, which was prepared as a handbook for advanced catechesis. In it he castigates those pastors and people who have become spiritually lazy and bored with God’s Word and the teaching of the Christian faith. He, rather memorably, calls them “lazy-bellies,” people who reckon that they know all that there is to know because they have memorized the content of the catechism. Since they have had their fill, they are spiritual sluggards and fed up with what they have. Thus, they need “to become children and begin learning their ABC’s, which they think they have outgrown long ago.” He makes this appeal for them to build on what they have:

Kleinig, J. W. ©2017. Hebrews. (C. P. Giese, Ed.) (pp. 278–279). Saint Louis, MO: CPH.

As I read this very familiar passage this morning, I certainly did not have the words “lazy-bellies” pass through my mind. But further research on these verses ferreted out this quote from Luther that made me chuckle – lazy-bellies. This is a big passage and there isn’t a person who has held onto faith in Jesus Christ as Savior who hasn’t experienced this malady. We’ve all been lazy-bellies from time to time.

And so, we give some meditation to what God has to say about that ubiquitous circumstance experienced by His Children. The author of Hebrews does not urge the congregation to abandon the foundational teachings, but to move on from them by building on them. And that is where we tend to stumble sometimes. There is even a sense of “having arrived” in the faith and as such, we are free from the need to know more. That is a dangerous belief, for the faith is never stagnate but always dynamic. You are either moving forward in your knowledge and relationship with Christ, or you are stepping away. Standing still just doesn’t happen.

Nourishment with the Word of righteousness produces three things

First, it forms the mind of the disciples, so that they have a “receptive disposition”, a mature frame of mind that receives, assimilates, and retains what is taught. With that kind of a stable mentality a person is not “tossed about” mentally and emotionally, like a boat on the sea, and “carried along by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14). This well-formed, receptive frame of mind leads to proper appreciation for what is unseen and the exercise of sound mental, moral, and spiritual judgment that is the hallmark of spiritually mature people.

Second, God trains their “senses”, their powers of moral and spiritual perception, so that they can perceive what is right and receive what is presented to them in what they hear and see and taste and touch by their involvement in the worship and the sacraments. They sense what transcends their physical senses.

Third, since they have their senses “trained” by God with his “Word of righteousness”, they can “distinguish between what is good and what is bad”. While well-educated physical senses enable people to distinguish between what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is physically good for them and what is bad for them, the senses of a spiritually mature person help them discern what is spiritually “good” for them, like God’s “good” Word or a “good” conscience, which enables them to do “good works,” the works of love. They can also discern what is spiritually “bad” for them, like an “evil” conscience or, worse, an “evil” heart of unbelief. Their organs of spiritual perception are sharpened and refined, so that they can appreciate the “good” things they have from God and the “better” things that belong to their salvation, such as their “better” hope through a “better” covenant for a “better” resurrection and a “better” possession in a “better” fatherland.

Kleinig, J. W. ©2017. Hebrews. (C. P. Giese, Ed.) (pp. 274–275). Saint Louis, MO: CPH.

I don’t know if people become spiritually lazy because of their arrogance, busyness, or apathy. Regardless the impetus for the malady, the outcome is the same – we step away from God. Reading these words in Hebrews brings a reminder that we do well to pay attention to our spiritual temperature on a regular basis. Even when the Word seems dry and unattainable, we read it. Even when we think we’re too busy to spend time with God, we recognize that as a lie either from our own flesh or from the devil and we do it anyway. No one would want to remain a human infant for an entire lifetime. Why would we choose spiritual infancy when maturity is by far the better choice?