Each of these vices takes a good thing and twists it. Gluttony is the desire for food twisted to abstinence from food for unhealthy weight goals or indulgence in food without regard for others. Lust is the desire for sex twisted to the self so that it is about merely being pleased rather than loving. The remedy for all the vices is properly ordered love; it is loving the good in the right way.
Saint Isaac the Syrian wrote, “Blessed is the man who knows his weakness. This knowledge becomes for him the foundation and the beginning of his coming unto all good and beautiful things.”11 The goal is not to “find ourselves” or to judge other people. Rather, it is to discover what moral weaknesses we need to root out. The purpose of this list is not to overwhelm us with guilt. But like a personality test, these vices are listed to help us identify a disorder we may be prone to. Knowing that disorder, we can begin to habituate ourselves to a virtuous life by putting off the vicious life. We all will likely identify with more than one or two vices. As I review the list, it’s hard to pick just one vice that I need to address. However, it’s impossible to make all improvements at once. Start with the vice that rings most true, or ask which vice has the strongest hold. Which would be hardest to fight? Pray and ask God for guidance. Seek the advice of mentors about which vice(s) they see in you. Then fight like hell—because living a vice-laden life leads there.
One of the ways to battle sin is asceticism. The word comes from the Greek askeō, which means “to train or exercise.” Ascetic practices are a system of restraints that allow us to work at conquering our passions rather than letting our passions conquer our soul. Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams describes the ascetic as one “called to keep on knocking at the door of Christ’s internal dwelling—the natural intelligence within us that is being restored by the Spirit’s grace. . . . What we aim at is not perfect keeping of the commandments as some sort of human achievement, but the freedom to receive the gift of Christ being formed in us and to guard it by means of our watchfulness.”12 Sometimes we limit our freedom and say no to a desire so we can attain a good beyond immediate pleasure. Asceticism helps us through this delaying of gratification. By fasting from food or screens or noise, we long for Jesus in the way we would long for food or screens or noise. These practices turn us from the love of created things to the love of the Creator. And as John Cassian reminds his followers, the idea is not merely to do the practice for the sake of doing something hard. He insists,
This harsh struggle has to be fought in both body and soul. . . . Bodily fasting is not enough to bring about perfect self-restraint and true purity; it must be accompanied by contrition of heart, intense prayer to God, frequent meditation on the Scriptures, toil and manual labour. . . . Humility of soul helps more than everything else. . . . We should not trust in our own strength and ascetic practice, but in the help of our Master, God, . . . for such a victory is beyond man’s natural powers.13
Again, the goal is grace-driven effort rooted in the gospel, not a self-righteousness that leads to pride. The whole of the Christian life requires dependence.
Asceticism is not a rejection of creation as bad or the material world as evil. Rather, as rapper Tobe Nwigwe puts it, “It’s hard to get your gift from God when both your hands is full.”14 Asceticism helps pry our hands from the good things of the world for the greater good beyond the good world. Saint Basil of Caesarea describes renunciation as “the transference of the human heart to a heavenly mode of life, so that we can say: ‘But our conversation is in heaven.’ Also . . . it is the first step toward the likeness to Christ, who, being rich, became poor for our sake.”15 In his earthly ministry, Christ had access to the material world but at times renounced the good creation for a greater good, like when he was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. The material world is loved by God and should be by Christians as well. The goal of carrying out ascetic practices is to reject our sinful passions and see the world as beautiful so we can heal it and be reconciled with it. Vices distort our vision of the good creation, and therefore vices need to be removed.
PUTTING ON CHRIST: THE POWER OF HABITS
A few years ago I began training for a triathlon with my high school soccer coach. We had run a couple of marathons together, so I felt pretty good about the running part. And I had gotten into biking after college, so that wasn’t an issue. How difficult could swimming be?
As it turns out, very difficult! Without the proper form, I put in a lot of effort. I tried, and I tried, and I tried. I exhausted myself with trying. During training I hopped in the pool, pushed off the wall, and began my stroke. I swam for as long as I could—it seemed like hours. Finally, out of breath, I popped my head out of the water and looked at my watch: two minutes and thirty seconds had gone by. I lasted about two laps before I had to take a break, or else I’d have drowned. Something wasn’t working. I needed a fix.
For me, swimming was not a matter of effort. I was trying hard. I put everything into it. But there’s a difference between training and trying. Training is done with intention and purpose. Even with the right goal, I needed to change the means of practice. So, like a good modern pragmatist, I went to YouTube. I watched video after video of long-distance swim form. I tried different exercises. I asked my soccer coach, who grew up swimming, for help. He looked at my form and helped me learn how a good swim stroke felt as opposed to an inefficient one. Slowly but surely, two laps turned into eight, and eight into sixteen, and sixteen to forty. Eventually, I could swim the required 1.2 miles. Getting to this point required intentional training beyond mere trying. It was the result of dedicatedly practicing habits for months in order to unlearn a bad habit.
I needed more than knowledge or intention in order to be a good swimmer. I needed the practice. I could intend to be a good swimmer, but if I never showed up for laps, my intention wouldn’t matter. I could read all about swimming and know the best swimmers, but unless I practiced, I would not be a good swimmer. I needed help seeing what a good swimmer does as opposed to what a bad swimmer does. The same rings true for any other activity. It’s not enough to read a textbook on being a good soccer player or piano player or knitter. No one will arrive at excellence by thinking about an activity.
Take the example of Michael Phelps. The decorated Olympian swimmer didn’t wake up one day and become a world champion by surprise. His achievements required him to curb his freedom. His choice of who he wanted to be limited his freedom. He could not do whatever he wanted. He limited himself from enjoying late nights so he could perform at a high level early in the morning. He limited his diet to nutritious calories (and lots of them) to fuel his demanding training. He did what he did not “want” to do in order to become the person he truly wanted to become. He maintained a boring schedule of routine and rhythm to arrive at excellence.
The same principle is at work in spiritual formation. I can’t say that I’m mature simply because I read about what other mature people did. I can’t say I’m spiritually formed by knowing a lot. If I am to grow, practices and habits must accompany what I say. Habits help us “put on” Christ to be slowly trained in becoming like him. In other words, habits are as formative as they are expressive. They are not merely actions we do; they do something to us. Stanley Hauerwas opines that “there’s much to be said for Christianity as repetition and I think evangelicalism doesn’t have enough repetition in a way that will form Christians to survive in a world that constantly tempts us to always think we have to do something new.”16 Repetition, habits, and rituals train us. They are the means of grace by which we train ourselves for godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). Praying together with a unified voice is not merely something we do; it forms and unifies a group together. Reverencing or kneeling to pray isn’t mere expression; it’s training us in a posture, affecting us by what we do.
I love the way Frederick Buechner ties ritual with sacrament: “A ritual is the ceremonial acting out of the profane in order to show forth its sacredness. A sacrament is the breaking through of the sacred into the profane. A sacrament is God offering his holiness to us. A ritual is our raising up the holiness of our humanity to God.”17 A ritual is the reverse order of a sacrament. In a sacrament, God bestows holiness to the ordinary. In a ritual, we offer something ordinary to the sacred. There’s something dignifying and holy about ritual.
Tish Harrison Warren shows that everyone has rituals that guide their lives. She writes, “Examining my daily liturgy as a liturgy—as something that both revealed and shaped what I love and worship—allowed me to realize that my daily practices were malforming, making me less alive, less human, less able to give and receive love throughout my day.”18 Our desires are shaped by what we repeat. Habits and rituals cultivate certain dispositions, what one is prone to do. They develop our character. If we intentionally develop good and constructive habits, they will harden into compulsion, and we will want to do the good we know to do. It will be who we are without even thinking about it.
In Aristotelian philosophy, one acquires virtue by acting like one already has it. Michael Phelps turned into an Olympic champion by acting like he was one. We grow in virtue by acting like we are virtuous.
In baptism a clear and amazing reality is affirmed: “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.” Before you do anything good or bad, God loves you. You are favored. You are righteous. God gives you virtue. And the Christian life is living into our baptism, living into the reality that the old self is dead and the new life “is hidden with Christ” (Col. 3:3). You may feel that sin is strong and Christ is weak, but that’s not what baptism says. The blood of Christ, which washes away sin, is as sure as the water that washes over you. Your state before God is one of a beloved child. This reality may not seem real. It may not “fit” yet, but this is who you are. You may not feel Christlike, but that’s your new nature. Acting like Christ is not pretending but is, rather, the very means of becoming who you are in Christ. In his well-known book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis insists, “When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”19 In other words, there is virtue in going through the motions at times. We often think change happens from the inside out, that our thoughts dictate our actions. Once we have better reasons, then we will make a change. But often the exact opposite is true. Our actions shape our motives.
We can expect that the habits of virtue will be both natural and unnatural. Loving people is natural in the sense that we all want to be loved and treated kindly. It’s second nature to desire love. However, it’s unnatural at the same time, because love is the hardest thing to do—doing the unselfish thing rather than the selfish thing, putting the needs of others above our own. We need help refining the unnatural desires and becoming naturally good. Habits help. They can be seen as the guardrails or custodians of love.
Let me give an example of how habits shape who we become. I officiated my first wedding when I was twenty-two years old. My friends were set to be married at a beautiful outdoor location in northeast Ohio. (Yes, beautiful places exist in northeast Ohio.) Since this was my first time officiating a wedding, I had no idea what I was doing, so I received a lot of advice from mentors and pastors. One of the pieces of wisdom that I passed on to the groomsmen during the rehearsal dinner was “Do not lock your knees.” When people lock their legs, it creates some circulation problems, and they may pass out. For groomsmen, passing out during the wedding ceremony is typically frowned upon.
The day of the wedding arrived, and it was a perfect Ohio summer day. The ceremony was conducted beside a small pond, close to an outdoor reception area shaded by a decorated pavilion. I led the groomsmen out. We watched as the bridesmaids walked down the aisle. The big reveal of the bride went swimmingly, everyone standing. The bride’s family gave her away, and I began, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today . . .” I was waxing eloquent about the meaning and beauty of marriage, how it reminds us of the love that binds us together and, most important, of the love that God has for us, his church. Then bang! Man down.
The younger brother of the bride was on the ground. He thought I said, “Do lock your knees.” Before I could react, the groom’s dad sprang into action. I knew him to be one of the most selfless men I had ever met. He woke up before everyone else to deliver papers to provide for his family. He did hard physical labor during the day. As soon as he walked through the doorway into his home, he knew what needed doing to help his wife and large Italian family. I never saw him complain. I never saw him without a smile. He’s one of those people I want to be.
In this moment of crisis, my friend’s dad was habituated to act. He was in the habit of helping, so he did the natural thing. He didn’t consider the options or do a cost analysis. He rose to action.
I, on the other hand, froze. I didn’t know what to do. This was not covered in seminary. No one taught me this. Do I help? Do I go on? Do I make a joke? What kind of joke is appropriate? I sat there stunned, not unwilling to help but not knowing what to do. Unlike Anthony’s dad, I was not the kind of person who knew what to do. Life came calling, and he responded without a second thought. Life revealed who we really were in that moment. I was stunned and stuck. He sprang to help without balking.
The goal of formation is not an unthoughtful or an unthinking faith. Anthony’s dad had been formed in such a way that his most natural reaction was to assist. He likely didn’t think about it in the moment, but I’m sure he had been formed to think about what the death of Christ meant for his life, to consider how Jesus’s sacrifice motivates our sacrifice for others, to understand how Jesus’s life of servitude ought to shape his life of servitude. The reasons to act weren’t absent, but he didn’t need reasons in the moment. Reasons had shaped his habits, which in turn shaped who he was in that moment.
In the medieval period there was a distinction between formed and unformed faith. Theologian Ellen Charry explains: “What Thomas [Aquinas] called formed faith corresponds to what for us is reflective prayer, study, and service, while unformed faith corresponds to dutiful prayer and service. One should not shun beginning with dutiful practices, for these are the elementary levels of Christian training. But once one yearns for God, mindless practices will not do.”20 The goal is not to go through life unreflectively, though beginners may not yet understand the practices fully. In the wedding example, I realized that I had all the reasons and theology required for action, yet a man with less theological training actually did something. I needed training in dutiful practice to allow my rituals to catch up with my ideas. As in the Lord’s Supper, meaning grows as I practice. The intention becomes more meaningful as I act and as God acts upon me.
CONCLUSION
In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis depicts the afterlife. A man who has died is walking around heaven to see if he wants to stay. One of my favorite passages in the book explores the question, How much do we really want to be rid of sin? Or in other words, How badly do we want to be virtuous?
This recently deceased wanderer overhears a conversation between a fellow ghost and what he realizes is an angel. The ghost has a lizard on his shoulder, whispering to him. The angel wants to kill it, but the ghost goes through a series of excuses. He’ll get a second opinion. The lizard said it would behave. The ghost isn’t feeling very well anyway, so maybe tomorrow. Is killing it really necessary? The passage is reminiscent of Augustine’s conversion scene. “Get rid of us, forever? . . . Tomorrow is better.”
The ghost talks about the lizard the way we usually think of our tendencies to sin. God may need to tweak us a little bit, we tell ourselves. He may need to give some direction but not change us. He doesn’t want us to be that radical or extreme with sin. Ridding our life of sin shouldn’t hurt. God just helps us behave a little better and intervenes when we need his assistance with an urgent matter. But he doesn’t want to press us.
The lizard pleads its case as the angel threatens to kill it. The lizard, aware of the angel’s power, promises to be good. He may have gone too far in the past but not anymore.
The angel asks for permission to kill the lizard. “I know it will kill me,” the ghost says. The story continues:
“It won’t. But supposing it did?”
“You’re right. It would be better to be dead than to live with this creature.”
“Then I may?”
“Damn and blast you! Go on, can’t you? Get it over. Do what you like,” bellowed the Ghost: but ended, whimpering, “God help me. God help me.”
In the next moment the Ghost gave a scream of agony such as I never heard on Earth. The Burning One closed his crimson grip on the reptile: twisted it, while it bit and writhed, and then flung it, broken-backed, on the turf.21
Do we care to get rid of our vices like this? Even when it hurts? Even when it costs us something? Even if it kills us? Or are we comfortable just to quiet sin for a while, to let it talk us into keeping it around? How serious are we about putting off sin and putting on Christ (see Rom. 13:14)?
Here’s the beautiful thing about God and the reason we don’t have to hide our vice from him: “He is faithful and just to forgive us” (1 John 1:9). All God requires is that we be honest with ourselves and say, “God, you are right about the state of my heart. Woe is me.” The purging of sin does not consist of us cleaning ourselves up. It does not come from us. God is faithful, trustworthy, able, reliable to deal with our sin. And he is just; he takes the payment he requires. On the cross, God is seen as both just—the consequence of sin is death (Rom. 6:23)—and justifier—all who call on the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13).
This is the gospel. And it’s why we can freely bring sin into light without fear of judgment. The judgment has already been delivered. The purging is paid. We have confidence to approach God, to say, “Here I am,” and to know God as a Father who doesn’t dole out punishment but who extends his arms in welcome. We can live a good life, an eternal life.
