Obstacles to Grace: Envy

1 Samuel 18:5-9; James 3:13-18

March 30, 2011

Do you look good in green? Kermit the Frog does. The Irish, they of the “Emerald Isle,” love their green, especially on St. Patrick’s Day. Green is the color of environmental responsibility: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. Kermit the Frog, St. Patrick’s Day, environmental responsibility. What’s not to love about green?

Unless green is the color of your complexion, and then you are not feeling well at all. Unless green is the color of the sky, and then we’re talking tornado time. Unless the grass of your neighbor’s lawn is greener than yours is, and then we’re talking envy. I love a green, green lawn all year long. That’s why at our house we still grow fescue instead of bermuda or zoysia, which would make a lot more sense in South Carolina. I want a green lawn all year long because I want the grass to be greener on my side of the fence. To envy—or to desire to be the object of envy—is an insidious and ugly obstacle to grace.

Frederick Buechner calls envy “the consuming desire to have everybody as unsuccessful as you are.” Dorothy Sayers says, “Envy is the great leveller. If it cannot level things up, it will level things down.” Let’s look at how envy works.

In the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, King Saul and the young warrior David were allies in arms against the Philistines. Saul welcomed David into his own home, and in the service of Saul “David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him; as a result, Saul set him over the army.” But one day, something changed in Saul. It happened, we are told, “when the women came out of all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul.” But when they met King Saul, listen to what they sang: “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” Hmmm. That’s when the screw of envy turned in Saul. Saul became “very angry. . . . He said, ‘They have ascribed to David ten thousands, [but] to me they have ascribed [only] thousands. . . .’ So Saul eyed David from that day on.” “Saul eyed David” (1 Samuel 18:5-9).

On one level, envy is a sin of the eye. It is an optical and perceptual flaw by which we objectify others on account of what they have that we perceive ourselves to lack. On a deeper level though, envy is not in the eye at all. Envy is rooted in our deepest insecurity and discontent with ourselves. Envy is an expression of the most anxious place in our self and our self-image.

Consider this. Saul didn’t envy David for his shepherding or for his harp playing. He didn’t envy David on account of the love of his son Jonathan for David or on account of the love of his daughter Michal for David. He didn’t even envy David for his military exploits. Saul did fine with David’s success in love and war until the women began to sing; that’s what touched a nerve in Saul’s insecurity and wounded him in his most anxious place. The self-tormenting discontent that is envy always originates in the most insecure and anxious place in each of us.

Preachers don’t envy engineers for their analytical acumen, but another preacher’s deft turn of phrase and the ability to draw a congregation in turns a preacher green. Bankers don’t envy a violinist’s virtuosity. The recent collapse of financial institutions all over our country was driven not by greed as much as it was by the personal and professional insecurity of hollow men consumed by the thought that the other guy had a bigger . . . bank. The billion-dollar business of elective cosmetic surgery is predicated on women’s envy of the size of other women’s . . . lips. Where we are most vulnerable and insecure is where envy grows.

So where do we turn to be healed of our own evil eye?

First, get over it. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It’s a scientific fact. In an article published in 1983 titled “‘The Grass is always Greener’: An Ecological Analysis of an Old Aphorism,” James R. Pomerantz showed how optical and perceptual properties of the human eye make a mass of grass at a distance appear greener than grass nearby with its differentiated blades (Perception 12 [1983], 501-502). Of course their grass over there looks greener to you than your grass over here does. It’s an optical and perceptual fact. Don’t torment yourself because your distance from another person’s particulars makes their life look better than it really is up close. Get over it.

Second, no matter how green it is, sooner or later, “the grass withers, the flower fades” (Isaiah 40:8). Perhaps the saddest thing about the endless anguish and self-torment of envy is that it doesn’t even obsess over things that are lasting. There is nothing in the world to envy that does not fail, fall, wither, shrink, or sag sooner or later. Instead of envy, which leads to “disorder and wickedness of every kind,” James 3 says, we set our eyes on “the wisdom from above” that is everything that envy is not: it is “pure . . . 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” instead of tormenting themselves and others with their envy (James 3:17-18). “Wisdom from above” is lasting; the grass, no matter how green, withers.

Third, stop counting. The most popularly prescribed antidote to envy is “Count your many blessings, name them one by one.” But the problem is that antidote assumes the very same thing that envy does: that your contentment and satisfaction are grounded in how much you have instead of in how good God is. Contrast that popular prescription with the discovery of the apostle Paul who says that at the very place of his greatest insecurity and anxiety—he called it “a thorn in the flesh”—he heard God say to him, “My grace is sufficient for you” (1 Corinthians 12:9). “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Envy is an obstacle to grace precisely because it denies the goodness of God that that fills our weakness with God’s strength and replaces our insecurity with God’s love when with the Psalmist our “eyes are ever toward the Lord” (Psalm 25:15) instead of roving about looking at whoever we see as having more or bigger or better than we.

The antithesis and the antidote to envy is not in adding up our blessings but in letting go of our insecurities and anxieties. It’s expressed in one of the most overlooked psalms in the entire Psalter, the quiet and unassuming Psalm 131. It’s overlooked because it runs counter to our cultural obsession with more, bigger, better. Psalm 131 reads, “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.” Satisfied, content, calmed, and quieted. “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high.”

Satisfied, content, calmed, and quieted. Centered, not in how much you have but in how good God is.

Photo by Timo, used under license of Creative Commons.

This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.