The Seven Deadly Sins - Gluttony

Back in January when we started this series on the seven deadly sins, I think both you and I wondered if we’d manage to last two months on this subject without losing the will to live! But your feedback’s been very positive and it’s  almost with a sense of sadness that we arrive at the last of the seven sins, this morning; the sin of gluttony.

And as I began thinking about gluttony, it occurred to me that almost all of the sins we’ve been looking at are about us trying to fill a fundamental emptiness inside us.

We’re hungry for love, for meaning, for affirmation, for assurance, and at the most fundamental level, we’re meant to find those things in our relationship with God. But if we sideline God, we still feel the hunger; and without even thinking about it, we’ll end up looking around for something to fill our emptiness.

We’ll kid ourselves that accumulating lots of things will give us a full life. That’s greed. We’ll convince ourselves that if we only had what someone else has, we’d be satisfied. That’s envy.

We’ll try to mask our spiritual hunger by distracting ourselves or just checking out of life- that’s sloth. We might lash out in anger at the perceived injustice of life, or seek a quick sexual fix through lust.

Or, worst of all, we might find ourselves saying ‘You know what? I’m not hungry at all. I have all I need. I am all I need’. That’s pride.

It’s the desire to fill the emptiness within us in wrong ways that’s the root of all sin, and so the Desert Fathers’ consistent advice on this is ‘watch your thoughts’ – every sin starts in the mind. So when you sense some negative movement within yourself it helps to ask - What am I thinking just now? Where is that thought coming from? Where is it taking me? Is it helpful? Is it true? Noticing your thoughts is the first step towards understanding them and dealing with them, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

And in some ways, gluttony is the easiest sin to do that with. Watching your conscious and subconscious relationship with food is very revealing. It tells you a lot, not just about your stomach, but about the condition of your heart.

Food, like sex, is a good gift of God. Something to be enjoyed, and savoured and celebrated; but in the right way.

The writer and preacher Meredith Dancause argues that food is almost a fully-fledged character in the Bible. It’s there from that shiny red apple in Genesis all the way to the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation, and everywhere else inbetween. 

God uses food to bring people together as families and friends gather round a table, or as communities come together for ritual meals like Passover, or the Lord’s Supper. As we eat together we literally become companions because that word comes from the Latin meaning to eat bread with someone. As we eat together, our bodies are nourished, but also our souls as we give each other the gift of our time and attention and remember to be thankful for all that we’ve been given. Body and soul go together, as we’ve seen time and time again throughout this series.

So food is a wonderful gift to us; But as we said last week, the devil’s power lies in taking something that’s good and twisting it for his own ends.

And I hate to say it, but he’s done a hell of a good job when it comes to food.

We live in a world where a billion people are dying from starvation while another billion are dying from obesity related illnesses. You really couldn’t make it up if you tried.

In the developed world, we have more choice and access to food than ever before, but we’re told simultaneously that we have to be slim and attractive if we’re going to be worth anything. Watch the beer commercials and the junk food ads and, rather ironically, you’ll struggle to find anyone who looks even remotely overweight.

So it’s no wonder, with all the mixed messages society’s giving us, and our human hunger to be loved and valued, that food becomes the battleground where many of these wars are played out.

Some folk eat to numb their pain. Fred Buechner says that ‘a glutton is one who raids the fridge for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.’

But sadly, the opposite is also true. Through anorexia, many young women these days are starving themselves for the same reason.

And do you see what it all comes back to? A poor self image. A false belief that eating, or not eating, is going to make things right.

But as a famished Jesus said to the devil when he tempted him to break his fast and turn stones into bread -“Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Bread is good, and we need it. But bread is not enough to mend us. Only God can do that.

Jesus’ opening gambit to the disciples in this morning’s reading is ‘Do not worry. Do not worry about food.’

And I’d argue that behind the sin of gluttony, almost always, is anxiety and worry that’s being worked out through our attitudes to food. And because of that, gluttony’s a much more complex and nuanced thing than the caricature of the grossly overweight person who’s always stuffing themselves with food.

Way back in the 13^th century, the great theologian Thomas Aquinas teased this out for us and argued that gluttony can take several different forms: it can mean eating too daintily, too sumptuously, too hastily, too greedily, or too much.

What he’s telling us is that how you eat reveals quite a lot of what’s going on in your heart and mind.

So let’s start with eating too daintily. Which is not about sticking your little finger out when you lift your china cup from its saucer. What Aquinas means by that is eating with a degree of fussy control. When things have to be just so, or we’re not pleased.

CS Lewis writes about that kind of person in the Screwtape Letters – he describes an old woman who’s become a slave not to the gluttony of excess, but the gluttony of delicacy. “She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile "Oh, please, please ... all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast."

But of course, she’s so exacting, no-one can ever prepare tea and toast just the way she likes it, and when they can’t, servants are fired and friendships start to cool.

This kind of gluttony is all about control. Life is full of things that we can’t do much about, and some folk cope with the anxiety that brings by being overcontrolling in other areas, such as what they eat and drink. And they’re often difficult people to be around because they tend to be exacting and impatient.

The truth that speaks into that from this morning’s reading is that we need to give up our illusions of control. We can’t micromanage life, and if we try to we’ll drive ourselves and others to distraction. “Don’t worry” says Jesus. These things aren’t as important as you feel they are. You’re never going to be able to control everything. You can’t add an hour to your life or an inch to your height; so what you need to learn to do is trust. Trust that God is in control, and that his plans for you are good. The sooner you reconcile yourself to that truth, the better.

So the first aspect of gluttony is eating too daintily. And the second is eating too sumptuously

When Ross and Mairi were little we taught them a few bits of sign language before they could talk very much, and one of the signs was ‘more’. And I remember us going into a fabulous cheese shop at the bottom of our road in Glasgow,  and there were always samples to try. Popped a wee cube into his mouth…..  MORE MORE!

It’s also a joke in our house that Mairi’s first full sentence was these three words – ‘need more cake’!

Some food is routine and everyday, some – for reasons of health and possibly budget - is best kept for special occasions!

But if you’re finding yourself reaching for the cake or the chocolate or the wine or the whiskey too often, you need to pause and ask yourself what’s going on in your life.

When treats become a need, that should give us pause for thought. When treats become needs, we’re trying to feed a hunger that’s in our souls, not our bodies.

If we feel under appreciated, or taken advantage of, or unloved, or anxious, we feel like we need some kind of compensation; some kind of treat to give us a boost. So we reward ourselves, because no-one else is going to do it for us.

And so we get caught in a vicious cycle of low self-esteem and patterns of eating and drinking that end up lowering our self esteem even further.

But all the while, there’s another quiet voice trying to tell us about our worth – the voice of God. You are my beloved child, he says. Look at the birds. Says Jesus. They don’t sow or gather, and yet God feeds them. And you are worth so much more than birds.

You’re already valuable in God’s sight. If you’re having to prop up your ego with food, you need to hear that truth and take it to heart.

Gluttony is can be eating too daintily, too sumptuously. And too hastily. Universal symbol for that is the McDonald's arches!

Is it just coincidence that the countries with the highest rates of obesity tend to be those with the greatest access to fast foods?

But apart from the nutritional value of the food, what does it say about our lives that we don’t have time to prepare meals and sit down together and eat our food around a table?

If life’s so busy that that has to go, maybe that’s a sign that life is too busy. That priorities have to be re-negotiated. It’s just too easy these days to be living a full but unfulfilled life. 

Human eating is more than mere biochemistry. It should be profoundly social. It’s part of the glue that keeps families together and talking.

When we’re in perpetual motion, we’re in danger of missing out on the best parts of life. As Jesus says, none of us can live any longer by worrying about it. So why not slow down and enjoy the journey a little more instead. I know that’s hard to practice in daily life, but when you can, try and take time over your meals. Prepare real food; switch off the telly; sit round a table; make it an occasion. Think French cuisine rather than the Golden Arches!

We can eat too daintly, too sumptuously, too hastily and too greedily.

You’ll know the story about the two kids who were offered the last two slices of cake, and one was much bigger than the other.

Benny got in first and took the big slice and Mikey was outraged. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing? If I’d gone first I’d have been polite and taken the small slice.”

“I know” said Benny – I was just saving you the trouble!

Do you see the dynamics there? I’ll get in there first and make sure I’ve got more than enough; then there’s no danger of me missing out. I want to make sure I get my share. Maybe even more than my share.

Greed is really about security; it’s about me making sure that I’m not going to experience any discomfort or inconvenience. It’s the mindset that says as long as I’m ok, then everything’s fine.

But listen to what Jesus says to that – he says don’t set your heart on what you eat and drink and what you choose to wear. The anxious pagan world runs after those things, but you don’t have to. Your security is in God. He knows you need food and clothing, but don’t make them your first priority. Put his Kingdom first, and you’ll get everything you need; though maybe not everything you want. Don’t be greedy.

And then lastly, don’t eat too much.

When we start eating too much it’s a sure sign that we ourselves are being consumed by something. Could be regret, loneliness, sadness, boredom. Somewhere within us there’s an aching spiritual hunger that food just can’t touch, no matter how much we eat.

We need to learn to name that hunger and own it. And we need to bring it to God, because we won’t find the answers we need in the fridge or the cupboard.

Seek first the Kingdom, Jesus says – because the Kingdom is the place of joyful union and submission to God and it’s where you’ll begin to taste the wholeness, restoration and integrity you long for. That’s his promise to us.

So what did the desert Fathers have to say about gluttony? Well, along with lust, they considered it to be at the less serious end of the spectrum, and their advice about it was really practical.

Notice your thoughts. What’s going on in your mind as you reach for that food or that drink? Are you really physically hungry, or is it some other kind of hunger that you’re trying to feed?

Don’t eat too much or too little, they said. And make sure you eat at designated times – not before or after meals.

Enjoy seasons of feasting and celebration when they’re in order – giving thanks for God’s abundance. But balance that with seasons of fasting. Allow yourself to taste a little emptiness now and again to remind yourself of your dependence on God.

Warren Weirsbe puts it this way “Whenever people come to the table they demonstrate with the unmistakeable evidence of their stomachs that they are not self-subsisting Gods. They are mortal and finite creatures dependent on God’s many good gifts. Sunlight, photosynthesis, decomposition, soil fertility, water, bees and butterflies, chicken, sheep, cows, gardeners, farmers, cooks, strangers and friends. Eating reminds us that we participate in a grace saturated world.”

Indeed we do. And in this grace saturated world,

You don’t have to be in control. God is in control.

You don’t have to prove your value or worth – you’re already a person of worth because God made you.

You don’t have to rush through life. There is time to stop and savour and enjoy.

You will have enough. God knows what you need. The kingdom is not a place of scarcity.

And your emptiness can be filled.

Not by food, or sex. Not by vengeful plans or envious thoughts. Not by amassing possessions, or by mindless distractions. And not even by your own faltering ego.

Your emptiness was meant to be filled by the one who said  “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”

So as we end this series this morning, may you taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who put their trust in him.