“Gluttony”
John 6:35
Matthew 5:6 (The Message): You’re blessed when you work up a good
appetite for God. He’s food and drink in
the best meal you’ll ever eat.”
French Proverb: A
good meal ought to begin with hunger.
Meditative Thought: Eating
brings no ultimate “ah.”
Ancient Zen: Enough
is a feast.
Frederick Buechner: A
glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.
Doris Janzen Longacre: … the fact that in
Stephen Shoemaker: Ours
is a compulsive society. Everything we
do is to excess…
[prayer]
With reference to this morning’s drama, I wish that my compulsions were
limited to tools. I can pass right by
Home Depot without a second thought. If
I find myself in one, I leave as soon as I can.
You will never find me fantasizing about power tools.
No. My thoughts as I’m driving home from the
church office tend to be centered on supper: what will it be, where will it be,
and how much of it will there be. While
I’m pondering those questions, I quite often find myself pulling into the 7-11
parking lot, getting out of the car, going in, and buying some sort of snack of
the sweet and gooey variety. Sensitive
to calories, however, I do wash it down with a Diet Coke.
Food:
that’s what I think I need in order to be fat, happy, and contented. The fat part of this equation is obviously
working. I’m at least fifty pounds
overweight. Am I happy about that? No.
There is no contentment to be found in obesity. If the truth be told, it scares me. In a few months I’ll be the same age my
father was when he died of a heart attack.
That weighs heavily on my mind – no pun intended.
And
yet, just as the guy in today’s drama constantly finds himself in Home Depot, I
constantly find myself in 7-11, McDonalds, Burger King, or Denny’s. In spite of inner promises to order one of
the healthier meals such places offer, I almost always go for the high-fat,
high-carb, high-calorie stuff. I don’t
need any of that anymore than our drama guy needs another screwdriver, but
that’s what I get. And each time I get
it I fantasize about how good it will make me feel. And afterwards, instead of contentment, I
feel overly full of not only calories, but also shame. Coming out of these places there never is
that ultimate “ah” I’m hoping for on my way in.
Yes,
I am surrounded by and part of a compulsive culture, in which excess is the
norm. That’s a good explanation but a
lousy excuse for my overeating. Yes, I
am a pastor, someone who has to make a very public showing of avoiding the
other six deadly sins, while at the same time being constantly encouraged by
well-intentioned people to participate in that corporate ecclesiastical sin we
call gluttony. Again, that’s a good
explanation, maybe even a good rationalization, but it’s still a lousy excuse.
I
indulge in and am addicted to compulsive overeating. Instead of eating to live, I live to
eat. I constantly give in to a powerful
form of lust. I won’t get fired for
satisfying this particular lust. I won’t
get divorced or disinherited. Overeating
is to some extent a socially accepted addiction. Gluttony is to some extent a culturally
condoned sin.
I am
a glutton. Why? While gluttony – compulsive over eating – has
physical ramifications and emotional facets, when it’s stripped down to the
bare bones of what it really is, gluttony is a disease of the spirit. Frederick Buechner’s definition of it is dead
on. When I raid the refrigerator I
really am seeking a cure for spiritual malnutrition. I’m trying to find God at the end of a fork.
Eating
is not a sin in itself. If we don’t eat,
we die. Enjoying good food is not
unchristian. Jesus loved the fellowship
of a good meal. One of the sacraments he
instituted involves eating and drinking with fellow Christians. Table fellowship is part and parcel of
building up and binding together the community of faith. A congregation that doesn’t eat together on a
regular basis can’t really be called a church.
But
for the food addict compulsive overeating is most often akin to what watching
pornography is for the sex addict: a solitary endeavor. There is no fellowship involved, no human
interaction. And definitely no
interaction with God, because that to which we are addicted wants to be our
god.
So it’s
just the addict and the substance or activity to which he or she is
addicted. Some of that has to do with
selfishness, not wanting to share one’s stash.
But most of it has to do with shame.
The addictive behavior is a secret to be zealously guarded lest one gets
caught and is thus exposed to the world as the shameful creature he or she
often thinks him or herself to be.
But
after a while the compulsive overeating makes itself known by way of bigger
waistlines, higher blood pressure, and unhealthy cholesterol levels. And along with all that comes another dose of
shame. Although our society encourages
overeating, it at the same time tells us that to be fat is to be unattractive. Fat kids get teased and bullied at
school. Fat adults are thought to be
lazy and to have no self-control.
Sometimes one’s weight can be an unspoken reason for not getting a job
or promotion. The double- edged message
of our culture is “Hey, eat this. It’s good.
You’ll like it. But don’t get
fat, or we’ll not like you.”
God
did not create us to be overweight or unhealthy. Nor did he create us to be addicts. And he definitely didn’t create us to be
objects of shame and self-loathing. And
the deepest hunger that he created within us is a hunger for an intimate relationship
with him. God wants us to be physically,
emotionally, and spiritually healthy. He
wants us to be happy and contented; not lusting after that which is destructive
to us or constantly coveting that which we don’t really need. He wants us to be in healthy relationships
with him and one another, not living alone in the darkness of our sin.
Often
after a comfort food binge I find myself drawn to the Seventh Chapter of Paul’s
Letter to the Romans. In it I see myself
so clearly described: “I do not understand
my own actions. For I do not do what I
want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do
it. For I do not do the good I want, but
the evil I do not want is what I do… Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of
death? Thanks be to God through Jesus
Christ our Lord.”
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus came to bring us abundant life. Jesus tells us that we are blessed when we
hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Jesus tells us not to be overly anxious about what we will eat or drink,
for life is more than food. He instructs
us to pray each day for our daily bread.
Through the prophet Isaiah God chides us for wasting ourselves and our
resources on that which does not satisfy.
Finally Jesus tells us the he is the Bread of Life.
There is a great big empty place in each of us that
can only be filled by God. We can gorge
ourselves with great amounts of food. We
can numb ourselves with alcohol, drugs, and illicit sex. We can make a ton of money and own millions
of dollars worth of property. We can
entertain ourselves silly with the most expensive toys money can buy. We can possess the power of presidents and
kings. But until we choose to fill
ourselves with the Bread of Life that great big empty hole will just get
bigger, demanding more food, more drugs, more booze, more sex or more whatever. But instead of saving us these things destroy
us.
Only from Jesus can we receive the spiritual sustenance we truly
need. Being reconciled with God and
entering into an intimate relationship with him through Jesus Christ is the
only thing that can satisfy the hunger in our hearts. In Christ enough truly does become a
feast. In Christ we experience that “ah”
for which we so desperately search.
Within the fellowship of Christ and his Church every meal can become a
feast. In Christ we can find true
happiness and contentment. In the light
of Christ’s healing love we can come out of our lonely places of darkness,
secrets, and shame.
The good news for me is that I know God and the people who truly matter
in my life love no matter what my weight.
In my sinful humanity food will always be a weakness for me. In my sinful humanity I will sometimes stop
believing that God will take care of my needs.
In my sinful humanity there is always the possibility that late at night
I will find myself with a gallon of ice cream in one and a spoon in the
other. I may hate myself for it, but God
will still love me.
And as I more and more trust in that love, less and less will I find
myself raiding the refrigerator in search of a cure for spiritual
malnutrition. By the grace of God I can
be set free from my gluttony. Amen.