Seven | From Gluttony to Gratitude
Corey Widmer on Proverbs 13:4 & Luke 4: 1-4
For Meditation
Gluttony could be defined as an excessive appetite for food, drink or pleasure in order to keep God at bay. Whereas Sloth can be seen as a loss of appetite for God and his Kingdom, gluttony can be seen as an intensified appetite for the wrong things, things that do not ultimately satisfy.
Gluttony is also related to our unhealthy relationship to food. Gregory the Great in the 6th Century understood gluttony to have 5 main expressions: eating too soon, eating too much, eating too avidly, eating too richly, and eating too “daintily.” We see all of these unhealthy expressions in our society, but especially in the extreme spectrums of obesity and obsessiveness with health and thinness. We spend more money than any in history on food and fussing about food, but we also spend $50 billion annual on diets (more than the total spending on education, employment and social services). One of the ironies of gluttony is that of all the seven deadly sins, it is one of the only ones that our modern progressive society still universally condemns. But this “sin” in our contemporary culture is condemnable not because of what it does to the soul but because of what it does to the body – it makes us ugly, it stands in the way of our chief virtue, beauty and perfection. “Conversion” stories abound of fat people becoming skinny. Salvation has come! Perhaps obesity even reminds us of death, and our obsession with health is just another way to keep death away.
The ancients condemned gluttony and included it on the list of Seven not because of what it does to the body, but what it does to the soul. We all carry a vacuous God-shaped emptiness inside, and food, alcohol and pleasure are easy ways to temporarily fill the vacuum and keep God at bay. In the words of the Christian based diet program Prism:
“We suffer spiritually when we overeat and binge. Our focus is on food and all that surrounds it. We think of food when we are sad, reward ourselves with food when we are happy, and tranquilize ourselves with food when we are anxious. We have taken the spot in our hearts and lives that rightfully belongs to God and given it over to food. In many cases food has become nothing less than our idol”
In a society in which God is dead, sex and food are some of the easiest ways to get a sense of fulfillment when true transcendence is missing. This often results in depression, meaninglessness, addiction and boredom. Instead, Jesus offers us through his own denial, first in the desert and then later on the cross, to give us true and everlasting fulfillment, to right our twisted relationship to food and drink and pleasure, so these things can become joyful parts of life rather than distorted ones
Learn Together
STUDY GUIDES for this sermon will be available on Sunday afternoon, with audio being added on Tuesday morning, both found by clicking the banner image for the sermon on the homepage. We encourage all small groups to use these resources to foster self-examination in community in addition to privately, and as a way for our whole church to be participating in this season of preparation together
Proverbs 23: 20
“Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.”
Luke 4: 1-4
1Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2where for forty days he was tempteda by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
3The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
In a society in which God is dead, sex and food are some of the easiest ways to get a sense of fulfillment when true transcendence is missing. This often results in depression, meaninglessness, addiction and boredom. Instead, Jesus offers us through his own denial, first in the desert and then later on the cross, to give us true and everlasting fulfillment, to right our twisted relationship to food and drink and pleasure, so these things can become joyful parts of life rather than distorted ones
Video Testimony
Hieronymus Bosch gives us a vivid picture of gluttony on his Table of the Seven Deadly Sins. At the center of the vignette is a man who has set the tone of excess for his household, sitting at a table and gorging himself on a ham, a rib-roast, bread and cheese, while his wife prepares him a chicken and a sausage roasts on fire made, not on the hearth, but on the floor. At his knee, begging for food, is a child with soiled clothes, as he has neglected to use the potty chair at the lower left in his focus on getting more food. The central figure holds a large flagon in his right hand while eating with his left, and is joined in drunkenness by the man at the right of the scene, who guzzles out of a pitcher. His clothing matches the Proverbs' description of drunkards being dressed in rags, as his stocking have a hole at the knee, his shoes are open at the toes, and the hem of his tunic is tattered. The overall picture is one of people so consumed with their desires for more that they have no attention left for anything else--even the most basic points of cleanliness and care.
Join the Conversation
Looking beyond our walls, our sister congregations, Christ Presbyterian and City Church, are joining us in this series on the Seven Deadly Sins, partners with us in repentance and renewal, as well as in sharing the gospel.
Pastors Corey Widmer, Kevin Germer, and Erik Bonkovsky are hosting a collaborative blog where they and readers can contribute additional thoughts and responses to the scriptures and sermons we'll hear during lent. If you'd like to join that conversation, click below.
About the Series
“Seven | Finding Freedom from the Darkness Within” is a Lenten sermon series on Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony and Lust, known for nearly 1500 year as “the Seven Deadly Sins.” A couple of factors make this traditional accounting of sins “deadly.” One is that our society has tended to glamorize these sins and even made them into virtues; another is how unspectacular they are. These are incredibly ordinary, pervasive propensities that are so rooted in our nature that we tend to not even notice them. Or if we do, we may rationalize them, such as calling greed “healthy ambition” or gluttony “a deserved reward.” These sins are the roots of so many other distortions that prevent us from living as the people Jesus died to make us become. In focusing on these sins during the season of Lent, we are inviting Jesus to do some surgery on our souls, asking him—together—what darkness may be hiding in our hearts that we may be ignoring or rationalizing, and opening ourselves up to his transforming love.
For a full description of the series, including week to week schedules, click HERE.