Gluttony

January 2010

I have been writing about the seven deadly thoughts or sins since August of 2009 (See baptistdigest.org for more). So far I have written about pride and humility, envy and contentment, and sloth and seeking God with fervor. These are deadly because they tend to destroy our moral fiber. They deaden our sensitivity to love God and love others. They breed forms of behavior that ought not to be found among us as followers of Christ. These sins are indicators of a character and of core beliefs that are disordered. Today, I want to say a few things about gluttony.

One pastor who preached about the deadly sins some time back, wrote to encourage and thank me for addressing them. May I encourage you to do like wise and play the role of the prophet in your circles of influence about these deadly sins that ruin us and make our witness dead on arrival.

Sin is alienation from God or missing the mark of the high standard of God’s holiness. We are also familiar with sin as bad behavior: “We don’t smoke, we don’t chew, and we don’t go with girls that do”. But does gluttony (our sin du jour) and its sisters get enough coverage in our preaching and teaching? Gluttony is an “acceptable or tolerated sin” by many. When any sin crouches at the door of our heart we compromise our witness to the world.

What does the Bible say about gluttony?

Gluttony is no new sin. The ancient wise people of God knew it and warned against it. In Proverbs 23:20-21 they forbid joining in on those who abuse food and drink. They also knew that gluttony might lead to poverty and drowsiness (a laziness that prevents initiative). Keeping the company of gluttons besmirches the family name.

Paul warns Titus and the church he lead about the teachings of the people of Crete in Titus 1:12. He knew that even one of the Cretans’ own prophets accused them of always lying, being evil brutes, and gluttons.

Jesus is wrongly accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. But he was neither. “Wisdom is proved right by her actions” or as Luke has it “by her children” (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34). Jesus was full of wisdom and truth. Being accused and being guilty is not the same thing. Eating with tax collectors and sinners does not a glutton make. Contrary to popular belief, then, gluttony is not a good thing, even when we euphemize it with words such as these: he’s a big eater, she has a great appetite, or I love chocolate so much.

What then is gluttony? William Stafford (Disordered Loves) describes gluttony as a reversal of creation, the spoiling and corruption of food and all that goes with it. “Gluttony,” he says, “is eating and drinking that excludes God.” It is a spiritual disease that feeds “on our need for food and drink and for the other necessities of bodily life.” Food enjoyed as a gift from God is good. But our love of food can become inordinate or disordered and thus evil. Evil, says C.S. Lewis, is a good that is sought in some disordered or wrong ways. Abusing food to assuage our emotions or spiritual hungers is a dead-in-the- water idea.

Few of us will escape the tentacles of this pervasive deadly sin in our lives. Many of us are crying the 10 extra pound blues in January for the indulgences of November and December. I will spare you the parade of numbers that prove we eat and drink too much while others go to bed hungry since we all know them too well. We all know that as a society we gorge ourselves sumptuously while others get crumbs from our tables to fill their shrunken stomachs and bulging abdomens. But just because we can do something for crumbs gleaners does not mean we automatically cease to be gluttonous.

My deepest concern here is that gluttony is a strong contributor to our natural rebellion against God. Our inordinate love of food can easily become an idol and an idol is a false way to get closer to God. We take a God-given mixture of air, sun, water, wheat, flour, yeast, and heat and manufacture bread that we then abuse in gluttony.

Gluttony is a way of fabricating a personal identity based on food. You have heard, no doubt, the old adage: “we are what we eat”. There is truth here. Our children grow up with comfort foods because food shapes their social identity. How and what we eat are tied intricately with who we are. No doubt the amount of food we consume affects the way we look, and feel, and think, and relate. There is also a spiritual aspect to our eating as is evident from the talk of eating at the temple in the Old and New Testaments. Eating forms our identities in ways that are not completely understood yet. Are you a fan of Emeril et al?

For this reason gluttony, says Stafford, “is part of the old conspiracy to fabricate one’s own identity by eating and drinking, to create and sustain oneself by turning the miracle of food and drink into self-creation and self-service, excluding God.” This is sin and it leads to death in every way (physical and spiritual).

Those who walk with the Master refuse to succumb to any sin that moves us away from God. Rather, we want to do all we can to overcome our sin, gluttony included. Next article will deal with overcoming gluttony.

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