Source Material - Why Great Men Fall, Wayde Goodall
Seven Deadly Vices, Graham Tomlin
Glittering Vices, Rebecca DeYoung
My current sermon series is about Monsters that Threaten.
I am encouraging us to consider those things that threaten our effectiveness, our peace, and our safety as a follower of Christ. So, I have talked about Fear, Lust, and Greed; an awful group, to be sure.
Before I begin, I want to ask you to hold your judgment until you have heard me out. I also hope you will not practice ‘projected’ listening! By that I mean that you hear the message and project it across the sanctuary to that person ‘who really needs it!’ I’m going to hit some hot buttons again today, not because I enjoy making people upset or uncomfortable, but because the practical teaching of the Scripture gets right down to where we live.
Today’s message will parallel that of last week. My topic is:
Gluttony- the sin of excess
Right at the outset, let me say that this sermon is not about how much you weigh, or the size of your waist!
People who are large in size already carry enough stigmas in our culture without me adding to their burden. Time magazine reported on a study done from 2004 to 2006 by Yale University about discrimination in America. Age and race rank as one and two for discrimination. Surprisingly to me, weight was number 3. The study confrmed that people who are seriously overweight are much less likely to be promoted, are paid less, and are often perceived as less intelligent!
I have no desire to promote stereotypes in this message. Gluttony is a much larger issue than doughnuts or diets, than the fat content of snacks, or the number on a scale. Frederick Buechner, a pastor and writer, succinctly says: “A glutton is one who raids the refrigerator for a cure for spiritual malnutrion.”
Rebecca DeYoung, in Glittering Vices, defines gluttony as “ a focus on pleasure. One’s own pleasure, excessive pleasure, immediate, tangible pleasure.” While the sin of gluttony involves food and drink, it is not so much about amounts as it is about how much pleasure we take from our food. (pause)
Before I go on, I believe it is very important to capture the Bible’s counsel about food and appetite.
The first covenant, given to the Jews, involved dietary laws. Some food was ‘clean,’ that is acceptable to eat, and some was not. But there is no hint in the Old Testament that God had a problem with eating good food! The Jewish religious calendar included numerous feasts, times when the grind of life was to broken with enjoyment of food and the company of others, as God was worshipped!
The Psalmist celebrates the bounty of the earth reminding us that God “makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart." (Psalm 104:14-15, NIV)
The very heart of Christian worship is none other than that which celebrated today, the Lord’s Supper. We have ritualized in such a way as to make the original unrecognizable, but let us not forget that the Early Church called their remembrance of the Lord’s sacrifice, Love Feasts. Indeed, the Corinthian church got so carried away with these that Paul rebuked them for their excess.
So, this sermon should not be heard as a call to a diet of brown rice, coarse bread, and water! In a very real sense, gluttony is just as much in play for the anorexic young girl who starves herself half to death as it is for the person who eats himself to Falstaffian proportions. Both involve misuse of food.
C. S. Lewis offers this penetrating insight into gluttony that has nothing to do with the amount of consumption, but everything to do with idolatry of self-service!
It is found in his delightful satire, The Screwtape Letters.
She is a positive terror to hostesses and servers. She is always turning from what has been offered to her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile: “Oh, please... all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast.” You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognizes as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome that may be to others. ... the real work that the Devil has been doing for years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life. The woman lives in what may be called an “All I Want” state of mind.”
Here’s my aim today in this message. I hope help us to learn about
receiving God’s gifts with thanksgiving,
understanding that the spiritual needs of our lives cannot be satisfied with what we eat, and
refusing to make food a god!
TEXT - Luke 12:16-21
This text is an excellent illustration of the impulse to excess that feeds the sin of gluttony.
READ
Two things signal the lurking sin of gluttony: Self-indulgence, and Self-centeredness!
This man is amazingly selfish. He is full, happy, and unconcerned! Please note: his abundance is not the issue for Jesus. It is his attitude towards it. He sees his abundance only as a means of caring for himself and maximizing his own pleasure.
Do you see the parallels to the way so many live? We in the developed world, especially Americans, need to carefully consider our ways. We are convinced that ‘more is better.’ We consume more (and not just food) has given us myriad social ills for which there are now no simple solutions.
We are a “Wal-martized” nation now, with a delivery system that will provide all the goods we want, at prices that allow us buy what we want, without regard or even understanding for what our habits of consumption are doing to others. Our unconscious gluttony has transformed our markets, changed our Main Streets, and had an effect on labor practices on the far side of the globe.
I am not being political, nor do I claim that there are easy answers for the questions raised by these issues, but I am convinced that using up our resources at current rates is a spiritual concern that Christians need to address thoughtfully.
In addition, God calls us to be a ‘neighbor’ to all. If our demands for much and more causes a farmer in Latin America to starve, then we are obligated to try to do something to change the situation.
Now, I know this: many responses to this are simply silly symbolism.
We stop shopping at one store, only to take up the same basic practice just down the road at retailer B. Much more fundamentally, we need to consider our ways, how we define our sense of worth and self-fulfillment. Too often in America, we feel good about ourselves only if we are buying or eating, if we own what everyone else owns and fit into the social norms that surround us.
What an upside down concept of wholeness. There is no wholeness from the outside in. Wholeness flows from our spirit. Only when we are alive through Christ and reconciled to our Heavenly Father can we hope to find that life which Jesus called “ABUNDANT.”
Paul reminds us about the proper order, about keeping our food and belly in subjection to our mind and the Spirit.
The Corinthians were excessive in many things. They argued that Sex and Food didn’t really matter that much since the body was part of this material world and destined to die. But, Paul told them they were wrong.
(You say,) “Everything is permissible for me”—but (I say) not everything is beneficial.
(You say,) “Everything is permissible for me”—but (I say) I will not be mastered by anything.
(You say) “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but (I say) God will destroy them both.
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also." (1 Corinthians 6:12-14, NIV)
Our habits and sins in the body cannot be neatly compartmentalized from our spiritual health. The Word teaches us that are a unit, that body and spirit are entertwined, that the health or disease of each surely effects the other. If we are slaves to our appetites, our walk with the Lord will not be all He wants it to be. Earlier, I quoted Buechner’s insight.“A glutton is one who raids the refrigerator for a cure for spiritual malnutrion.”
Augustine, the Christian who lived about 400 years after the time of Christ, was a terrible glutton in every way before he committed himself to Christ. From his experience and study of the Word, he offers practical advice on avoiding this sin.
First, he warns us about letting ourselves mistake what gluttony is all about. If we look only to how much or how often we eat, we are wide of the mark. Eating is first about nourishment, second about enjoyment. Today’s nutritionists help us to understand the varying needs of our bodies based on the demands we place on them. With my sedentary lifestyle, I need fewer calories than a laborer who uses the muscles of his body all day long. To create a rigid that would guide both of us, would be wrong! Augustine urges us to look at the why and not simply the what of our consumption.
Second, he tells us to remember that eating is a social act! DeYoung, building on his thought, writes, “If we are willing to ignore justice, generosity, or even etiquette just to get some delicious morsel, we are running afoul of the guidelines. If we are willing to deprive others to gratify our own desires for pleasure, we have a sure symptom of gluttony.” _ Glittering Vices
Third, Augustine reminds us that our true purpose is to serve God’s purpose. We regulate all things in our lives, including satisfaction of our appetites, by submitting them to the purpose of God. Again, DeYoung adds keen insight when she asks- “is our eating a daily discipline ordered to equipping ourselves to live up to the identity that God calls us to wear and to carry out His mission for our lives?”
What then can we who follow Christ do to conquer the sin of gluttony despite living in an age that exalts consumption of all things to excess?
We must learn the discipline of the FAST!
Recognizing the human need to be reminded, the Christian Church long ago established the tradition of preceding the feast with the fast. The feast of Easter is preceded by the fast of Lent. The feast of Christmas is preceded by the fast of Advent. Some of us regard such tradition as empty ritualism or meaningless forms of religiosity. That they may be, but IF we infuse the discipline with the joy of worshipful service to Christ, if we make it genuine, and not merely an attempt to impress others with our devotion, the discipline of fasting can serve real purpose.
When we fast, we reset our palate to appreciate simpler foods with greater thanksgiving. If I have been without food even for a full day, even a bowl of shredded wheat is delicious!
Ever stood in front of a refrigerator packed with food and said, “There’s nothing to eat?”
Truth is, you’re not really hungry! Same principle goes for those who stand at a closet filled with clothes and whine about having nothing to wear. In those moments, both food and clothing have lost their proper order in our lives and been turned into something other than what God designs them to be!
Some misunderstand the discipline of fasting as a means of impressing God by depriving themselves. What a foolish mistake. What on earth would make us think we impress the Lord by not eating Big Macs or beef steak? The purpose of the fast is to heighten our awareness of His presence in this world and to diminish the hold of our appetites on us. Paul, in a very descriptive verse, says, "I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (1 Corinthians 9:27, NIV)
Believer, one of the ways we bear witness that our faith is real, our professed love for God more than words, is by being holy, not a pinched legalistic holiness built on restraint of sin, but a majestic holiness that grows from our passionate love of God. A husband may claim to love his wife and even live faithfully to her yet enjoy no real romance or passion because his marriage is merely duty. Or a husband may continue to love his wife as he did when he was first captivated by her, pursuing her, praising her.
God wants us to pursue Him, to love Him, not from duty or obligation or fear; but because He is good and worthy. Holiness that is majestic and beautiful cannot be contaminated by other loves, even of food or things! So, let’s be aware of any misuse of the blessings of God in a way that would allow them to substitute for Him.
"I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you."
(Psalm 63:2-5, NIV)
Jerry D. Scott, 2009