Lust & Gluttony & the 7 Deadly Sins | Vices & Virtues

All right friends welcome.
Thank you for being here tonight.
Thanks for the folks who brought food
Can we give them a round of thanks, please?
And I someone did bring the sign up there,
so I think there are opportunities for the next couple weeks
We
appreciate that very much
we
Michael and I this week a
Lot of conversation about why we thought this was a good idea both
Kind of in general and then putting two
two
Relatively different difficult conversations on the same evening though in fairness when you talk about something called seven deadly sins
None of those conversations are going to be easy
We start tonight of the two we have lust and gluttony
We begin with lust in and in I think some ways lust is the most obvious of the deadly sins
You know some of these even with gluttony will talk about gluttony not being just about food pride of course is
multifaceted greed we talked about the various ways lust is what you think it is lust is an obsession with
physical
pleasure physical sensation particularly sexual
Lust has always been a
significant temptation and a significant
importance a significant caution in the Christian life
Sometimes we’ve gone too far there have been branches in the Christian family that have essentially said we should never have any
physical enjoyment and sex is only for making kids and
You know that’s on the far end on the other end
We’ve kind of said well everybody do whatever you want and don’t hurt anyone and as always I think Christian
Wisdom has been found trying to maintain that middle ground very interestingly
Michael and I talked about this
significantly
historically
It is surprising to us
That lust was considered one of the
How would you say it Michael I don’t want to say less dangerous
It was considered a kind of lesser sin it was considered a physical sin and therefore less destructive
than a spiritual sin and
It I think surprises us in the era.
We live in with sex being such a
Damaging force in church life and in personal life at times that
our ancestors in the faith
Kind of said yeah,
it’s a sin, but
We have become maybe more wrapped up in the topic than the ancients which
Which is interesting?
Yeah, so at the outset of a conversation like this
I think we do need to do a little bit of work to make sure that we are making
Constructive paths forward instead of sort of just slotting into some cultural conversation
And what I mean by that is both
lust and gluttony from a Christian vantage are
Generally going to be different than sort of the public
Conversations or the idea that surrounds it as it pertains specifically to lust we have to
chart a path that doesn’t include some of the kind of
moralized Ideas about what you should and shouldn’t do what what is a line that is crossing into lust and what isn’t
It’s not to say the early church didn’t care about
Crossing lines clearly the the adultery is one of ten commandments,
right?
So identifying that was important
But what they had in mind was that there were some sins that were connected to what you might call your physical nature
Things connected both of these share this our conversations tonight
Both of them are rooted in something that as human is innate in our in our being so either
Reproduction which is what we’re talking about now or or food consumption of what we need to survive both of these are then
misordered
Representations of a thing that is built in to our identity and as it applies to lust what the church had to say was
That there are some sins like pride
That our fundamental
Reorientation of our entire spirit such that if we allow ourselves
To go down that road that we become unto ourselves our own
Gods and for them we wouldn’t say that that it was a more important sin that wouldn’t be the correct language
but I do think that they might call that a more dangerous sin and
Fundamentally as they spoke about lust what they spoke about was
the misorderedness of when a human
Desire which in another context would be right and good
Can be both to others and to ourselves?
destructive and it has in mind,
you know certainly our
physical inclination our own
sexual temptation, but you know, we also have this idea of
We would say that a person has a lust for power or a lust for money
There is a sense in which lust could be talked about as being an extreme
Misusing of any particularly good thing,
but historically the church has considered that to be part of our physical nature and our sexual temptation
Yeah, so one of the authors said lust is the least creative of the sins
It simply takes what God has called good in the context of relationship and reduces it to selfishness
So that that lust is self seeking pleasure as opposed to mutual pleasure as opposed to mutual attraction
Lust is a kind of lonely sin and if you talk to people who have struggled with it
This is the language you you’ll hear that they felt
Isolated they felt empty they felt ashamed
they felt alone in the aftermath of
Acting upon lust there is this kind of emptiness that people experience and the ancients said
that’s what happens when you take one of the gifts that is meant for relationship and
connection with Within the covenant context of love and you abuse it
selfishly and In that way, I think you know another author said lust is the the wrong answer to the right question
And that question being what do I want?
What do I seek?
What do I need?
Your you know that but then you pursue that selfishly you pursue that
Casually you pursue that easily and that has a cost
Associated with it and and I think that that is that’s a helpful
That’s a helpful framework.
The word lust in Greek is a combination of two words inside
and mind and There’s a one of the authors says and she she says this really well
Lust is almost always a problem above the belt before it’s a problem below the belt
Meaning lust does begin in our impulses.
It begins in our our
Lingering glances it begins in
mental
rehearsing before it becomes
physical sin and in that I think love is or us,
excuse me, lust is
deceptive and dangerous
Because and again, if you talk to people who have struggled with lust it plants
patterns it plants
libraries it leaves things behind that then become part of the struggle and I don’t think
In any era this has always been the case
But I don’t think in any era would that have been more true than in the internet era where?
with
Your phone with your computer with with anything you have access
To whatever that impulse directs you to it is all out there now
it’s always been all out there,
but it’s never been as accessible and the
Statistics aren’t good I mean if you look at the numbers that of
Dollars that pornography generates if you look at the usage rates and probably most
condemning for the church is that the rates between
People who call themselves Christian and people who don’t are really not different
Christians
Consume pornography and sexual material at about the same rate as non Christians now
We may feel worse about it
but it doesn’t really change the behavior and
you know that that’s where we’ll come back to this conversation, but I
Think I have developed a little different spin on our ancestors
Understanding of lust and that’s we’ve had a lot of conversations this week about that
But the the fundamental problem with lust is that it is it is selfish.
It is self-gratifying by definition
So the authors that I’ve read for this week.
I think tried to walk a very fine line.
This is a difficult conversation because
There are two very active camps as it relates to lust on one hand
You have a church that I’m sure this won’t surprise you especially in America
Has very vocally spoken about what you should and shouldn’t do
There’s a lot of shame attached to the idea of sex and sexuality.
And so there is a
Substantial kind of reputation that the church has of being
Prudes of having no interest in sex or sexual life
Essentially, no fun is one image.
That’s one camp and the other side is Yeah
Laws nobody gets hurt,
right?
That’s the basic idea and then everything moves on from there
There’s a whole section even in Christianity certainly culturally that has no sort of impact that there should be any
restraint of personal expression in any way
So the authors try to walk that line
They try to talk about creation try to talk about how God made bodies how in the midst of God making bodies God declares
The body to be good and how we need to start from the vantage that God has blessed this thing that God has ordered that in
fact God throughout scripture has a lot to say about blessing the
Human’s ability to continue on from one generation to the next.
So so intrinsically there’s good in it
But then they flip that around to say
But fundamentally anytime we have a natural order that is not
Bent towards God and becomes destructive
We see it become a sinful force that needs to be repudiated
it needs to have boundaries and checks and balances like every other area area of our life and
Then they would try to generally transition into so what do we do about the fact that we live in a society?
That has no boundary right?
The only boundary is
one’s personal comfort and
And and that’s a very thorny
Conversation because in the church we can’t conceive of talking about sin
We can’t conceive of talking about right relationship without first looking at Jesus Christ
And then second putting that in conversation within the church family writ large and and generally
That’s where the author would turn at the end is that we we never as people of faith
Will following God’s way without that in some way being
Communal some way being honest about our shortcomings with one another of all of the sins lust is certainly one of the most tempting
to keep isolated There’s certainly that image of the screen and a dark room is very poignant as it relates to loss
But then you also have the reality that we will not grow
As people of faith and we won’t be challenged to live up to the very highest calling that we have to beat to it
Body Christ if we don’t do that in the midst of Christian fellowship because you know
The one the dangers of lust don’t want to push too long here
One of the dangers of lust is that you objectify the other for the sake of self gratification
lust is in some ways a very specific version of pride because
Fundamentally what it suggests is that if I act on my lust I should be able to gratify my physical desire at my time
At my desire and in my own way and so it’s a reflection of a self-turn
The only way to correct for that of course besides forgiveness from Jesus Christ is ultimately a community of saints who reminds us
It’s not about us.
It’s about other people particularly if you’re married that person you’ve committed to
But it’s also a matter of reflecting that that it’s not about
Instant gratification of self.
It’s about selflessness for the service of other
Yeah,
lust is a perversion of love
again, lust takes a good thing and
Harnesses it to serve myself and that therein lies its sinfulness, you know
Again some have said CS Lewis said the sins of the flesh are bad,
but they’re the least bad of all the sins
I Wonder if CS Lewis would have made that comment had he lived in our era.
I’m not sure
It’s one of the things we’ve been having a conversation about
You may get a kick out of st.
Augustine early in his conversion early in his life once prayed
Please Oh Lord deliver me from lust but not yet
The
The repetitive nature of lust lust is a treadmill
Lust is also a reaction is often a reaction to
boredom to Restlessness and again, I think in the in the era we live that one of the dangers of sort of
sinful sexuality is its
Repetitiveness its addictiveness it becomes
a way of life for people and when it does it it then inevitably
Damages relationships Frederick Beekner had a wonderful quote.
He said our sexuality is like
Nitroglycerin it can heal hearts or it can blow up bridges that such is the power of
Those that gift we’ve been given but when it’s misused it is equally as destructive
And I think you know,
that’s very interesting and I think you know
We I think we all get I mean,
you don’t have to watch television very long.
We live in a sexualized
Culture oddly enough though.
We don’t talk about it.
We just display it
Everywhere we show it we see it.
It’s not really conversation.
We don’t have healthy conversations about sexuality
We just we use it to sell things we put it in movies
We you know, it is everywhere and nowhere at the same time,
which I think puts us in an interesting place as
21st century Christians
The temperance the
The trip the alternative or the antidote
historically for lust is
Chastity and you know you talk about a word
It doesn’t get any traction
Chastity people don’t even know what it means.
In fact, I noticed last time I preached this
I had recently been in conversation with my brother,
which is not uncommon
My my brother and you may know this is a fire department chaplain in Kenosha where he lives been doing that a long time
Last time we had this conversation.
I told the story he had recently told me it was again during Lent
And he had had a conversation with a guy in the firehouse and Lance asked him
How is it going?
And the guy said I chaplain I’m really struggling and he said yeah,
what’s going on?
He said well, I gave up sex for Lent
and It’s killing me.
I’m
Struggling and I said,
whoa.
Well, how’s his wife feel about it?
My brother laughed and said,
oh he’s not married
Right, so here’s a guy talking to his equivalent pastor
about his struggles
Completely oblivious to the fact that
What he’s complaining about is our standard Right,
I mean,
it’s just it’s very interesting the world we live in a Michael and I
The vast majority of marriages we do are people living together which you know is not a
Criticism it but it it is the it’s the landscape we live in it is
it is this kind of
Omnipresent reality and so a word like chastity feels like a very outdated a
Very old ancient trite kind of word,
but but chastity means
discipline it means
faithfulness chastity
You know is is not about the elimination of desire
chastity is about the discipline to control it and
That kind of self-control.
In fact, maybe that’s what we should replace that word with the idea of self-control of
Simply and I know I don’t want to make this sound like it’s easy because it’s not but of simply not doing some of those
things and and getting new patterns of
Setting new standards in our lives of saying I don’t think that’s in keeping
With following Jesus and finding a way getting some help talking to people getting accountability to try and
Change our behaviors and I think you know there there’s a lot to gain in that word for a lot of people
But it’s not a word that we it’s not a word that we celebrate
You glad you came for soup now?
Yeah, you know the truth is that we
We may become
Uncomfortable in the midst of a conversation like this and miss what I think is the current that lives underneath and here
I I think Wilhelmin says this really well
He says I wonder if in our culture
There’s so much sexual passion and so little desire for God
Because sex has become the last means of self transcendence.
I Think we live in a time
Goodness gracious.
I get a lot of things.
I order online in one day now
Like to wait two days is too long, right?
We live in a moment in which entire
Applications for phones have been developed to shorten the period of time from having a sexual desire to being able to act on it
the reality is that because we live in this pattern of
Sensing a need or maybe even not a need maybe maybe like Clint says maybe bore them
Maybe simply the flat lining of I’m not having a great time right now is enough to stir our souls and
To move us to want to feel something transcendent something beyond ourself
It would be the same logic used for for any other addictive substance
whether that be gambling or whether that be drugs,
but we we have an
Internal physical thing that we can turn to that in a moment in a fleeting
half-hearted moment feels
Transcendent and of course we know on the back end of any experience that if it doesn’t last it’s short
Turn it does not have the power to truly shape and change us
But yet as we continue to search and find new ways to hook into this physical need as people literally market it
And by the way,
but let’s not let’s not pass pie too quickly
Entire economies have been created around this and I don’t just mean
Economic ones.
I mean people right people are literally traded for the sake of lost and
if we don’t recognize the ways in which these habits of
Stirring within us and then an action that we take a
Half-hearted and but not by half-hearted.
I don’t mean half intended.
I mean an
action that could never at
One ourself an action that could never be enough to stick
We we allow that narrative to trick us until over and over and over again.
We get caught and find ourselves far away
Nowhere along that path having intended to to let that ship go out to sea but we find ourselves one day
That action and that pattern has moved us and lust has grown from just a thought
To a pattern of action and when that happens
We of course won’t find the transcendence we’re looking for
But I think it does make the voice of the church very compelling
Where we say that fundamentally you will never find fullness in a thing that you do
You will only find fullness in the gift that’s been given and that gives us the beginning of a conversation
That I think is very countercultural and and in some ways
Maybe gives us an opportunity to push back on some of the things are taken for granted culturally
So
To some extent this would be true of any of our struggling with sin,
but there’s a kind of a I don’t know a kind of a fun story that one of the authors tells there’s a revival and
There’s a man in town who’s pretty well known that he runs around a lot got a pretty loose set of morals
and he goes to the revival and he finds himself up front and he gets saved says the prayer gets really excited and
The pastor sees this the community pastor.
He runs into the guy a week or so later How’s it going?
He says pastor
This is so hard.
He said I I’m trying to do the right thing trying to leave my old life behind
so I feel like there’s two teams of horses going two different directions and it’s pulling me apart and
the pastor says well
Which which team of horses wins and he says well so far whichever one I tell giddy up
Right and and and again if you’ve if you’ve lived if you’ve lived
through those struggles the wisdom of that story is
The the beautiful simple truth of it that there is a point in which
Discipline is to say no
It’s to say to this horse giddy up and not that one it is to say yes here and no here and
Again, I don’t mean to throw that out there like it’s easy.
I’m not a
Just say no guy.
I don’t think that’s a helpful way to talk about
temptation
but there is
There is some truth
To the reality that we do need to set new patterns because if we follow
The sinful pattern if we follow lust lust will take us further down that road
It doesn’t leave us where we are sin is not content to let us stay a certain way
It is an anchor that continues to drag us and I think that
While that’s true in all of the sins
I do think that is particularly relevant as we have this conversation and I do think again that word chastity
Maybe especially reframed as self-discipline is a challenge for us to be able to try and do that.
So Let’s stop there for a minute comments questions
I’m Can I say this?
You know, you guys promise you won’t be mad
You ever get that from your kid.
Can I tell you something?
But I don’t want you to be mad
Can I have immunity?
I?
Think it was I think it was Willeman who said that he noticed that the older he got the less
lust was a problem and
I I’ve just sort of Laughed about that and the idea that we’re having this conversation on lust and most of you all are retired and I
Don’t know how relevant it is or isn’t but I do think you know
The ancients put it out there for us and so we’ll talk about it
So so I’ll give we’ll let Willeman maybe have the word on that yeah,
he said this and I think that this for me communicates
The the universal import of this particular even a difficult conversation says in a world of un
tutored unbridled desire We tend to grab at everything out of the fear that we might neglect to seize the one thing that would give our lives meaning
thus the lines between greed and the and lust become blurred and
I think that that is a very helpful
Way into this conversation is to say that that yes,
the church does have a long conversation about
The right use of our bodies
But the thing that fundamentally gnaws at us is the fear of being left out
I mean kids these days have a term for it right FOMO
Fear of missing out that there’s like t-shirts and water bottles with that on it
The human fear that we might miss out on that experience
Or that we might miss out on that opportunity
Can be so great that it it enables to go back to our previous conversations
The way that these sins work in on one another so that maybe lust isn’t the foothold
Maybe that’s not the first seed that gets planted
but as we discover that that fear grows and as our own sense of
Pride and as greed sets in and then and then we begin to become envious of another as those kinds of things grow and
Flourish into this strange kind of destructive cocktail
That is maybe when we begin to experience the real sort of force and power of that rhythm of lust
I I’m not sure that
It’s fair to put lust in its own tunnel to say that it’s its own thing
And and it’s either problem or it’s not I think it
Also lives in a relationship with these other things and one can easily flow to the other if not left checked
Yeah, I mean I I think we should acknowledge that
While we may feel some of the discomfort and and we laugh at some of the stories and the quotes and things
Every person in here
Knows someone whose lives were deeply affected
by a moment of lust whether that be adultery or whether that be a
Sexual assault a rate.
I mean those they are some of the most destructive.
I promise everyone in here
Knows of a church where a pastor got himself or herself in trouble,
right teachers We we all we have all seen it
We all know that it’s there and and we shouldn’t minimize this is this is one of the pushbacks
I’d I’d like to have conversation with about the monks who say well,
you know, it’s the least harmful of this
I’m not I think it leaves some very very deep wounds and I think we do have to acknowledge that as well
Okay, we will we’ll move on we’ll try to do this timely
Our second topic tonight is gluttony.
This is really interesting
In fact of the seven sins,
I would say that this is the one that I’m sort of dreading the most all of the authors
kind of point out that
Ironically in a culture that celebrates most of the seven deadly sins we’ve talked about that
You know greed is good and pride is good and lust is great
our culture the one bias our culture seems to have is
Gluttony and not not gluttony per se but the idea of overweight if there is a group of people that are kind of
looked at
suspiciously culturally
It’s not those who have done lust or greed or pride
It is those who may be heavy and we just want to put that out there that that is not a judgment on anybody
But it is a bias
I think all of the books are making the interesting case that this is really the only sin that our culture sort of
acknowledges as a sin
But it does so in a very pointed and and almost a destructive way a shame
Inducing way not an empowering way not a not an encouraging way,
but a judgmental way
a couple of things as we start the the first sin if you read Michael mentioned Genesis if you read the
Early part of Genesis our first sin was an eating sin, right?
humans fall happened through food
The
Ancient Israelites we think it’s odd
But the Jewish people still practice it the idea of clean and unclean food of what God says you can eat
And what God says you shouldn’t eat in the New Testament Paul deals with food sacrifice to idols
There’s Christians who at their meat market get food that was used in temples.
That was they didn’t have
Trucking lines in grocery stores the animals went to temple and then they came to the market
And so the Christians asked Paul can we eat that if that lamb has been in somebody’s temple
To some pagan God is it okay for is it tainted?
Is it okay for us to eat it?
I tell you that to say that really we have no equivalent to that
that the the average modern person I
Would guess that the only thing you’ve ever asked of your food is should I eat it in regard to health or weight?
we do not we simply do not carry the idea that food has a moral component to it and
gluttony asks us at some level to
reconsider that and I think it’s this is a difficult conversation for us for a couple reasons most of us maybe
Our weight isn’t what we want,
but this isn’t a weight conversation
this is about how food gets used as a as a salve or as a
Kind of in the same way of lust a way of trying to address
inner turmoil it’s a matter of our attentiveness and our desire
Towards a thing so gluttony is a sin of the flesh
But but I think it’s a struggle for us to wrap our heads around it.
Yeah, I think that’s very helpful
listen
Dr.
Phil’s a thing I mean right and all of the people who come on TV and promise weight-loss products
I think I just saw an advertisement for a thing that like
Was going to make you lose
30 pounds in a day and you know there was you know like that we live in a culture in which you don’t even need to
Hardly turn on the TV or the radio to find some
reminder that you need to
care about food and by the way that’s
With the fact that most of us driving home from work or from being with our friends
We have to pass eight restaurants on the way right and
that realistically
We as people of faith have this interesting balance because if you think of the scriptures
There is both fasting and feasting
Right Jesus goes to the wedding and there he celebrates and it’s this beautiful thing of course at the last supper
It’s a meal that Jesus uses to exemplify this lasting gift.
He’s going to give the church
And then on the other hand
When is Jesus most tempted before he?
Begins his ministry well by fasting in the wilderness.
That’s when Satan comes after him to tempt him
We might think of this and we might be tempted to go down the road to make this fit a cultural conversation
and that is the
The concern about what will this food do to my body or what would other people think if I eat it
I mean that this is just prescient and part of our our
Framework that I would argue is not particularly helpful from a Christian vantage
And I think one of our authors here.
I thought offer the really helpful frame.
I want to offer it to you
They offer this this sort of acronym called fresh
And and they said if you work this out that this is a fuller definition of gluttony that fresh would be eating
Fastidiously we’ll talk about that in a second ravenously
Excessively
sumptuously and hastily and and every single one of these describing
an orientation or a use of food that is not for the sake of nourishing our bodies or it’s not for the sake of even
Just the enjoyment of the meal but rather filling some other either perceived or unperceived
Whole in our hearts and so an example that every author gave I thought was really helpful
C.
S.
Lewis wrote in his one of his books a woman who?
I believe this was screwtape letters who was tempted by Satan with the sin of gluttony
But it wasn’t the sin of eating a lot of food that which is what we might think but rather
She would go to people’s hosts who were hosting her and say I only want a little bit of tea
and and just a slice of toast with just a little bit of butter and
C.
S.
Lewis makes the case that this woman is
Struggling with the sin of gluttony not because she’s eating a lot,
but because she’s using food to point to herself
She’s unwilling to take the food hosted and given to everyone else and requires the host
To give her something special just for her
So food then on its own became a tool to self and and this being there for an example of how gluttony can be more
Than just what we think of in terms of I did I eat too much or that was the food not healthy this idea of
ways and times and tools that we use to take food to fill a hole or
To point in a direction that is not helpful.
That’s not holy Yeah, so again, we want to be careful that gluttony isn’t just overindulgence though that historically is it’s an over fixation and so
In my younger life,
I was a wrestler in that period of wrestling,
you know You cut the weight you make your weight so the day or two before you have to weigh in you’re not eating very much and I
Lived for food in those three four-day windows where it was time to get rid of the last however many pounds
Right.
You just think oh if I go for a four-mile run, I
Can have an apple right and then?
And then if I do a hundred push-ups,
I’ll let myself get some water or I’ll you know
I’ll eat a carrot,
but then I have to do and so it was an absolute
Fixation and and it was gluttonous because it consumed
My thoughts now.
I wasn’t getting bigger
if anything the opposite right, but
That that’s it is it is not just overdoing it is
overthinking and We live in a weird culture.
I don’t it is very hard to communicate
How historically odd we are as
21st century Americans when it comes to food Right.
We have an industry
That is trying to take calories out of what we eat
We have an industry giving us things to eat that have no nutritional value
So we can eat them without really eating
We have a billion
multi-billion dollar industry that is promoting how to lose weight we gain from
overeating and
Most ironic I think in the history of the world
The lower your income level the more likely you are to be large the more likely you are to have
Food related obesity related kind of health conditions
historically
Gluttony was seen as as a way of not caring about the poor it was that you had too much
While other people didn’t have enough
We live in an era in which that narrative is
Flipped upside down, but really only for us and we should be aware of that because
Historically and globally
That’s not the case there anybody see that it was not a I don’t know if there’s a great move
There’s a movie called end of the spear was about a missionary anybody
Yeah, it wouldn’t matter.
So there’s this
There’s this man in it
He’s from this lost tribe in Ecuador and they go and the missionaries meet them and then they bring him to the United States
And he’s wandering around the city barefoot and he’s and then they show him going back to his tribe and they record the conversation
he has and This is so this is part of what he says.
He says all the people there are so fat
They can’t really walk they ride in
Chariots and even their sidewalks move because he was at the the airport
He says then you go to these homes
where they have a food window and they give you food out of the window and
Then you go to the food house where they store piles of food
Whatever you want and you stand in line and they pretend they don’t see you
But then they see you and smile and they give you all the food for free
Well, you give them something but they give it back to you because he didn’t understand change
And then he said they they don’t they they don’t hunt and
They don’t garden and all of the the people he’s talking to they start shaking their head and they tell him you’re crazy
He says no, they get all their food from the food places and and he said this is why they’re all they’re all big
Because of course, there’s nothing to this man and and you think from that perspective
imagine if you could come from most of the places on the globe where food is a daily struggle and
You could get dropped into
our life and You could on your way home tonight go by the grocery store and stand in front of
30 kinds of pickles
Right.
I mean it is we live in an unimaginable
Circumstance in regard to food and and we don’t we don’t remember that often enough food is
a struggle
Interestingly enough not just when you have it.
It’s a struggle when you have more than you need of it as well
So
The authors went to great length to talk about we may be once again because of our cultural sort of idea
We may think of gluttony specifically as it relates to the amount of food
But each author took time and I thought helpfully to make the case that it’s not just about the food
It’s also about the relationships that gather around the food as you know
the the people at table make a substantial difference,
especially in the historic Christian faith and
I’m sure either you know kids or grandkids or you’ve been at some sort of event where you’ve seen kids eat their meal
If eat is the right word probably shovel is probably the better word
Right as kids like there’s no way they tasted that food
right it just sort of went like straight down their throat and you you’ve been in it at some event I’m certain where you’ve
been with someone and
It’s just them and their food,
right?
I mean, it’s like they’re dialed in on that plate man
And then what when conversations over and that food’s gone,
they’re gone.
They walk away That’s a form of gluttony because fundamentally the table and the food did not become a bridge for relationship
But rather it became an opportunity to serve self
You see that that turn right that that’s I think where the Christian conversation begins to be helpful is
Instead of it becoming a series of condemnations about what we should or shouldn’t do which quite frankly we get enough of that
I think it becomes for us an invitation to see that that
Scripturally, there’s a beautiful kind of library of images in the ways in which food should represent for us God’s provision
the table
Whenever you sit at it should be a reminder that God is caring for both your physical and spiritual needs
How many of you pray before a meal?
Right
That shouldn’t just be ritual
but that is intended to be a reminder both to self and a
offering of thanksgiving to God for the thing on the table,
I Am guilty with all the rest of that being a rote process
I sit down and do this thing because that’s what I do
but but the table should be an opportunity to be connected to others and
connected to God and and whenever we
Listen,
I don’t know what the most expensive meal you’ve eaten is I’d be ashamed to tell you what that is for me Right,
but but when you go and the only reason for which that plate has been put in front of you is because that food is
Really good right or it’s it’s super authentic or whatever the case may be if if the only thing that matters is that plate
Then we’ve missed an opportunity
Does that make sense if if we make it about the experience or about the food itself it then then it’s not about the one
who made the food it’s not about the one who’s gifted us with the
Opportunity and the blessing to can you continue to live by the strength of that food?
Anything that stands in between us and God is
Fundamentally a thing that the church is going to call us to give up
Right so
Again, there’s a helpful quote here until we tame the enemies that dwell within us
We will not be able to engage in real spiritual combat
And that’s the idea of gluttony that we have something that is trying to fill the hole that only God can
Inside of us that we look to food for a measure of comfort.
We look to food for a measure of of
Escape and for for the the potent person who struggles with that whether on either side
Eating too much or not eating enough not caring for the body
Because they’re hiding
behind that Food becomes then not a not a gift but something we punish ourselves with
Physically or spiritually and I you know, that’s
Again, it’s a very interesting conversation
where we live I
was I was
Monday what night was Jane Monday?
So I got sick early in the week.
I think it was Monday and
Didn’t have a lot of sleep Monday night.
So had on the couch.
Luckily Jane was at a conference
So we have to worry about that
But I didn’t make it off the couch to go,
you know Walk the 40 feet back to the bedroom or whatever and so had the TV on all night and somewhere around
I don’t know 330 in the morning can’t remember what I was watching.
I saw this commercial.
I’ve never seen it before it was
It was for diet pills not diet pills the opposite of diet pills
This there were all these very thin people who said I took this pill and I gained 40 pounds
Once it I I gained 53 pounds in however many weeks and it didn’t say if it was like an appetizer
Stimulant the idea that you know people and I thought
You only seen that
That commercial only exists
in America
There’s just no place else that somebody said I’ve got this product that will help people be bigger
How do we you know,
how do we get it in front of that we have such a strange
Relationship with food it is it’s omnipresent and we don’t think much of it
And we certainly don’t think of it as an as an extension of our spiritual life
Not legalistically as in should I eat that with a Christian eat, you know, whatever
But what is my overall relationship with it?
And do I ever look to food as a band-aid for an internal?
Struggle and I mean that’s the heart of what has been called gutney and
You know, I think when when we frame it that way almost all of us can
Admit that if it hasn’t been an issue,
we’ve at least bumped into it.
We at least oh
Yeah, I can I can kind of understand that and and I think that’s a helpful way to frame it
Maybe by way of summarizing
If you thought that our first conversation was hard,
maybe you thought the second is harder
Wilman says we flatter ourselves in thinking that we are a sex obsessed culture
Food is really our cultural downfall and obsession
Yeah, and not to jump he follows that up with perhaps gluttony is a particular problem in a society of instant gratification
Where we pursue cheap thrills and want momentary satisfaction
So again, I’m not I’m not beating up America.
We’re all glad to live here.
We all don’t want to trade but
Your upsides have some downsides and that seems to be one of them.
So I think by way of conclusion
I just want to say thank you for sitting through.
It’s not a easy conversation One of the authors wrote this
This is precisely why the Desert Fathers and mothers
Practice scrutinizing their thoughts and they prize discretion about their emotional reactions
They are wary of the cumulative effect of indulged desire
They might first instruct us to exercise greater watchfulness and more frequent self examination
And if there’s any better summary of what Lent is that is it it
Any vulnerable and honest self
-conversation that does not have some moment of
Challenge
likely didn’t walk through the right territory and
so
You know, I’m grateful that we can have a conversation and we can
If you have any experience like at least I’ve had this week as I’ve read some challenging materials
It’s not in the first reading of it
it’s in the second or third or fourth thought that follows from it and
There’s great opportunity that comes from the kind of honest self-assessment
And and raising of those questions because you tend to see things.
I don’t know if you’ve you’ve seen this before
but you ever see like a car in the
And the car lot that’s new to you or you’ve never seen it
Oh, that’s an interesting car and then suddenly you see that car everywhere on the road,
right?
Like everyone’s driving that kind of car never saw it before.
I think that’s the case with this
Maybe maybe you haven’t thought about lost or maybe gluttony has not been a thing that has been in in your
Reflection, I wonder if maybe in the next week you might find that thought that comes across you think
Oh now that’s a thing that I can work on if so,
then hopefully we’ve done something of value
Thank you all for your time,
thanks again for the food and appreciate you all being here this evening