Watch/Listen
All You Can Eat (Gluttony)
Brian Mashburn
February 17, 2013
Audio Player
The Sermon That Ruins Lunch
There are three strong appetites that the body has - the desire for sleep, the desire for sex, and the desire for food.
Our appetite for rest and sleep is our friend when used in proper proportion, restoring both mind and body. Sex, too, when used properly, seals the marriage relationship as more intimate than all others and ensures procreation. Our appetite for food and drink keeps fuel in our bodies to energize productive work. Blessing upon blessing is that the satisfying of these appetites gives us pleasure.
But when we are conquered by any one of these, meaning simply that we pursue the pleasure they provide over the function, they become sins - deadly sins of sloth, lust, and gluttony. These appetites turn into enemies, enticing us constantly to indulge in excess.
Today we speak of gluttony. All of us, I fear, in our food saturated culture, have fallen prey to this. Dare we say that none of our practices around food are unhealthy, unintended by God, and (even literally) deadly?
When we are the least bit hungry, it often halts every other priority while we seek it with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (a pursuit that is supposed to be reserved for God), and not just with necessary food, but we will travel and pay extra for food that tickles our palate. We then eat more than is necessary, or even healthy, and still feel the "need" for a sweet desert that has no value but my pleasure.
Did Paul rightly identify many of us by saying that "their god is their stomach." Let us consider it for God's glory.