Gluttony and Feasting | Glittering Vices | Ecclesiastes 2: 1-11; Psalm 63: 1-5

Gluttony is often thought as an overindulgence in food and drink. It is certainly that but it is much more. It is a vice of excess pleasure or pleasure whose aim is self-gratification. It is the pursuit of pleasure as a sort of self-mission, rather than as a gift from God. It creates a paradox: we fill ourselves up on emptiness, costing us our souls. Scripture’s response is twofold. First, there is a spirit of fasting that frees us from dependence on pleasure (food/drink or otherwise) so we might see our true need of God. And it is Jesus is truly fasted (“I thirst” at the Cross) to free us from sin. Second, there is a call to feasting. God is the Lord of the Feast throughout Scripture and as the psalmist shows us, he is what satisfies that then allows us to enjoy the pleasures of the world as part of His mission. So, in the end, we learn how to feast, which is not pleasure seeking and we learn to worship him through an enjoyment of God’s creation.