It would appear that I am the stated expert on lust and gluttony in this church, two of the deadly sins of which by ancient tradition there are seven, and with which I begin this series of Lenten Evensong sermons as the oldest sinner on the block.
Let me remind you that you are closer to those seven deadly sins than you think. They are in the font over there, on the hinged panels written under their corresponding seven holy virtues who each have a beautiful portrait exemplifying them. And each deadly sin’s title is written backwards: letters reversed, just as the sins are the opposite of the virtue. A devilish device. Read all about them in Canon Wright’s fine history of Saint Thomas.
Before we get to the juicy bits, let us look carefully at those seven. St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas list them as:
1. Pride
2. Covetousness
3. Lust
4. Envy
5. Gluttony
6. Anger
7. Sloth
They are an ugly bunch, seven warts on the face of souls made in the image of God. All are equally ugly; all are killers. They all come from the heart, which is where Christ says everything that defiles a man emerges. They don’t come from our weaknesses. They come from our strengths. They are our Divine potential derailed. They are our most responsive to God’s love side-tracked. The Devil isn’t interested in our weaknesses. They are far too small for his notice in his cruel pride. He is interested our strengths. He comes to our strength with a wrench. His challenge is to turn the screw even a millimeter, so that our free response to God’s love amid all the possibilities for joy are diverted. This is why Peter in his letter can write: “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the Devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking who he may devour, whom resist, steadfast in the faith.” (I Peter 5:8-9) Paul is equally adamant as he puts the requirement of self-control to a new and enthusiastic and complacent congregation in Corinth. Christ’s warnings about self-control haven’t sunk in. Their new freedom has left them dizzy and unreflective and Paul brings them to vigilance and soberness with a few well chosen and chilling words about the body and how they should watch it with regard to lust and gluttony, both.
Gluttony and lust, you might say, make a close pair of bedfellows. They are examples of what The Prayer Book describes as “inordinate affection.” Inordinate affection is preoccupation with somebody or something without regard to Christian restraint and respect. It is a “me” thing gone wild. Gratification is the name of the game. And a merry game it is, for many. Gratification is dreamed about (don’t we all know?) lunged at, grabbed at, fought for, raced after, because satisfaction is now top priority. You have to have it before anything else in the world. Obsession is single-mindedness uncontrolled, off the rails, disoriented and disfigured. Usually it is directed at a person, whether to one’s self or another. The results are disastrous: your slavery becomes a bore to your friends. You won’t change your mind and you can’t change the subject. You become a menace o the object of your obsession with hoops of steel. All sense of perspective, of balance, of fairness in judgment, all regard for the feelings of others withers, this lack of self-control.
Take gluttony: an uncontrolled preoccupation with food, with creature comforts, with the things innocent in themselves which “make glad the heart of man,” as the Psalms say, things given by a loving and generous God for our enjoyment, the products of the skills he has given us, whether of cooking or inventiveness of one kind or another, or domestic prudence and foresight (and don’t despise these God-given gifts; the people given them are stewards of a great treasure.) Christian souls who can be otherwise fastidious and careful in the management of their lives can harbor this particular untidiness and lack of self-control, perhaps through loneliness or frustration. A finicky preoccupation with one’s diet, an over fastidiousness with food. Gluttony bleeds. It bleeds into bad temper with service people whether in a restaurant or at an airport ticket counter. The last week or two have shown people at their very worst in our bad weather. And do you realize that the love of gossip is a form of gluttony? Some folks cannot resist the taste of it. It is nectar to the humming-bird souls flying from one source of delicious tales to another and spreading rumors, scattering inaccuracies and looking for more. Gluttony. As James writes in his letter (3:5), “What a huge stack of timber can be set ablaze by the tiniest spark! And the tongue is in effect a fire. It represents among our members the world in all its wickedness; it pollutes our whole being…” Do you hear echoes of our Lord telling us that it is the things that come out of the heart that pollute and defile a man? Like “slander…adultery…indecency…” (Mark 7:21)
And so the slide into lust from gluttony. It is generosity perverted, love diverted to oneself; spent freely and rashly, and often very pleasurably, and for porno-film makers, very profitably. The sins of the flesh are not the worst of sins; selfishness tops it. Where there is selfishness in a sexual relationship there is great harm done, both to the partner and to whatever bond there is between them. But, admit it. Lust is there in all of us; the itch just waiting to be scratched; it requires little to inflame it. It affects sight and smell and taste and hearing and memory. All of them are vulnerable to whatever it is that starts up the itch, often a combination of the senses. Whatever it was that started King David’s lust for his friend’s wife turned murderous. He did not stop at placing his admired young officer in the line of battle where death was certainly likely. And his friend died fighting for David, who grabbed his widow.
The faith of Christ speaks not of repression but of glad surrender into the freedom of the children of God. It is not a denial of the expression of human needs but of an obedient awareness of how that expression of them can give glory to the Creator. There is much to be said about the discipline of servanthood, self-surrender, and the joy which comes from the realization that Christ calls us servants no longer, but friends when once we have committed ourselves to him who has come that we “might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10).
John Donne, that penitent fornicator and a priest piercingly powerful in his poetry about his lust could write this, in his “Hymn to God the Father.”
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin? And, made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year, or two: but wallowed in a score?
When thou has done, thou hast not done
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy son
Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore;
And having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more.
