Lent 7: Seven Deadly Sins (Jeff Cook)

Jeff Cook, author of Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes , has offered some brief meditations for us to ponder during Lent this year.

Gluttony

During Lent, we will meditate together on the Seven Deadly Sins and use this list as an aid in confession as we prepare ourselves for Holy Week, Good Friday and the Easter announcement of resurrection.

When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, their sin was not about sex or violence. Nor was their sin about pride as some have argued. Eating from the tree was an act of gluttony. Adam and Eve took more than they needed. They believed they could do whatever they wished with God’s creation for their own pleasure and benefit.

Gluttony is not about obesity; gluttony is about what we unite ourselves to. Gluttons wed themselves to meals over and above what is healthy—and by devouring more and more, they always have less. Body weight is not a worthy indicator of this sin. The skinny suffer from gluttony as easily and often as the stout, for gluttony is first and foremost excessive. Gluttony demands a third car when one will do, a third drink when one is best, a third hobby when the other two you started aren’t satisfying enough. Alcoholics are gluttons but so are many bloggers, card players and businesspeople. Gluttony is immoderation, and immoderation is not about having body fat. It’s about having a gaunt soul.

Sin entered the world through the body of a man and woman, and it would take the body of another man to defeat it. During Holy week, let us feed on what Jesus said. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never thirst … My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:35, 40).

(Excerpt from Seven: the Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes by Jeff Cook)