B (3:08)

Yeah, that's the realization I'm coming to as well.

A (3:12)

What's your favorite food, Brent? That's an appropriate question to start off our conversation on gluttony.

B (3:16)

Well.

A (3:19)

He'S opening it right now.

B (3:20)

Folks, this is not my favorite food, but it is my favorite clif bar.

A (3:24)

Oh, okay.

B (3:24)

The peanut butter banana with dark chocolate clif bar is definitely the best clif bar, but I'm gonna stop.

A (3:33)

Man, this is. This is amazing. You know, normally, Brent is so for professionalism, which means we don't eat into our microphones, but this is appropriate.

B (3:41)

This is. I mean, yeah. I mean, I haven't actually eaten today, so I should have. I should have eaten breakfast, but I actually held off on eating just so I could eat on this episode.

A (3:51)

I love that. Enjoy your Clif Bar and whatever else you might have. Does it ever strike you how delicious food and drink are? This incredible marriage of utility and pleasure? Like, you ever think about the fact that food could, in theory, have been otherwise? Like, we could just be basically chowing down on the equivalent of bland, you know, supplements all day long, just directly injecting our nutrients, and yet we have these things. Right. Do you ever think about that?

B (4:24)

Yeah. Like, our feet were somehow, like, roots and absorbed, you know, nutrients through the ground as we walked around or something.

A (4:32)

Yeah, totally. I'm sure there's something in the insect underworld or ocean or something that does something like that.

B (4:38)

I'm not quite sure what the utility of ice cream is.

A (4:42)

Right.

B (4:42)

But I do find great pleasure in eating ice cream.

A (4:45)

Or we take things that, like, have utility, like milk has utility, and then we turn it into, like, oh, man. Like, ice cream. If we add sugar to that, which is a wonderful thing, I am not here to poo poo on that at all.

B (5:01)

No, of course not.

A (5:02)

Or, I mean, just think about, like, this is totally a sidebar. But I'm sometimes amazed when I think about just, like, the various places I have been in the world and in all those places and across all of time, how much creative effort and energy we humans, just as a species, have put into. If I take water and combine it with something that Grows from the ground in various ways for various amounts of times at various temperatures. What do I get? I mean, we're very industrious about creating things that are delicious, which is very good.

B (5:38)

And it seems like we have not come anywhere close to trying at all. Because new stuff is happening all the time.

A (5:44)

But see here. Herein lies like the fundamental sort of tension of being a person with these carnal vices, lust that we talked about last week, and to an extent, greed, which we'll be talking about next week. Not exactly in the same way as lust and gluttony, but like.

B (6:05)

Although more. More than I would like to admit.

A (6:07)

Wait, what do you mean? More than what?

B (6:09)

Well, it's just like. Like you were saying, like I was like, oh, what is. What is going to be my one vice? And it's. Oh, yeah, they're all woven together.

A (6:16)

Yeah. Because we are. So you're Gonna get a 2 for 1 here for Buechner today. Because as he wrote about with our. Our sexual appetites with lust. He said the trouble is that human beings are so hopelessly psychosomatic. Psycho as in like your. Your psyche, your. Your soul. And somatic as in the body. We're so hopelessly psychosomatic in composition that whatever happens to the soma, the body happens also to the psyche and vice versa. And this is an idea like the sort of philosophy of the world of the Bible, especially the. The writers of the Bible, is like not this two part dissimilar. Like you are a. Just a. You're really a soul that's like residing inside of a body. But like you're. You are a soul and a body. It's like this composite, single, unified thing. And up to a certain point, indulging the body with clif bars or ice cream or whatever, that can actually be good for the soul. I mean, notice, like, it's super hot in the summertime right now. Like we are going through a heat wave in Missouri. And we sit on the back porch and we. We made homemade ice cream. The other night, bunch of kids from the neighborhood, like came by and we were just dishing out homemade ice cream. Is melting faster than we could eat it. But there is a certain like. Oh man, you feel it in your soul. Like, this is so good, right?

B (7:34)

Yeah. That is the utility.

A (7:36)

Well, that's part of. I mean, you could call it utility that it's good for the soul. It also is nurturing your body in some way. But past that point, it starts to actually diminish the soul. That's kind of the point of these vices. And you become so focused on whatever the pleasure is that it's giving you that you forget, you know, kind of about the soul at all. And you start to seek only the body. Hence the pitfall of gluttony, which is just has to do with consumable things. So we've been talking about vices, lust and some the other ones as a sort of disordered desire. It's like you have a desire for a good thing and it just gets out of whack. So for lust, it's like for sexual pleasure, for greed that we'll be talking about. It's for acquisition. And I think usually when we think about gluttony, I mean, what do we think about, right? We think about food. It goes beyond food, I think, into just a sort of disordered desire for consumption, right? To take in. To consume more and more. Which has to do with food, of course, and it has to do with drink and other substances, which. But it's about. One of the things I've seen in studying about this is that gluttony has to do about more than just mere quantity. Like there is a kind of gluttony that's about just more, give me more to eat, put more on my plate. But it's really more about the desire that we have for the pleasure of consumption and how much that desire comes to dominate me, comes to be the sort of the thing driving me instead of me driving it. Where for the glutton, the overriding concern is how is this experience, whatever I'm about to consume, how does that serve my own pleasure? Anybody? Right? Well, you get it. You get the right food or drink in their mind, and they'll be like, oh, I love, like my mom's French coconut pie. Oh my gosh, I love it. Right? And there's a fun way to talk about that. But I think there is a real serious kind of phenomenon that does happen where we become attached to it almost like a like a lover, you know, like, we become like so desirous of this thing all the time. And I also want to say that gluttony is about more than just the consumption of the things of the body, more than just about like food and drink and other substances. And this is where it like, really starts to hit home in our more modern context, is that I think it can also be about a consumption of things of the mind. Like we use this word consume for media. Have you ever heard people talk like that before? Where it's like, how Much social media are you consuming?

B (10:30)

Yes, absolutely. Also in your list here, education. And I'm like, ooh, I'd never even considered that. And I don't think I'm in danger of gluttonous education. Although I could totally see myself, like, well, I'm not. I'm not watching this, like, comedy reel. I'm watching this, like, educational reel and justifying my consumption based on, you know.

A (10:54)

Yeah.

B (10:55)

It supposedly being a good thing.

A (10:57)

Oh, yeah. I mean, well, it is a good.

B (10:58)

I mean, there is a good thing, of course.

A (10:59)

That's. That's the point, right? Like, of course learning is good, and so is eating. You might think, well, how could. How could learning more ever be bad? But maybe. Maybe there is a way that our desire to consume information. I don't know where Bama listeners are with this particular episode number 400 and something, but it's like a real thing where people start listening and we use the word binge. Right? You binge consume, like, 50 episodes of Bama in a week. And I'm like, maybe. Maybe, like, we're gorging ourselves here in a way that actually has bad, like, a negative effect on your own soul. Right. Like, where what you come to prize more than anything is the learning itself. Right. The knowledge, the information. And we know how that can puff us up or lead us into those other kinds of vices that have to do with envy or that have to do with pride. But, yeah, just the things of the mind, I think throughout our conversation, I want to keep in mind that gluttony applies to not just what you are putting into your body, but also putting into your mind.

B (12:15)

Absolutely. And I was talking to somebody about this recently, actually. They're like, I can't believe that you recommend people binge the podcast. And my heart behind it is that understanding the narrative of scripture from beginning to end is like a foundational piece. And so understanding how all of those things flow into each other is really important. And then go back and then do your slower, deeper dive kind of thing.

A (12:45)

Yeah, that's a good point.

B (12:47)

But because of the way that we do parts of the podcast, like, we're going pretty deep on Matthew. Like, we're doing verse by verse through various sections of Scripture, and it's like, that's a pretty deep dive to try to binge through, and that's. That's tough. Like, I don't have a good solution other than us, like, totally creating a different format that's like 20 hours, you know, a little bit more overview. And it's like, well, we haven't done that, so. But that's. That's my heart behind that. But to binge up to this point, to get to episode 464, 70, whatever this is, sure, that would be maybe a little intense, but some people do that, too. I don't know. Like, some people just want to catch up so that they can be a part of the. Like, okay, what's the episode that came out? I want to talk about it as it comes out, as everybody else is talking about it.

A (13:35)

Totally. But, you know, it's like with food, where at some point, you're taking in more than you can actually use.

B (13:42)

Yep.

A (13:43)

More than it is beneficial to you and you. You can easily lose sight of, you know, and it's not just Bama. I mean, I talk to college students. Like, Truman's a very thinky kind of place. Like, students are big learners here. And sometimes, you know, I just need. I tell kids, like, you need to just go take a walk in the woods and stop reading a book for a minute. Because, like, you lose sight of what the learning is for, what it's about. Right. That has to do with your life, that you actually live in the world with God or with your community around you. And you can. We can become so obsessed with what we are consuming. That's all. It's good. Right. But we become so obsessed with it, it becomes a thing itself. And that's the thing with a lot of these vices is what is supposed to be a way at getting at some good end becomes the end in itself. And it's the same with entertainment. Like, I am not here to just criticize thoughtlessly. Social media, it's an easy target. Right. But it's not just that thing. It becomes obsessive for its own sake. But I want to talk about the different kind of facets of gluttony for a minute. Just sort of a little survey here, because we tend to think of what Brent. Like, what's the stereotypical image of what gluttony is?

B (14:57)

Just eating beyond necessity over and over again all the time.

A (15:02)

Right, right, right, right. I think there are. There are actually several types of gluttony. And this is attested to, you know, like, back in the Middle Ages. And like, Aquinas talked about this. CS Lewis talked about this. The book that I have been recommending, that I will keep recommending, Glittering vices by Rebecca DeYoung. It talks about it, and we can break them into kind of two broader category, two subsets of gluttony that each have a few things under that. So, Lewis, C.S. lewis, if you've ever read the Screwtape Letters, you read that, Brent?

B (15:33)

I have.

A (15:33)

There's a particular chapter where the tempter, the demon who's in training, he's being counseled about a woman who is suffering under the. The sin or the vice of gluttony. And he talks about gluttony of delicacy versus gluttony of excess. And so there are kind of two ways that the vice of gluttony becomes a vice of what he calls delicacy, which has to do not with so much how we eat or how much we eat, but what it is that we are eating. And so there are two kinds are there is fastidious gluttony. And this is like. You ever seen When Harry Met Sally?

B (16:13)

Yes.

A (16:13)

Dude. One of my favorite movies. Like an actual 10 star, because it's five stars for the ROM and five stars for the comm. It's like firing on all cylinders. It is an incredible movie. One of my favorites, Leanne and I watch it every year. But for anybody who's seen it, Sally, who is played by Meg Ryan, there's this really well known scene where she and Harry start their road trip and they sit down at this restaurant and she starts ordering a salad. And. And she's like, but I don't want this, and I want this, and I want this on the side, and I want this. But this kind of pie, unless you don't have that kind of dressing, in which case I want the pie, but not the other thing. Right? And it's like, extremely picky about what you will eat or also, I identify.

B (16:52)

With that more than I would like this.

A (16:56)

I told you, it's coming for us all. This also applies to those of us who. I mean, I have been called a coffee snob at various times in my life, which, of course, I want to remain humble, but I will usually buck against that by saying just because I like, you know, quote, unquote, nice coffee doesn't automatically make you a snob. It's about, you know, this is what the vice is, right? Like, it's. It's not just that you like something that is nice, but that you kind of will only drink or eat what is of a particular caliber. And that if someone were to serve you or you were to be at like a. A party or something where they're serving hot dogs and buns, like from Doll, you're like, I'm not gonna eat that. Like, I only. I only take Grass fed, homegrown, you know, organic. Not that there is anything wrong with those things, but it is that. It's, it's the disposition of I'm not gonna eat that. I. It's like somehow beneath me, you know, that's. That's fastidious gluttony. Which is interesting because it kind of seems just like. It couldn't even seem like modesty or good taste, but. But really at its heart, it's about me and my own pleasure and insisting on that at the cost of maybe whatever the company is that I am in or the, you know, the celebration is that I am at the next one. The next gluttony of delicacy is what is called sumptuous eating. And this has to do with, like, what we desire is, you know, you want to feel full after you eat, right? I mean, the kind of stereotype is like, I live in the Midwest, people eat a lot of beef here. A lot of farmers, we eat a lot of hamburgers. And if they were to put like a veggie burger wrapped in lettuce on the plate, they'd be like, why would I eat that? Because I will just be still hungry when I am done eating, right? And so there is a kind of insistence that it's like, why we like beef, why we like creamy stuff, thick stuff, right? Because it gives you this feeling that you are chasing of being full. And actually, have you ever, I don't know if you've ever participated in a Lenten fast. Yeah, if you have Catholic listeners, they're more attuned to this.

B (19:11)

I mean, I was, I was Catholic for a while, so.

A (19:14)

Well, there you go. So you don't eat meat and dairy during Lent, right? It has to do with this particular kind of gluttony. Like, it has to do with trying to instill a practice that is, I don't always have to feel full, right? Because again, my own pleasure is not always like, that's not the most important thing. That is not the thing that everything else needs to center around. So fastidious eating, sumptuous eating. And then moving on to what we might be a little bit more thinking of when we think of gluttony, what Lewis would call a gluttony of excess. And this is really about how we eat, right? And so there is like, they call it ravenous eating, which to me, like, honestly, I just, I had to wrestle with this one a little bit because I'm like, is this really just about manners? And is that what we're concerned about? Is like. Because, you know, the Ravenous Eater is the person who's just, like, shoveling everything in. They're not waiting for anybody. And so it's like I'm imagining for some reason, Brian Trussinger in my mind right now, sorry, Trash, but calling you out. Poor guy Trash likes to talk about putting on a clinic. When it comes to food, though, he's like, oh, man. If I were like, we've hung out a lot, and if we were ever in a city where there's, like, a restaurant with really good food that we don't get in our little town of Kirksville, he'd be like, I'm about to go to that place and put on a clinic. And it's just like, right.

B (20:37)

This is great.

A (20:38)

It's like. So maybe it's just bad manners, which I don't really. I mean, manners change from place to place. That's not really the thing. Right. But it does maybe betray a certain kind of insatiable. Just like, there's no patience. There is only, like, I have to get full right now. And the detriment to me, even if this isn't, like, so terribly, quote, unquote sinful, is that, like, you kind of become numb or you miss out on. Maybe there's an experience that's actually going on when you're sharing a meal with people or something like that. However, this one is just, I have to confess, a little bit more theoretical for me. Cannot remember a lot of times where I've sat down and somebody, especially a grown person at the table, was just, like, shoveling all the food in without any regard for anybody. I don't know, does that hit home for you at all, Brent? Or is that just kind of like. I get the idea.

B (21:28)

Let's finish the rest of the list on excess, and then we'll come back and I'll. I'll talk about some specific scenarios.

A (21:33)

Okay. And maybe, maybe, I mean, maybe this does hit home for somebody out there. There are other ones, though, that I do relate to. So another one after Ravenous is hasty eating, which is kind of the me first attitude. So that's not necessarily like eating super fast, but it is like, I want to be the first one to get served. And maybe there's, like, a fear that it's not going to be enough or that you want to get as much as you want. That's your fill. Right? But it is a me first. In a communal setting, I get to eat first. I get to fill my plate first. So there's hasty eating, and that I think seems a little bit more obvious, like, why that might be detrimental. Right. Because it's inconsiderate of other people and there might not be enough leftover at the end if somebody's at the end of the line, that kind of thing. The last one is excessive, which I put that one last because I do think that's the more stereotypical version of gluttony, where you are well past being full and you just continue to eat simply because you like the pleasure of the eating. Right? It's like I want to just taste the food more than I really want to, like, ingest the food. And so you just keep eating and keep eating. Rebecca DeYoung, she calls this. She actually has an acronym. I took them out of order. She calls it fresh. So fresh. F. Fastidious, Ravenous, Excessive, Sumptuous, Hasty. It's just a nice way to remember the various kinds. And what's interesting is they really can look very different in our relationship to what we consume. And yet the point remains, my own pleasure is the centerpiece of this experience of consumption, even at the expense of other good things. Whatever the purpose of the thing is the company that I am meeting with. And again, I would too remind us, like, this very much relates to the way we do media, the way we consume media, right? Like, maybe we're. We're snobs about the kinds of shows that we will watch, right? And like, it's not bad to like those things, but in a way, like, does that make me actually look down on the people who are around me? Like, what does that reveal about what I see, my value or the value of my opinion to be over the value of somebody else.

B (23:45)

Yeah, I don't think we have time to get into it, right?

A (23:48)

Or just the amount that I'm taking in, how quickly. I mean, the ravenous eating, like that maybe doesn't apply so much to food. But think about the way that we scroll, right? And doom scrolling and tell me that that's not ravenous, right? I'm like flipping to a new reel like every three or five or 10 seconds.

B (24:07)

How about two seconds? One second?

A (24:08)

Well, and it's like. So we start to see, though, why this might actually be a problem, like, beyond manners. Because, I mean, especially with media, our ability to pay attention or our ability to understand is greatly affected by how much we are plowing through just for that immediate hit of pleasure. And then, I mean, our. Our attention. I say this to my kids all the time. This is like one of the most valuable resources that you Possess that you have to give away. And no matter what you're doing, you are choosing to give it to something and sustained attention. I mean, you can see how that is better than just flipping through. And even, like, if you've ever had an experience where you really just sit down for a meal, maybe with your family or with other company, or even if you're just sitting down by yourself and you are taking the time to take it in, like, there is something good that transpires there that we miss out when gluttony is, like, having its way.

B (25:06)

Yeah, I mean, it's a whole different. Like, I feel like the discussion groups, the Baymont discussion groups, are going to have a field day with these episodes because, like, you could sit and talk through this stuff for hours. Because, like, I don't. I'm not given to ravenous eating. I'm generally the slowest person to eat. Although recently I took my wife out for her birthday and ate my food so fast because apparently I was just that hungry. But that was unusual. I think. What. When I typically hear about these types of people, though, it's people who've been through the military and they're given, like, you know, whatever. I don't even know what ridiculous number of minutes to eat, like, a full plate of food. And it's like, that's all you're going to get the whole day. And then, like, they go through that for so long in a military context that that's just how they eat. And so it's like, I don't. I don't even think that's bad manners. I do think, like, if they can take time to intentionally slow down, there might be more enjoyment to the meal. But, like, I don't. I don't fault anybody for that. Where I really see myself here is the hastiness, because I typically am. I want to be first. And sometimes I have a legitimate excuse, like at a wedding where it's like, okay, Brad and groom are going to go through the buffet line. We're gonna take pictures of them doing that, and then we're gonna slot in right behind them. And it's like, well, I have to do that because I need to be done eating by the time they're done eating so I can be ready to take pictures. That is a legitimate reason. But I find a reason in almost every scenario. And sometimes I'll be in a context where somebody's like, okay, food's ready. Ladies first. And I'm like. And a little bit of me inside is just kind of angry. It's like, okay, fine.

A (26:47)

Right.

B (26:47)

Ladies first, spot. I'm going to be the first among the men. I'm just going to, like, hover there and just wait until that last lady gets in line, and then I'm going to jump right in behind. So, yeah, I mean, it's all there.

A (27:00)

It is interesting, right? Because, like, you. You know, food is just food. And there's a way to. If you're. I don't know, if you're like a thinkier type, you're like, this is. What does this even have to do with anything? You know? But then you think, actually sometimes we get. Maybe it's not even that uncommon. Like, we can get pretty quarrelsome or just pretty, like, worked up around things that have to do with consumption, that have to do with food.

B (27:24)

Arguing about where you're going to eat or what movie you're gonna see or whatever.

A (27:28)

Yeah, totally. And again, I'm glad you brought up the movie, because the more we think about gluttony in terms of our media consumption, I think the more it really gets uncomfortable and starts to hit close to home. I want to move on and just talk about the culture conversation for a second. Just talk about what is the cultural attitude to consumption. And I had a few thoughts on this, and then, Brent, if you have any further thoughts, like, I'll. I'll have you chime in. But I noticed there's this interesting, like, it's. It's almost like a contradiction culturally, where on the one hand, treat yourself. I mean, it's Parks and Rec. Oh, yeah. You know?

B (28:05)

Yeah.

A (28:06)

Treat yourself as kind of a way of being.

B (28:08)

Yep.

A (28:09)

Like, oh, yeah, you deserve, like, it's like Barbara Cawthorn Crafton was writing, like, we deserve a little treat. We treated ourselves every single day. Right. That's where it becomes the problem. We thought it would be bad to tell ourselves no. About anything ever. But then on the other hand, we also, like, have this in our media, especially where body image is, like, such a huge thing. There is, like, this extreme attention and this micromanagement of consumption. Right. Where we pay, like, nutrition labels weren't. That is not baked into the fabric of the universe, that there should be those labels on food. And it just got me wondering, like, does that say something about our relationship to food? Like, why do we need to place a burden of responsibility on the manufacturer? And I think it's funny that we even call them food manufacturers, but, I.

B (28:57)

Mean, so much of our food is manufactured.

A (28:59)

Right. But, like, why do we need to do that to make sure that like we know if this is okay for me to eat or not. Do we have like a, an askew relationship with food or even. I just think about like the paradox of the sort of the diet, zero calorie food substitute, etc. Which is this sort of like it's pure pleasure where I want to be able to have just like the goodness of that thing without any of the consequences. Like Lewis at one point talked about the idea of somebody chewing up their food and then spitting it out before they're swallowing. And he was talking about that in relation to sexual sin, like as a, as an analogy, but still like this, this idea of like I'm going to take it in but it's not going to do anything to me other than just give me the pleasure of consuming it, you know, or like there are these dueling voices that are both, I think virtues in our culture that are cheapness. On the one hand we want to get something as cheap as we possibly can and then on the other hand, so like the dollar menu right at the drive thru or something, but then equally like fineness, there is this like we, we have a cultural value for like the, the sort of whole foods type place right. Where it's like only the finest ingredients. And it strikes me that those pull you in very different directions. And yet for both of them there is this like high emphasis on consumption in a way that sort of never requires us to practice self denial. You know, like self denial regarding food is a weird thing in our culture. And I was thinking like I never even participated in a fast, like a practice of fasting until I was like 20 at my campus ministry in college. But like our, our church, and I know Catholic churches, like in some of the mainline churches practice various kinds of fasts, but in a lot of the non denominational churches and evangelical culture, like we never fasted for anything. It was like, why would you ever deny yourself food? You got any thoughts, Brent, on just, you know, the cultural conversation that surrounds consumption?

B (30:56)

Yeah. And I do think it's going to depend a whole lot on what church tradition you grew up in.

A (31:02)

Absolutely.

B (31:02)

Because yeah, it's like, well why, why would we deny ourselves food? But we're always denying dancing or whatever, you know, like there's no outlet for it. And all of these things are like, well, is it bad to treat yourself not necessarily like you're supposed to party sometimes, but then if you're doing that all the time, then that's not so. It's just this balance and being able to understand the Things like, oh, we need to stay away from whatever it is entirely, but then you end up getting out of balance and other things to make up for that.

A (31:42)

Yeah, yeah. So those are great points. We're going to get to talking about that balance at the end because as with pretty much everything, there is a tension that we have to find ourselves in the middle of and discerning what that looks like, but thinking about, like, well, so why is it a bad thing to treat yourself? Which is not always, but I do want to think about why is this a capital vice, you know, or a. Some people would call it a deadly sin. We're not calling them that. But like, why is it particularly pernicious when, let's call it obsessive or let's call it compulsive consumption. We'll call that Glenny. Right, so compulsive consumption, how does that diminish me? How is that bad for me? Right? And then I want to ask, like, how is it bad for community? But for me, I mean, obviously there's certain kinds of gluttony just literally deteriorate your health. They make you unwell. But even like I was reading in the book the Cardinal and the Deadly that I've been reading, talking about a little bit, and the author talks about this phenomenon of like, what happens, what do we lose out on when we're always stuffed to kind of the gills, like, when we never have to really feel hungry or want. He said gluttony robs us of the pleasures of anticipation, the pleasures of consumption, and the pleasures of satiation. Or like being satisfied. Because if you're not hungry, then being satisfied doesn't actually come to you as a good thing because you're kind of always like, like, do you ever notice how we kind of eat by the clock? It's not necessarily like, am I hungry? But it's like, well, it's 5:30 or 6:00', clock, so it must be time for dinner. I'm like, I'm not even hungry. But, yep, that's like the sort of attitude or the relationship we have to eating, but I think even more insidious than that is. And we'll be talking about this next week with greed. What happens to us when possession kind of becomes everything? We see everything as something like primarily for its monetary value. But what happens to us when gluttony really has its claws in us is that we become primarily just consumer. We identify as consumer rather than as creator. And I think one of the key things about being made in the image of God in those Genesis passages, Where that's talked about is, like, what do we see God primarily doing in those passages he's creating. Right?

B (33:58)

Yeah.

A (33:59)

Gluttony is like the compulsive. Consumption is like, I'm here to consume things, and so things become valuable to me primarily in, like, how do they serve my appetite? Can I consume this for my own pleasure? Is there any other reason why I would want to consume it other than just for my own pleasure? And so we're. We're chasing consumption, and yet there is this dark irony, I guess, where we are always dissatisfied, even though we are always consuming. Like, this is Josh's series. He's been doing Kohelet. Right. And Kohelet talks about. I pursued all of these things. And even in chapter six, I pulled this verse out. Everyone's toil is for their mouth. We're working. We're feeding ourselves. We're always having the food and drink we want. And yet, coel, it says their appetite is never satisfied. We never actually. It creates this, like, this vicious cycle where we are being driven by our. By our desire rather than us driving the desire, where it's like, I need more. I need better. And that is never actually enough. And you really can lose your life to this pursuit. And sometimes that's obvious. And people who, like, really struggle with addiction to various kinds of things that can be consumed sometimes. It's not always obvious how people's lives are being lost to this pursuit, but it's that psychosomatic tension that Buechner talked about where what we do with the body really does affect the disposition of the soul. Like, what. What we experience in the soul. You got other thoughts in mind about how does this compulsive consumption diminish us as individuals?

B (35:43)

Yeah. This kind of makes me think about times where I have pulled out my phone and I start scrolling Instagram and comedy reels are kind of what I get into comedy and baseball videos. But I can spend an hour watching various comedy reels on Instagram or I can spend an hour watching a comedy special with a couple of friends laughing together. I've spent the same amount of time either way. And how I feel at the end of an hour on Instagram is very different than how I feel after an experience with some friends laughing together in the room. It's crazy how different it is.

A (36:23)

Yeah, for sure.

B (36:23)

Because it's like, well, I'm laughing. I'm amused either way. Like, why. Why would it be all that different? And it's totally different.

A (36:29)

Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up, because I also want to talk about just, like, the way that compulsive consumption affects or diminishes, like, connection with each other, with community, you know, and whatever. If you're consuming media, like you were just pointing out, or even food, if your concern is, like, am I going to get what I want here? Is it going to taste as good as I want it to? Am I going to get as much as I want? Is it going to run out before it gets to me? And so with greed, next week we'll be talking about the unpurposing of, like, things. Things that we can own and what we can use them for. And I was thinking similarly, like, the unpurposing of our feasts and our celebrations and our gatherings, like, when they just become about the food itself or the drink itself, there is something that's being missed out on. Like, we are not connecting with each other in the way that we could. And I also think that, you know, think about watching comedy reels all the time, right? Or just watching any kind of media. When you compulsively consume media and maybe you don't experience this, I feel like this is an actual phenomenon that's probably wider spread than just myself. And I can't, like, prove it, but what I notice is that, like, my drive to create something doesn't mean I'm going to go write comedy sketches, right? But, like, when I'm always consuming my drive to, you know, pick up my guitar and play, right? Or my drive to, like, sit down and write, like, the chapter, or, like, even to just reach out to someone else and generate even something just like a relationship, right? It goes down. It's like, I don't. I'm just not as interested in that because consuming kind of takes up everything, you know? And the more you chase the pleasure of what is being consumed, like, the more quickly you need to keep refreshing that consumption. You know, that's the. That's the cycle of addiction that is well documented. And so, yeah, like, it. It definitely diminishes our communities. Like, we as a collective people become less when we create less. And because creating is one of the ways that we connect with one another. And then obviously there is the, you know, the imbalance of just resources that's worth pointing out. And I get that this is like a complex global problem. So I'm not trying to presume that there's anything simple or easy, right? But it is worth observing that, like, there are some of us who have food, like, rotting on the Shelves, more than we could ever actually use. And then there are other people who have nothing. And I don't know what to do about that. But I feel like this is a way that gluttony as a vice reveals itself for. For being serious. You know, this isn't trivial manners stuff that we're talking about.

B (39:06)

I wonder what, like, my family's eating situation when we do eat together. We don't always eat the same thing. Is that just like, survival? Because my kids just literally won't. I need them to eat something to survive versus getting them to understand all the complications of these. And it's not going to happen. So it's like, yeah, I think there's a conversation to be had there as far as learning to. I mean, this goes back to those different types of, of gluttonies as far as sumptuousness and the snooty, picky eating stuff. And it's like, well, how much can you really expect out of little kids anyway? But there's a conversation there. It's like, okay, this is what we're eating and we're all eating this together. Some of us may like it better than others versus, like, okay, well, we've got access to grocery stores and like doordash and whatever. And it's like, okay, well, you want pizza? Okay, great. And then I'm gonna order this pasta over here and then I'm gonna order this Indian food. Is that a healthy thing? Like, probably not. Maybe on occasion is fine, but probably not all the time. But yeah, all this stuff is wildly complicated.

A (40:17)

I mean, for sure, I had young kids as well once, and they're older now. But I remember sometimes you just are so tired, like, okay, eat what you want. But then I can distinctly remember being at other people's houses and they're not planning on accommodating five different individual appetites. And so then my kids are like, kind of expect. There's this sort of individualistic mentality that I have kind of let creep in and I'm like, no, stop. We don't. We're not doing that here. Like, you have to eat what they make you at home. Of course I'll make whatever you want. But yeah, you know what I mean? So, yeah, it's like, I. I get that that creates some difficult situations, ones that I definitely have fallen into myself because, man, I don't know, it's sometimes it's just hard.

B (41:05)

The value of connection and community. Like, if you are always isolated in how you're consuming things, then you don't understand how to behave in other situations.

A (41:14)

Let's do some text conversation here, Brent, and see, see what the text has to tell to us. So I was thinking about the Bible.

B (41:22)

I like it.

A (41:23)

It actually does have something to say about, you know, it's. There are no verses that are like. Well, there are some verses that actually talk about directly the dangers of gluttony, but I'm not. We're not really trying to get into those specific ones. I remember being in Turkey, we were there together, or even the Israel trip, where you learned about some of the cultural context and hearing about the excesses of some of these Greek or these Roman parties, right, These feasts, these orgies that were just defined by excess. Like where the vomitorium, you know, like you're eating to the point that you're like throwing up. And it's like, oh, we got a place for that, you know?

B (41:58)

Yeah. Built into the experience.

A (42:01)

Just right here, it's built in. Literally. It's like you got a little bucket right there. Read us this. There's just short couple of verses from Philippians here.

B (42:09)

For as I have often told you before and now tell you again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction. Their. Their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

A (42:24)

Okay, so this is about consumption, right? The God is their stomach. I think you could also use the word appetite there. And so we can think about it just generally as like whatever your. Their God has become, their appetite, their mind is. It's set, it's fixed on earthly things. There is again, there's this compulsive kind of obsession with what can be consumed. Just as a side note, you know, some people have talked about how greed is maybe like the actual kind of head vice because, you know, you cannot serve both God and money, which is an important teaching. And yet I think it's interesting here that Paul is. He is equating God with appetite. So it's not just money that can take that spot, but even appetite. And so this ethic of like, moderation and self control that the Christian tradition has put forward is not just because of some abstract morality, right. But because in the context they are seeing the evident destructiveness of a culture of excess. And what I think is also a little bit convicting and maybe a question I need to ask myself when I'm not, you know, on the record here, is that there is apparently a connection in consumption and allegiance or worship. And especially when the culture is one of excessive consumption. Paul is saying, this is opposed to the way that has been set for us. And so we don't want people to be confused about where our allegiance lies or which God it is that we worship. And so we can't be doing the same kind of excessive consumption where we just follow our appetite around rather than our appetite being subject to kind of what we. What we say. Yeah, I want to bring in another passage because it seems that that Roman banquet mentality, that gluttonous mentality, started to even maybe creep into early church gatherings. So how about this bit from First Corinthians 11?

B (44:32)

So then when you come together, it is not the Lord's supper you eat. For when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter.

A (44:55)

So even here, you know, if you're thinking about the framework of these different kinds of gluttony, you can sort of detect hints of a few of these things. There is excess, there is hastiness. It's interesting to think about the Eucharist or communion just in conversation with the vice of gluttony and just the. What it would mean for the way of Christ, which, you know, for the Christian tradition is like the. The Eucharist is a central part of that. Like we take in the body, like when we eat the bread and drink the cup. That versus gluttony, like when. When consumption. That is like a counterpoint to letting consumption dominate your whole way of life. And also, too, I think it's interesting again to take us back to that embodied nature that we have the cure to. Gluttony is not saying, well, let's just do spiritual things, right? It's not spiritual contra earthly things. So in that Philippians passage, their mind is set on earthly things. It's not like, well, just never engage with an earthly thing again. But it is like getting at what is spiritual through what is earthly, which, again, the Eucharist, like, how do we participate with Christ? Well, one of the ways that we do that is through literal bread and wine, like things that we consume. Which then brings me to a couple of other passages that I want to bring up just to get us into that conversation about the tension and sort of how there are two sides to this, and we're trying to live in the middle. So, Brent, kick us off. This is a passage that I had definitely, like, I grew up in a church where it was like, any kind of consumption of alcohol is definitely a sin. And this is one of the, you know, the sort of gotcha verses that they would pull out from Proverbs 23.

B (46:37)

Who has woe, who has sorrow, who has strife, who has complaints, who has needless bruises, who has bloodshot eyes, those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine, do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. In the end, it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Gotcha.

A (47:05)

Well, I mean, actually, yeah, like, I just, like, again, there is that sort of the kind of gluttony that is the fastidious. Like, I'm really picky. I'm snooty. I mean, Brent, if you were a fly on a wall of conversations I've had about this brand of this kind of drink or the way that you got to use these kinds of fruits in this kind of drink or whatever, the thing is, right? If you really want to have it the right way. And, like, when I saw the. Do not gaze at it when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes. I mean, how many times have I had a drink and been like, dude, it's so smooth. It's so smooth, you know?

B (47:40)

Yeah.

A (47:42)

I'm not trying to, like, divulge all the details of my personal life here, but just to say, like, there is a kind of overvaluation of, like, what the value of this thing is. Right?

B (47:52)

Yeah. I mean, this is sort of. This is probably more of a pride issue than a gluttony issue, but in my snootiness of ordering stuff, you know, I go through, and I, I. I hate myself for it in restaurants, I'm like, I don't even want to go to a restaurant where I have to make too many modifications to something, but I'll make as many modifications as I need to make. And people are looking at me when they order, and then the plate comes, and they're like, wow, that looks really good. I'm like, yeah, see, I know what I'm doing.

A (48:22)

And you plebeian over there with your cheeseburger on Wonder Bread.

B (48:28)

Yeah.

A (48:28)

Anyway, so you got that verse, right? You got that set of verses that is, like. It's warning you against, like, the problems you get into when you drink too much or where you like drinking too much, right? And I'm not going to have you read this whole next passage from Isaiah, chapter 5. But there's a line in chapter 5 in verse 22, it says, Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks. And again it's the champions, right? Like there is an excess of desire or of pride in like, well, I can mix these things up and make the best, you know, old fashioned that you've ever had or something like that, right?

B (49:07)

Yeah, yeah.

A (49:08)

So you got those verses, but then you've also got like Psalm 104, one of my favorite psalms. Here's a couple of verses from that.

B (49:15)

He makes grass grow for the cattle and plants for people to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth, wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts.

A (49:29)

Yeah. And so here we have consumables being held up in like kind of a glorious way, right?

B (49:34)

Yeah, very glorious.

A (49:35)

Right. Something great about wine when you're gladdening the human heart, you know, and just thinking about like I keep thinking about the Israel and turkey trips, right? And just some of the dinners that we have where it's like we spent a hard day. We've been, we've, you know, get all this great teaching on the text from Marty. This is like a low key plug for people to try to go on the trip if they can. And you know, then we like get together around a table and it's like a bunch of people who don't really know each other, but we're spending like this unique situation together. And you know, you have a drink, you have some bread, you have some oil in the bread and it's something truly good and holy that's transpiring there. And it's partially because of the meal that we share, right? It's not completely like, we're not angels, we're not completely disembodied from that stuff. And then of course there is the line that I remember I had a conversation with a youth pastor one time because it was like, well, don't you know that drinking is a sin? And I did what all good 17 year olds do. And I was like, well, what about when Jesus like made wine at the wedding and he gave me the line that was, well, that was unfermented grape juice, which I think maybe doesn't hold up. But also I'm sure it's something that people have heard before, you know, what the guy says after Jesus works this miracle. And I know that like the point of this passage deep down is not, like, about drinking wine. But he says everybody brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you saved the best till now. And so it's. Well, people have already had their fill, maybe they've even had too much. And yet now we're going to, like, bring out the best here at the end. And so there is a tension that the scripture kind of attests to that's like, well, this can be really dangerous. You can be too obsessed with this. And yet also, it can be very good for gladdening the heart and for building community and for, like, these celebrations that we have. And I think then, like, getting into what I think God is aiming for here again, just bringing us back to the tension of rightly enjoying what is becoming of actual human beings that, like, respects our dignity, our value. And the fact that God really does love us and wants us to. It goes all the way back to that first, like, it's not just, here's your nutrients for the day, right? But here is something to be enjoyed. There's this amazing poem and I thought about. Actually had three prologue options today. Brent. There was the one that we read. We thought about reading Hungry Mungry from Shel Silverstein. Great poem. There's another poem by Wendell Berry called the Satisfactions of the Mad Farmer. And it's this beautiful poem just going on about delighting in what the earth produces, kind of like Psalm 104, and just noticing the wealth, the abundance, but, like, in a good way, of the many delights that are for the body that the earth produces. And the last stanza that I'll read, he says, what I know of spirit is a stir in the world. The God I have always expected to appear at the wood's edge, beckoning. I have always expected to be a great relisher of this world. It's good, grown, immortal in his mind. I think what God is calling us to do, and this is like one of the joys, I think, of thinking about the opposite. The good side of gluttony is to actually be, as Wendell Berry says, a great relisher of the world, but without being dominated by it. Right? But in a way that actually connects us to the Creator that makes these things for us to enjoy. We are meant to, I think, when consumed rightly, without being compelled, without being addicted, without being inconsiderate of the context in which we are consuming. I think it creates in us gratitude. I think it creates in us a sense of Wonder. It creates in us a sense of joy and pleasure that are all really, really good. So I think that is part of what it means to be created in God's image is to be one who enjoys the fruit of the creation as much as we steward the responsibility of creation. There's another great word that I want to introduce people to that is magnanimous or magnanimity. It is literally just means big hearted. But I think what it means is that you are somebody that has the ability to enjoy the nice things and the normal routine kind of things equally and to express gratitude and to connect with people over, like, if they offer me like a hot dog from Walmart off the grill, I can enjoy that just as much with them as I can when, like, the waiter brings me, you know, scallops at like the Michelin star restaurant. And that is, it's not condescending in like a proud or demeaning way, but it is the ability to condescend in the good sense of, like, yeah, I can come down to whatever and enjoy it. Like, it's all. It's all good. It's like, I can be a great guest wherever I am, and I can also be a great host. By the same vein, that is a word I would encourage people to ruminate on and to think like, how can I be more big hearted, more magnanimous in the way that I consume things in the world? Maybe one practical thing that I would encourage people to consider that might help in getting us along down this path of being relishers of the world who live rightly in this tension is thinking about these two great traditions that we have in our communal religious life that are fasting and feasting. And to see these things as a kind of a continuum and to ask the question, where do I mostly live and the way that I consume. Am I even if not consciously, but am I kind of acting like it's a feast every day of my life where it's like, have as much of all the best things that you could possibly want every single day. And again, remember, this is about media too. It's about the way we consume media, various kinds of media. So do I mostly live there? Do I mostly live at the other end where it's like, I. I'm terrified of, like, enjoying the good things. And so, like, I'm always like, I'm penny pinching or I'm having like the most minuscule amount, right? And to consider that, like, fasting and feasting are meant to be, we're meant to be mostly Living just in moderation in the middle, but also visiting at various. I think this is why church calendars are super helpful at various regular kinds of times. Visiting into fasts and visiting into feasting. And to understand too that fasting is actually meant to undergird our feasting. It's not opposite of it, it's like related to it. They're intertwined. And so this is why like for example, Lent, we've talked about Lent, right? Holy weekend, Easter. The Easter feast hits different when you have actually spent, you know, the 40 days of Lent fasting or the feast of Christmas hits different when you've spent the season of Advent fasting and preparing. Because like, you know how it is, right? Like a culture of only feasting where it's like, oh, we're just the day showed up and I guess now we just get more presents and there hasn't been any preparation or of any kind, you know, or like I've just been doing everything normal and we have, you know, whatever we have on Easter dinner.

B (57:18)

Yeah, A lack of distinction.

A (57:20)

Yeah, it's like all pretty bland. Like there's no contrast and like, you know, you're a photographer, right?

B (57:25)

Yes.

A (57:26)

And images without contrast are like so.

B (57:29)

Yeah. Uninteresting light and shadow.

A (57:31)

And so you need the contrast of fast and feast. So because the culture that is just only ever feasting is just ultimately numb. It's like, yeah, okay, that was all right. Easter was okay. This feast was okay. That birthday party was fine. Because I'm every day of my life acting like it's somebody's birthday and just treating myself to something all the time. Last thing thinking about media too. A practice we do at CCF every semester is we're actually starting one tomorrow for the summer. We're going to do a week long media fast where if we think that our consumption of media is out of whack, we're like, all right, we're going to fast. And so for a week we encourage people to pick one thing or some things or all the things and just turn it off and see how we can turn our attention to, I mean to prayer, to others, to even like generative and creative pursuits, those kinds of things to free us up from the burden of just consuming all the time. So I would put that in listeners pockets. Maybe that's something you would like to practice in your communities. And finally I want to leave us with some self examination questions. It's something we're going to be trying to do each of the weeks that we're going through these Vices. And so here are a few. Brent, would you be willing to read those? And then, I mean, I guess if. If you got anything that you think that you would like to add. Okay, please do.

B (58:55)

How much of my mental furniture is arranged around the prospect of my next meal or drink or pipe.

A (59:03)

I smoke a pipe from time to time. That's why I put that in there.

B (59:05)

Or a scroll. I assume by that you mean social media scroll.

A (59:09)

Not correct. Social media, like the man, I can't wait till I get off work so I can.

B (59:13)

Although maybe it's an educational thing because, I mean, I've seriously not thought about that as being like an element of gluttony. But, yeah, education, et cetera.

A (59:24)

Yep.

B (59:25)

Are consumables my best or only way to self regulate? Can other people tell when the food or drink isn't the way I like it? How can I employ fasts and feasts in a meaningful way that helps me to become a great relisher of this world?

A (59:46)

That's all I got.

B (59:46)

I guess I would just say I like that idea of magnanimity. How can I become more magnanimous in my relationships with people?

A (59:54)

Yeah. Like, can I have as robust and enjoyable a discussion with someone about surf's up or surf's up, too, as I can about the Godfather, you know?

B (60:06)

Oh, dear.

A (60:07)

And really, again, it's because the gluttonous appetite is like, this is about me and my intellect and what I have watched and what I have read and what I know, you know, and it just becomes somebody. Like, it's like the vomitorium, like, I've taken. Sorry, this is. I was not planning on this. But especially for those of us who esteem ourselves as champions of biblical texts and scholars, etcetera, because some of the listeners might be a part of that crowd. So, like, think champions of mixing drinks, but we're champions of mixing scholarship. Right? And we take in so much, we're, like, overstuffed. And then you get into, like, I've been cornered in conversations before where somebody is. I feel like they're literally vomiting at me, like, everything they've read and learned, because why not for my sake? Like, because they're wanting to show, like, this is what I know, you know? And so to be like, magnanimous and like, let's have a conversation about, I don't know, maybe we could just all have an enjoyable charitable conversation as much about something silly like the Da Vinci Code as we can about, you know, Walter Brueggemann, Rest in peace, his, like, whatever his latest greatest work was because it's about the sake of the point is like our connection, our relationships with others, our mutual building of one another up and gluttony just really makes it all about my overstuffedness and making sure everybody, like can see that for what it is. That's all I got. I'm done rambling.

B (61:33)

I'll throw one more self examination in there. As far as the, like, you know, over consumption of education and spewing it out, like sometimes that is. I've had this come at me both ways where sometimes it's like, no, they're just genuinely excited about something that they have learned and they are just like overflowing with joy at sharing it totally.

A (61:53)

And that's valid.

B (61:54)

But then sometimes it is that other we're like, oh, look at all of these things that I have learned and see how much better I am now. So there's some self reflection.

A (62:05)

When I was a freshman in college, I thought I knew everything. And everybody knew that I thought I knew everything. And going into my summer between freshman and sophomore year, my spiritual father, my campus minister, Joe Belzer, I am forever in his debt. He's like, hey, my challenge for you this summer is to read the book of Proverbs, read from it every single day, read through it as many times as you can, and never tell anybody about that you're reading it or what you've learned from it. Message received. Thank you, Joe.

B (62:36)

Beautiful. All right, well, we've got a handful of resources for this episode, as we do for many of them. You can find those in your podcast app, you can go to bayamandispecip.com and you can use the website to see what we're up to, to support the work that we're doing, to join a group community of people to wrestle through these questions together. Lots of options, lots of things you can do, but we just ask that you take some kind of next step. But thanks for joining us on the Bama podcast. We'll talk to you again soon.

A (63:06)

Sam.