Buttered rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, pea salad, fruit salad, turkey, stuffing, more gravy, ham, candied yams, pumpkin pie, apple pie, more turkey and dressing, a dab more of cranberry sauce, another buttered roll, pecan pie.
Thanksgiving has become the acceptable day of American gluttony when we participate in what Gregory the Great deemed one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony. And why was he called Gregory the Great? Was it because he was a great Pope or because of a physical feature brought on by candied yams, turkey and two slices of pie?
There are times when feasting is itself a religious observance. In fact, every time early Israelites came together for a religious observance it was to feast.
The word “feast” was attached to each of these major events: The Feast of Tabernacles, The Feast of Unleavened Bread and The Feast of Dedication.
Deuteronomy designates that an annual tithe “of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field” was to be brought to Jerusalem where it was to be consumed in a community feast: oxen, sheep, wine and bread.
In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Rosalind asked: “Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?”
Yes. Because gluttony is more than over-eating. It’s about any form of conspicuous consumption.
Susan Northway of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City said, “There are countless ways to live out of proportion: owning sixty pair of shoes, sending text messages too often, running too much, taking showers that last too long, being the kind of person who never puts boundaries on what they ask of other people, wanting more and more and more and still more.”
“The irony of gluttony,” wrote author Neale Walsch, “is that we imagine at first we are grabbing all the happiness we can grab in its many varied forms. But the truth is that we are pushing it away from us.”
What is the instructive relationship between gluttony and thanksgiving? It is this: To consume to excess is a sign that one is not content with what has been given; and this lack of contentment is a sign that one is not grateful—not thankful.
When we say that a gluttonous person is a pig, it means not only that the person longs to get their face in the slop, but that no matter what is set before them, they will always think it is just slop. There is a sinfulness in allowing appetite to make us indifferent to beauty, delicacy and graciousness. Gluttony places no value on what it consumes. It cannot savor; it only devours.
Listen to God’s invitation through Isaiah: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come and eat! Come, have wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”
That is, when we trust in God for God’s bounteous goodness and when we are truly thankful, then whatever that fare is, it is “the richest of fare” and our souls are nourished.
If tempted to be a glutton of the world, recall the words of Johnson Oatman’s hymn: “When you look at others with their lands and gold, Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold; Count your many blessings, money cannot buy Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high. Count your blessings, name them one by one: Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.”
Now, would you please pass the mashed potatoes?
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