THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS - III

The Rev. G. Bradford Hall

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School

(Greed, Gluttony, and Lust)

Greed, Gluttony, and Lust are the last three on the list of Seven Deadly Sins. In early March, we began a brief review of this fascinating collection of human sin —a collection which ruled supreme in the Middle Ages, but seems to have lost some favor during our modern times.

But, the fact is they are still a classic collection to describe human behavior and they form the basis of human frailty, our tendency to sin against God, our neighbor, and ourselves. One writer divides the seven deadly sins into three helpful groupings:

The first three are demonstrative of love gone wrong. They are the cold sins of pride, envy and anger. In the middle lies the sin of sloth, neither hot nor cold, it is a sin of defective love. The last three are sins of excessive love, over-indulgence. They are appropriately called the warm sins —greed, gluttony and lust.

In March we covered the first four. Let us now continue with number 5 on the list:

5. Avarice (Greed). Of all the seven deadly sins, I suspect avarice is the most popular these days, for it gets a lot of press. We watched the greedy looting of shops and stores during the Los Angeles riots; we read regularly about the avarice of “Wall Street” business deals; and, if the truth be known, we all struggle with wanting, buying, and possessing too much.

Avarice is defined as inordinate self-love seeking (1) to exalt oneself by possessing things, wealth and power; or (2) to lose oneself through acquiring things in excessive amounts. Avarice virtually becomes idolatry when we worship goods, power or wealth, rejecting or neglecting a true relationship with God.. Some familiar synonyms are rapaciousness, covetousness, miserliness, stinginess, and cupidity (a strong desire for more).

Note that the basic definition of avarice presents two sides of this deadly sin —one seeking to lose oneself, the other to exalt oneself. The first is perhaps the most common side of avarice. It is Silas Marner, the miser, reaching his arms around a pile of coins, embracing and forever counting. If there are any windows in the room where the miser counts, they are closed and shuttered, and the door to his home is always bolted. “It is no accident,” says Fairlie, “that miser comes from the Latin root miser = misery.”

Perhaps the greatest literary caricature of the pinched miser losing himself in his wealth is Charles Dickens’ character, Ebenezer Scrooge, the envy of all his contemporaries, yet the most miserable of all creatures. And how often do we read about some poor soul who has died alone, poor and penniless, leaving an apartment or mattress filled with unused money, hoarded over a lifetime.

While the miser is a classic definition of the fifth deadly sin, it is really the second side of avarice which infects our modern world. Modern avarice is inordinate self-love seeking not to lose oneself, but to exalt oneself by acquiring and possessing things and wealth and power. And, with this modern definition of avarice, we shall also use its more familiar synonym, GREED. When we say that word, I suspect we immediately think about the world of business in the 1980’s.

Indeed, the deadly sin of greed in the market place makes for popular reading in the Wall Street Journal and on Best Seller book lists. This country still staggers under the weight of the great junk bond plunder of Wall Street by insider trading in which greed literally ruled the hearts of many ordinary people. What makes these corporate stories of greed powerful is the overwhelming picture of men so obsessed with the desire for wealth, power, and success that they lose touch with reality, and eventually themselves.

Indeed, near the end of his short-lived business career, Ivan Boesky stood before a graduating class of his business school and said:

“A little bit of greed never hurt anybody. Greed is
healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.”
(His comments were greeted with a mixture of applause and laughter.)

The fact is, greed infects most of us in one way or another, as we pursue our need for status, recognition, success, and even emotional fulfillment. Take, for example, the modern phenomenon, shopping —buying more than we need or will ever use. I know, for I, too, struggle with this 20th century version of an old sin. I notice that many stores must now advertise, “For the man/woman who has everything.” The truth is most of us have everything we will ever need. We laughed when we read about Imelda Marcos’ collection of 3,000 pairs of shoes, but her excess only mirrored our excesses.

We all know people who have become their possessions, who no longer possess them but are possessed by them. The filled and overflowing barns of Jesus’ first century parable in Luke have become in the 20th century the over-filled homes, garages, and closets. I know mine are full.

6 and 7. Gluttony and Lust = Glust.

I choose to put the last two sins together as one word —Glust— for they are the look-alike twins in the family of the Seven Deadly Sins.

The great difficulty with all three warm deadly sins is that they take something natural and of great value, indeed, a necessity for our life, and exaggerate its importance, so that it becomes our life. Avarice does this with possessions; gluttony does it with food and drink, and lust with sex.

“Glust” is particularly deadly because it blinds us to the beauty of God’s gifts and the pleasures of sustenance and procreation. One no longer savors and enjoys, but devours and demolishes. They are sins of excess and, as one writer says: “There are five ways to sin glustfully —too much, too soon, too expensive, too eagerly, and making too much of a fuss.”

The warm sins of gluttony and lust are sins of addiction... we even use their names to describe our addictive behavior. We are gluttons for work, gluttons for punishment and we lust for fame, possessions, and goods. Modern psychology points out that, like it or not, we all have our own private addictions. Some are obvious and well-known as over-eating, drinking to excess, and/or promiscuous sexual behavior; others remain well-concealed.

Eating, drinking, and sex are, when misused, seductive activities and so, by their nature, place us under a great deal of internal tension. Food, drink, and sex are good in themselves, yet are so very dangerous if we misuse or abuse them. What begins as harmless over-indulgence can become, in the long run, an addictive craving.

What begins as a minor habit, which was once winked at or casually dismissed, can creep up from within and destroy us. Glust has to do with not knowing when enough is enough; when food or drink or sex becomes a focus, an idol; when our “happiness” depends on over-indulgence.

Glust also breaks the Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you;” for as our 12-step programs tell us, our sinful preoccupation with self-indulgence affects all who are a part of our lives. It is a family disease.

The capital sins of glust are difficult because they involve a choice — an act of will. As one theologian, Fred Buechner, put it so well: “Sex is like using nitroglycerin. It can be used either to blow up bridges or to heal hearts, depending on how you choose to use it.”

And now we must close this brief exploration of the seven deadly sins. They are part and parcel of human nature, but that does not mean we are stuck with them in our daily walk through life.

I learned in engineering that for every force there is a counter force; for every action there is a reaction. That is true for our seven sins as well. For each sin there is a virtue which counters the force of the sin:

Pride............................Humility
Envy.............................Generosity
Anger........................... Patience, Meekness
Sloth..............................Zeal
Greed............................Simplicity
Gluttony.........................Temperance, Moderation
Lust...............................Chastity, Modesty

We will speak in more detail about these virtues, but for now, remember these lovely words of Paul about choosing good over evil —virtue over sin:

“Rejoice in the Lord always . . . and have no
anxiety about anything... (and above all) whatever
is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is lovely,
whatever is gracious...think about these things.”
(Not about sin).
AMEN