OBSERVATION
When reading Psalm 78, I remembered the Israelites forty year wandering in the wilderness, documented throughout Exodus. I also noticed the following terms: "Give ear..." (v. 1); "...to teach to their children..." (v. 5); "...and arise and tell them to their children..."(v. 7); "...not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments..." (v. 7); "...full of wrath..." (v. 21); "...did not trust his saving power." (v. 22). However, my mind focussed on the last term, "...did not trust his saving power." (v. 22), which will be a personal focus for me.
My theory is that the Israelites were not so much suffering from a physical over-hunger for food but an innate sin-struggle of distrust in God's taking care of them physically and spiritually. There seems to be a constant and consistent forgetfulness on the part of the Israelites, following by a constant and consistent reminder from God that He loved them and would take care of them.
INTERPRETATION
Initially after reading the passage and the following email letter:
"October has now come and gone. Halloween is over. But November is here. And that means an even richer holiday is right around the corner... Thanksgiving! As we prepare to enjoy the coming holiday season, we are called to think about the biblical picture of a community of believers who, after a hard day's work, are feasting together and enjoying great food while telling each other of the great things of God.
"But too often, we are faced with the American reality of the isolated individual who, after ordering fast food in the drive-thru, crams down a meal and rushes home to watch TV and indulge self.
"For the next few weeks, we will be discussing a commonly accepted sin in our culture: the sin of gluttony. We will start by asking, what exactly is gluttony? When and how does food become an idol? Before this weekend:
* Read Psalm 78:17-32.
* Consider: How were Israel's excessive food cravings a
reflection of their lack of trust in God?"
reflection of their lack of trust in God?"
my first question was, "What does Psalm 78:17-32 have to do with gluttony? Then, I read the entire chapter of Psalm 78 to get a better, contextual view and then I found some interesting viewpoints which I would like to share with you.
According to www.dictionary.com, gluttony is defined as "excessive eating and drinking, habitual eating to excess". In that same link's thesaurus section, gluttony is also associated with debauchery, greed, hunger, license and pleasure.
I remembered from the movie, "Se7en", there was a scene where the two police detectives discovered a man who was forced to eat himself to death at gunpoint. Here's the description given by Detective Somerset:
"He ate his fill, and was forced to continue eating . . . till his body rejected the food, the killer held a bucket under him, and then kept serving. He took his time. The coroner says this might have gone on for more than twelve hours. The victim's throat was swollen from the effort, and there was probably a point where he passed out. That's when (sic) killer kicked him in the stomach. Popped him." (Source: http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/seven_production.html)
Another scene comes to mind from an episode of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation". In their sixth season, an episode entitled "Dog Eats Dog" portrays the death of a man who literally ate himself to death due to Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare gentic (sic) disorder that causes ceaseless, uncontrollable excruciating hunger. It's as if your stomach was truly a bottomless pit . . . . . Sufferers are born with a flawed hypothalamus. Normal hypothalamus receives a signal from the stomach – "I'm full, stop eating." (Source: http://twiztv.com/scripts/csi/season6/csi-609.txt) But obviously, I believe that we can assume that the Scriptures are not referring to forced eating or a rare genetic disease.
I know that for me, I keep being reminded, by God through His Word and my closest Christian brothers, that I need to be less self-reliant, self-dependent (a.k.a. independent) and more dependent on Him. Just as God was constantly reminding the Israelites of His love for them and concern for their safety, I am also constantly reminded of His same love and concern for me!
Instead of being gluttonous toward self-reliance and independence of Him, I need to instead be gluttonous of His love and concern for me!
AFTER THE SERMON (What Pastor Paul Matthies said!)
Link to listen to the sermon soon!
Read Ezekiel 16:49
*We as Americans are guilty of pride, excess of food and prosperous of
ease.
*Food and gluttony is not an external issue
*A glutton is someone who loves himself too much!
A Biblical defintion of gluttony is "a lack of faith in God expressing itself through excess and expects total satisfaction from idols of choice at the expense of community, responsibility and trusting worship of God".
Several misconceptions about gluttony:
1. Gluttony is just overeating
Numbers 29:12 – God commands feasting
Matthew 11; 22; Revelation 19 – examples of feasting
Israel feasted at appointed times; moderation vs. excess
They feasted in community, not in isolation
Gluttony isolates us from others
Gluttony doesn't provide love and acceptance
2. Only overweight people are gluttonous and underweight people are
non-gluttonous.
Proverbs 23:19-21
*Slothfulness, laziness and irresponsibility
*Lust, convetousness, anger, gossip, other sins
*Losing weight doesn't bring happiness, just healthiness!
3. Enjoying food is sinful
*Food is not intrinsically sinful!
1 Corinthians 10:31; 8:8
Romans 14:23 "Eating is not from faith"!
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 – Eating apart from God!
*Eating is a sign of rebellion
*Eating is a means of control
*Failure to give thanks to God
Genesis 3:6; Numbers 11; Psalm 78:17-32; Genesis 25:29-34; Phillipians 3:19; John 6:26, 35-36
(Originally posted on www.myspace.com/jkirton2 on November 6, 2006)
