SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 23:2 (NIV)
“…put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.”
STORY:
It was the end of VBS for my seminary church. Everybody in the community would be gathering in the fellowship hall for the closing covered dish dinner. Remembering those events from my formative years I requested that the congregation bring two dishes. They questioned me concerning my request, but I stayed with my original plan. It would not reflect well on our church if we had all these town folk and run out of food. So two dishes remained the norm for that gathering. As the congregation began to gather that summer evening the food just kept coming through the door. Little did I know at the time, but a dish meant a salad, two vegetables, a starch, a meat and a dessert - we enough food to feed the whole community for a week. We were guilty of gluttony that evening.
OBSERVATION:
Upon boarding the cruise ship recently we were ushered towards the buffet since our staterooms were not ready. The two people ahead of me in line piled on the food onto two large plates and they went back for seconds. Someone in our group observed that they had hoped to see some whales on the cruise, but didn’t think they would see them lounging around the ship’s pool area.
Dr. David DeSilva, the teacher and inspirational speaker on the cruise, while addressing the subject matter of the Book of Revelation spoke to his difficulty of address the excesses of time of the writing of the book and doing it on a cruise ship which thrives on meeting our excesses of food, leisure, entertainment, gambling, and shopping. The two just quite match up … but he did it anyway.
We live in a world of excesses even as people are going jobless, children going to bed hungry every night, and we focus on getting more. Or as one MSNBC commercial mentions, “The Haves and the Have Mores.” Therein is the challenge … the real challenge for us trying to live out the Christian faith. To enjoy the benefits of our hard work, but to do it in such a way that lifts up our neighbors and those in need.
Wasn’t John Wesley who said, “Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” He hits the Christian life balance squarely on the head.
PRAYER:
Help us to discover the proper balance in our life and within our lifestyle. Amen.
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