Many months ago, I was challenged by several members of the congregation to preach a series of sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins. The expectation I have gathered from a number of comments was that I would go through the seven deadly sins one at a time, presumably until I came to the particular sin which was their favorite and they could feel celebrated and affirmed.

I have chosen not to do that because, in fact, the seven deadly sins are not anything like a list of "No_nos." They are rather seven examples of ways in which we human beings stop ourselves, prevent our own growing, prevent our own intimacy, and mess up our own lives.

One of the things it is important to keep in mind about sins __ small "s," plural __ is that each individual piece of the behavior of the seven deadly sins isn't even in itself naughty. There is nothing wrong, sinful, much less deadly

about "Hey, I'm pretty good, I did that well;" (Pride)

about "Gee, that's nice. I'd like one of those, too." (Envy)

There's nothing particularly naughty about "Oh, thank you, I'll have a second helping." (Gluttony)

There isn't even anything particularly naughty about "Mmmmm" __ depends on what you do with it. (Lust)

There's nothing particularly naughty about becoming angry at injustice and unfairness. (Wrath)

There isn't even a great deal of naughtiness to "I need to make a little more to have the things I need and want for my family". (Greed)

And nobody could claim that it's naughty to say, "Mmm, no, not right now". (Sloth)

The paradigmatic deadly sin, in my never to be humble opinion, is gluttony. In gluttony you see most clearly what it is that we do to ourselves. This particular society is, generally speaking, and over the last twenty years of my life, becoming more and more gluttonous in the most degrading and pointless way. The expansion of food that we consume that no rational, sane person would consider edible keeps growing like crazy.

Some of you have perhaps heard about the book that is just out, "Deconstructing the Twinkie" __ thirty_nine separate ingredients in the Twinkie, most of which are inedible. There is the story of the guy who took a Twinkie and nailed it to the wall of his store and twenty years later it had not changed a bit, except that it had changed occupants __ spiders who had used it as one end of their web, several times, many generations.

Gluttony in its classical sense was simply too much of a good thing. What makes gluttony especially deadly today is that it so often involves too much of a bad thing.

There are two questions that it seems to me are appropriately asked about each of the seven deadly sins. The first is: What hole in the soul is being filled by this particular 'too much'. It's obviously not the need for fuel. When I was a kid we fully expected the day would arrive when our moms would be able to bring home a jar of pills that would be set on the dinner table and you would take x number of those pills and they would provide your complete and healthy nutrition with no worries at all, pure fuel.

At the heart of gluttony is eating and eating and eating, not for fuel, not even for the gustatory delight of exquisitely prepared meals.

If you're going to be gluttonous, at least do it with quality. That's the way to go. And even if quality, at a certain point one is savoring the more and not the quality. As at a wine tasting, at that point one could just as well have, and if the equipment is available should have, settled for just the taste.

The second question is: What are you doing that much instead of?

And here, the industrial revolution and the capitalist irony fascinates me. One of the things that makes possible the incredible assortment of things and stuff that is available to us out there is that it is only available and can only be kept available and affordable to so many by having way, way too much. It's that we can produce all of that so efficiently only if we make a lot of it! We find ourselves in an interesting bind where in order to continue to have $500 computers we have to make a lot of computers. In order to have those interesting metal shells we all travel the highways and byways in, so carefully keeping ourselves separated from one another and from the world we pass through, we have to sell a lot of cars or nobody could afford them.

But the truly materialist orientation would not be gluttony. The truly materialist orientation would be to take the time and the effort and the investment of interest to really appreciate the quality and the process.

When one of you invites me to their home for dinner and great love and skill has gone into the preparation of something that is of special interest to you and you share this with me; even if you share too much, that's materialist. When I invite you over to my house and we lay on piles and piles and piles of fast food, you may eat but there will be little gustatory delight. And if we succeed in getting you to overeat, that gluttony is without even the pleasure that might go with it. The truly materialist orientation would be to appreciate the quality and the process and to use them in the service of intimacy.

A characteristic of pride that makes it a deadly sin is not that you take satisfaction in accomplishment. There is nothing deadly sinful about that feeling and experience of doing something well, and in the practice learning to it even better, and taking great satisfaction in that.

What's the hole being filled?

When pride becomes the gluttony of public approval __ "I'm really not that good, I'm faking it. If I backed off from pushing my pride in how good I am at you, you certainly would recognize how inadequate I am."

In the process of doing that much I am deprived of the intimacy that might well come from your approval.

There are a number of kinds of pride that I have never been able to understand because I don't have a parallel experience to it.

It always fascinates me when I meet somebody who is deeply and commitedly proud of their ethnic background. I don't put that down but I don't understand it. I was at a ministers' meeting some years ago in Cleveland, Ohio, and due to the vicissitudes of air travel I got there a day early __ it was either that or get there a day late. I happened to be looking around for something to do to kill time and there was a meeting going on in one of the meeting rooms of the hotel. I peeked in and was noticed and was invited to come in. It was meeting having to do with racism within the denomination. The first thing they did was to go around the group and ask everyone to say where they were from and what their ethnic background was. There were all sorts of ethnic backgrounds celebrated with great pride, and when it came to me I said, "I'm Mike Young. I'm from Honolulu and I'm po' white trash."

This happens to be the accurate truth. My grandmother on my mother's side was the original trailer bat. Me and my cousin were the first 'edicated' folk ever in the family. My brother has traced our background back as many generations as he can dig up the data and it appears that we came over as indentured servants and never rose above that for about six generations. One of my grandfathers was hanged as a horse thief after marrying the village prostitute, an Indian. I am po' white trash. Ain't much there to take great pride in. And they wouldn't let me take pride in it.

Envy. I admit there have been times when I have envied those who say, "Well, I'm Scotch_Irish, and, you know, I've got the right_color kilt and all that to go with it." For envy, no matter how much I have, someone has more or better. And if I'm only known or loved according to how much of that I have, if that's how I experience my relationships to that stuff, again, what is lost is the intimacy.

My wife's mother was an incredibly good cook, and I would not accuse Eleanor of gluttony, but she exercised one of the pieces of this and tempted her children, certainly, into gluttony. For, food in that household was the way in which love and approval was expressed. And frankly, it was the only way in which love and approval was expressed. If you could hear the language of food, you could hear the approval and the compliments. But if, like so many of we hyper_verbal folk, you needed to actually hear somebody say, "Gee, I approve of you," it was thin gruel, indeed. For a country where so many of us are dramatically, maybe even life_threateningly, overweight, one wonders what it is that food is a substitute for, for it's not always the same thing for each of us.

But again, the consequence: what one does that much instead of is so often intimacy.

I will pass on laying out the relationships about lust. That one I think you have sufficient dirty imagination to be able to figure out for yourself. Except to acknowledge that my wife does not expect me not to notice the well_turned curve. She only expects me to always choose hers.

Wrath is one of those that is a bother for all of us; for wrath, I think, is largely misunderstood. Wrath it seems to me, is essentially a form of emotional self_indulgence. There is a world of difference between the anger that refuses to be treated that way, the anger on behalf of another at the violations of justice and fairness, and the over_the_top wrath that so often comes. You get the impression that the wrathful person does not believe that anyone would pay attention to their concerns or let them have their way without the excess. I have known a number of people in my life whose only problem_solving skill was what the psychologists used to call Up-Roar.

Up-Roar is when the police officer stops you, you start in on him screaming and yelling and insulting and carrying on until he decides that it is just too damn much trouble dealing with this idiot person and so he backs off and you don't get the ticket. Or your teenager says, "What, how could you possibly . . . ? I didn't . . . ! "

Some folk are always filled with righteous indignation – Up-Roar – so of course you must agree with them, or at least disengage.

Anger is an incredibly powerful tool when turned in the service of effective action. Anger is not one of the better ways to get friends and loved ones closer to you. But honest anger, turned and used to respond appropriately and effectively, can provide the motor, the energy, for doing things that are quite wonderful.

Greed is sort of like gluttony, except that it has to do with stuff and money. For most of the greedy, it isn't just having a little bit more than I need to pay the bills. It's that money and stuff and more have become the measure of who I am. No one would respect me, respond to me, fear me, let me have power over them unless I had so damn much ________ (fill in the blank). Money, stuff, those symbols of great power. Other than the sweet young thing who knows I'm going to die shortly, no one very often comes close to the greedy.

Sloth. This one's easy. You've all had the experience of"Oh,jeez, if! get up off my behind and do all this stuff, then people are going to expect me to always get off my behind and do all this stuff, and more and more is going to be expected of me. If I just kick back and don't do it, if I put it off and they get used to the fact that I put it off, then nobody's going to really expect me to do very much. Besides which I'm never going to have the experience of failure as long as I never try much of anything. Please go away and leave me alone."

Actually, getting what I say I want is a different animal entirely.

So the deadliness of the seven deadly sins is not in the wanting or the tasting or the lusting or the anger or the laziness, but it's what it is they're in our lives in place of. So often our lives are filled with variations on the seven deadly sins that keep us at arm's length from those who would be friend, lover, intimate. The Seven Deadly sins keep us from paying attention to our own lives and finding the richness and depth that is potentially there.

And so I recommend to you that you go forth and take pride in you, your life. When you see things that would enrich you that you do what it takes to acquire them. Deeply appreciate and maybe learn how to prepare well those foods that are so wonderful. Appreciate beauty, whose ever it might be and wherever you encounter it. When you find yourself angry, turn that anger to the service of justice and intimacy. Get and have what you need and use it in the service of justice and intimacy. And get off your butt and do all these things!