Two years ago Morgan Spurlock created a film documentary called Supersize Me, which won several international film awards. It was based on an experiment to see what would happen if he would eat nothing but McDonald’s fast food for one month. He had three rules for this experiment: 1. During the month, he could only eat what was available over the counter at McDonald’s. 2. He couldn’t supersize his meal unless the cashier offered, but if the cashier offered he had to supersize it. 3. He had to eat every item on the menu at least once during that month. He ate every meal at McDonald’s three times a day.
Spurlock gained nine pounds in just the first week. After two weeks he had gained 18 pounds. At the end of the experiment he had gained 27 pounds in just one month. His blood pressure had risen to an unhealthy level, and he battled indigestion, nausea and depression. After three weeks, his doctor was worried about his liver. His cholesterol and other blood levels were out of control, and the medical team looking after him was concerned about a variety of health issues. He was making himself sick, and he felt tired much of the time. In spite of eating like he did, he was becoming hungry between meals. The food satisfied him for awhile, but then his blood sugar would crash and he would be ravishingly hungry. He found that when he did eat the fast food, it not only helped to satisfy his hunger, it gave him an emotional high. Only 7 items on McDonald’s menu do not contain sugar, and that includes black coffee. The more he ate, the more he wanted.
However, today we are not just talking about overeating, but the larger issue of overindulgence in general that has become the American way of life. There are several reasons that we have come to this place in the United States. My parents and grandparents went through the Great Depression. They vowed that their children would never have to go through what they did. They sacrificed and worked extremely hard to see that we would have a better life. And now we have it, the biggest and best of everything. One of the most difficult things we face is making a selection at a store while being overwhelmed with choices. We overindulge when we spend countless hours in front of the television. 49% of Americans say they watch too much TV, yet the TV set is on almost 7 hours a day in the average home. Six million videos are rented every day in this country. (By contrast, American libraries only check out 3 million items a day.) We allow our children to spend countless hours using video games, many of which have violent and sexual themes. And where would we be without the Big Kmart, Wal-Mart Superstore and Lowes? Our earning power can’t keep up with our yearning power. Many people have more than one credit card maxed out. We want these things, we expect these things and take them for granted. The spirit of Lent and self-denial does not play well in a self-indulgent culture. Mardi Gras is more our style. Fat Tuesday wins out over Ash Wednesday. But Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:34-36).
How did we get here, and what is the Christian response to our overindulgent culture? I think the first thing Christians need to do is: Reject the spirit of entitlement and embrace a spirit of gratitude. McDonald’s tells us: “You deserve a break today.” L’Oreal tells women to buy their products: “Because you’re worth it.” Chase credit cards advertise that they “provide great benefits and deliver the superior service you deserve.” The spas are calling for us to “pamper ourselves.” The car dealers try to sell us the “luxury model.” Many of the companies today make their pitch with the theme that we have somehow earned what they have, regardless of whether we can afford it. Life owes us something.
You cannot know contentment when you are nursing a feeling that somehow life has cheated you and it owes you something. You will never experience true happiness unless you embrace gratitude for what you already have. You will never get to the end of indulging yourself if you feel like you need more and deserve it. You will always answer the question of, “How much is enough,” by saying, “Just a little bit more.”
The Bible tells the story of the prodigal son. He was coming of age, and his father was getting older but living longer than he expected. Perhaps his father would live so long that he would use up what would be his inheritance. He was evidently very unhappy. He had a spirit of entitlement. He thought his father owed him something. He asked for his inheritance before his father died and somehow thought he was entitled to it. The amazing thing in the story is that the father gives him his inheritance, even though it is a great insult to the father. The father knew he would never learn the lesson of gratitude unless he lost his sense of entitlement. After he wasted his inheritance and came to ruin, the Bible says, “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father” (Luke 15:17-20).
When the prodigal son moved from thinking about what he deserved to thinking about the things for which he had to be grateful, it was life changing. How many people do you know who are not grateful for anything and feel the world owes them everything? It is all about them, and they never get enough, even though their life goals are to have as much, do as much, enjoy as much and experience as much as possible. The more we think we are entitled to everything we want, the more we will become ensnared by overindulgence. If we want the ice cream cone we should have it. If we want the car, we should have it — even if it is beyond our budget. Of course there are needs all around us, but our clothing expenses will not allow us to help. Our tools or electronic toys keep us financially strapped. We want them, therefore we need them. We need them, therefore we ought to have them. But the Scripture says that even though we have to use things, we are not to be engrossed in them. Things are good, but they are just things. It is when we realize that these things come from God and we receive them with humble thankfulness that they lose their grip on us. The Bible says, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4).
The second thing we need to do in order to escape the trap of overindulgence is: We need to move from excess to a spirit of moderation. This is a struggle for all of us, whether we want a pair of shoes to go with every possible outfit, or we want the latest, greatest electronic gadget or computer. (I’m preaching to myself here.) I can think of a lot of books I would like to get to round out my library. I won’t be able to read them all, but they look impressive on the shelf. I don’t just buy food so that I can stay alive, I buy food for its taste. Therefore I buy the wrong kind of food which actually harms my health rather than helps it. I use food for entertainment rather than nourishment. I buy a lot of snack food that it would better for me to do without. I live to eat rather than eating to live. Excess! I don’t just buy a sweater, I buy a closet full of sweaters. I buy things as I pass them in the store just because they fascinate me, or I think I may need them in the future. I buy things because I want them rather than because I need them. That’s excess.
I am interested in the number of people who have told me that they took the piece in the bulletin as a challenge and decided not to buy anything new or unnecessary during Lent. They are learning it is a sacrifice. As they identify with the sufferings of Jesus in this small way they are learning to do without, even though they could easily have afforded what they wanted. In the process, they learn they really don’t have to have everything they want. And as we live in anticipation of Easter, we learn the joy of the expectation of fulfillment. We don’t have to have immediate gratification, because we are looking forward to an eternal reward. We are moving from form to substance, from the unreal to the real, from the things which have no lasting value to the things of eternal worth, because we live by faith, not by sight. The Bible says, “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:23-25). There is nothing wrong with having things. There is nothing wrong with wealth. The danger is seeing these things as an end in themselves. The danger is taking credit for what we have, rather than seeing these things as God’s blessing. The danger is using them only for our own pleasure rather than the purposes of God. When that happens there is excess.
When I read about Alice Pike’s arrest, I wondered what she could have been thinking. Alice tried to pay for her Wal-Mart purchases with a $1 million bill. If you want to know what Alice was thinking — she wasn’t. She went to the register with $1,675 worth of stuff, and what is amazing is, she expected change. I usually leave the math problems to my son-in-law, but I think that is a lot of change. Did she really expect the cashier to hand over $998,325.00? Did she think the cashier would get on the loudspeaker and say, “We need 10’s and 20’s at register 5”? Alice helps to remind us that greed does not make sense. None of this does at any level. We indulge in lies and expect good results. We overindulge in food, or alcohol, or entertainment and expect it to make us feel better. We take what isn’t ours, just because we want it, and expect it to work out. We refuse to resist temptation and expect peace. We live self-centered lives and expect strong relationships. We ignore repentance and expect forgiveness. Like Alice, we live on fake values and expect change.
Material blessings can actually separate us from God. This is what Moses warned the Israelites about when he said to them, “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Deuteronomy 8:11-14). The Bible says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). The danger is that instead of loving the Giver and being thankful for the gift, we love the gift and forget the Giver.
The final point is that in order to avoid the trap of self-indulgence: We need to move from the temporal and focus on the eternal. Pity the person who is not a Christian and has no relationship with God. Is it any wonder they are self-indulgent? They have nothing else to live for. Life is simply a matter of pleasing and satisfying themselves. So they indulge and pamper and please themselves. If other people fit into that plan, fine, but if they do not, they shut them out of the circle of their lives. The result is that their lives become smaller and smaller and smaller until they are the only ones left in the circle.
In June of 2005, Dennis Kozlowski the former executive of Tyco walked out of a Manhattan courtroom through a swarm of photographers. He had just been convicted on multiple counts of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from Tyco. Kozlowski’s lifestyle included unbelievable excesses. There was the $2.2 million dollar birthday party for his wife, Karen, complete with dancing nymphs and an ice statue of Michelangelo’s David pouring out vodka. Kozlowski was raised in a poor section of Newark, New Jersey, but after working his way through college, he went to work for Tyco. He eventually became CEO and doubled the company’s business. Kozlowski lived in extravagance and self-indulgence — much of it at the company’s expense. He had homes in New York, Nantucket, and Colorado. He bought a $30 million racing yacht, and installed his mistresses in Tyco-owned apartments. But eventually, trouble came. The New York State Banking Department tracked a series of unusual bank transfers. New York’s district attorney investigated and it led to Kozlowski’s indictment on charges of corporate corruption. His indulgence literally led to bondage.
What made Kozlowski do it? What makes many people do the same thing on a smaller scale? What makes me want to please and indulge myself? It is the lack of an eternal perspective. It is looking at this world as though this is all there is. It is the lack of a relationship with God that makes us set up ourselves as God. When you don’t live for God you only live for yourself. When you don’t obey God you obey your desires — and those desires eventually enslave you. Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. [And here is the key!] But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:25-33).
Paul the apostle encouraged us to have an eye on eternity when he wrote: “What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who. . . buy something, [should live] as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).
Rodney J. Buchanan
March 12, 2006
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
