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“Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” -Colossians 3:5 (NASB)
The
Apostle Paul calls us to consider ourselves dead our passions. Passions are
things that drive us, that cause us to suffer (the basic meaning of “passion”).
In our day we often employ the term “passion” in a positive sense—a passion for
reaching the hungry, a passion for Jesus. These are the things that motivate our
lives and drive us to seek and serve and the Lord.
At
the time of the writing of the New Testament and the early centuries of the
Church, however, “passion” referred primarily to the negative things that drive
us. These are the destructive compulsions and addictions of our lives. The
early theologian, Evagrius Ponticus, highlighted eight of these compulsions
that can take control of our lives: gluttony, lust, greed, anger, inordinate
sadness, bored laziness, vanity and pride.
The
practices of fasting, giving alms, and prayer confront these destructive
passions in our lives. Fasting, in particular, confronts gluttony, lust and
greed.
First
on the list of destructive passions is gluttony. When gluttony has a hold on
us, we eat not just what we need or should properly enjoy in life. Instead, we
keep on eating, trying to get more and more pleasure or attempting to fill an
empty place in our hearts. Ironically, when we are driven by gluttony, we often
eat so quickly that we fail to savor the food in our mouths. Instead, our focus
is on “getting more.”
Because
eating is essential to life, gaining self-control over the passion of gluttony
is foundational to gaining victory over all the destructive passions that seek
to control us, asserts Evagrius.
Along
with gluttony, lust is a powerful passion in our lives. Both of these are
compulsions of desire—we want something, not only to satisfy our physical needs
but to try to satisfy an inner compulsion that craves for more and more. Gluttony
and lust go hand-in-hand.
Greed
is a third passion of desire—concupiscence. God created us to desire, for
desire is what draws us out of ourselves to reach out in love toward our
Creator and other people. Because of the Fall, however, our desiring faculty (concupiscentia in Latin) has become twisted
in on ourselves. Our desiring becomes self-focused and is never satisfied. Our
gluttony, lust and greed spring from our inner concupiscence that craves incessantly.
Like an addiction, no matter how much we feed it, we grasp for more in order to
get our “fix.”
If
we can gain victory over food—a basic need of life—we can become free from lust
and greed and the underlying bottomless craving of the passions and their
demands. Fasting is therefore so important in our lives. It is not that we
ourselves gain victory by our will power. Rather, fasting exposes the inner
passions. Foregoing food brings the concupiscence to the surface where it can
be dealt with. Then we call upon God’s mercy.
Lent
is all about acknowledging our fallen nature and crying out for God’s mercy. We
can never defeat gluttony, lust and greed by fasting alone. Instead, Lenten
fasting helps us face those driving compulsions—those controlling passions—that
must be taken to the cross. As they die with Christ on the cross (Romans
6:1-14), we are raised to new life and the Holy Spirit bears the fruit of
self-control in us (Galatians 5:1-23). This is the Paschal Mystery of new life.
May
we 0pen ourselves anew this Lent to the practice of fasting so that our hidden
passions may be exposed and brought to Christ’s passion on the cross. May we
than rise with Christ to a transformed life, no longer controlled by inner
compulsions but instead free to enjoy God’s blessings, such as food, and free
to live our lives fully for our Lord!
©
2018 Glenn E. Myers
