On the eve of Thanksgiving, a day when many Americans become competitive eaters, allow me to turn your attention to one Joey Chestnut.

The Major League Eating website informs us: “Joey Chestnut is the greatest eater in history. … These days Joey Chestnut is truly an American hero and a national treasure. His appetite is legendary and he shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.” If you’re interested, here’s a litany of the 56 eating records Mr. Chestnut currently owns. They include:

• 76 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and buns in 10 minutes
• 121 Twinkies in 6 minutes
• 81 Eggo waffles in 8 minutes
• 53 Taco Bell soft beef tacos in 10 minutes

Mr. Chestnut is listed as weighing a fairly-normal-for-Americans 230 pounds, so we can safely assume that following these gastric exploits he sets other records we would rather not know about.

Conspicuous consumption

My intent here is not to caution (inspire?) you before sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. Biblically, a feast is a celebration and an occasion for gratitude. Jesus feasted joyfully and got criticized for it.

Jesus also fasted, of course. He assumed his followers would do both — as evidenced by statements starting with, “When you feast…” and “When you fast …”. We are to direct our attention to him during both of those practices.

Nov. 28 is the absolute latest day that Thanksgiving can occur. Consequently, this year we have Thanksgiving and the first Sunday of Advent bookending one long weekend. Interestingly, Pastor Luke opens our “Making Room” series of Advent sermons with a focus on Deuteronomy 8. It’s God’s reminder to the people of Israel that he humbled them and tested them during their 40 years in the wilderness by providing them only enough manna to eat each day.

Christians like to rail against sins we ourselves aren’t tempted to commit, but we’re curiously silent about the ones we trip on: Greed. Envy. Pride. Lust. Gluttony. Some of those sins we even celebrate. Sometimes in our conspicuous consumption, we’re all Joey Chestnut.

Look ahead at the next few days of what we might call consumer gluttony. Black Friday. Small Business Saturday. Cyber Monday. Giving Tuesday. Before we even get a chance to be thankful for what we have, we’re barraged by marketers telling us what we need. And we fall for it. If I need to be told by my culture when to buy what, and then be told now that I’ve attended to all my own desires it’s time to think about giving a few leftovers to others … then something is seriously out of whack. The period right after Thanksgiving is a pretty good stretch of time to consider fasting for a day or two.

Fasting is about food

Biblically, fasting refers only to going without food. There certainly is spiritual value in other forms of abstinence—from social media, cable news, smartphones, etc.—but it’s probably not theologically correct to call those fasting. Fasting is denying ourselves something that we literally cannot live without for very long. In doing so, we humble ourselves and our wills. We reinforce our trust in God, and we build the spiritual discipline of saying “no” to our human desires—be they food or anything else.

In the Desiring God blog, David Mathis wrote:

“God designed our bodies not only for food—to eat and enjoy his world—but also to be able to go long periods of time, longer than most of us are comfortable thinking about, in fasting. Fasting accompanies heartfelt prayer in expressing special longing for some particular divine provision of help, and going without such a basic comfort of daily life highlights God’s value beyond his blessings and focuses our affections afresh on him.”

Maybe, in a weird way, there’s something we can learn from Joey Chestnut. He and his fellow Major League Eaters don’t perform these wretched exhibitions every day. Most of the time, they eat fairly normally. For Chestnut, that means mostly a high-fiber diet of salads and other greens. Before competitions, he does a two-day cleanse with water and lemon juice.

OK, it’s still gross. And I’m certainly not talking here about binge-and-purge behavior that leads to eating disorders. But think about it. There’s a rhythm: mostly regular days, punctuated sometimes by feasting, sometimes by fasting. If we forget about competitive eating and think instead of a spiritual rhythm in how we use food, maybe there’s something beneficial here. Because then nothing is about consumption, or lack thereof. Both feasting and fasting can be about taking our eyes off what the culture tells us we should want, and focusing instead on the blessings, callings and trustworthiness of God.

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Advent. Bon appetit.

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