Sirach 31:17-31: a reflection

17Be first to stop for manners’ sake. Don’t be insatiable, lest you offend. 18And if you sit among many, Don’t reach out your hand before them. 19How sufficient to a well-mannered man is a very little. He doesn’t breathe heavily in his bed. 20Healthy sleep comes from moderate eating. He rises early, and his wits are with him. The pain of wakefulness, colic, and griping are with an insatiable man. 21And if you have been forced to eat, rise up in the middle of it, and you shall have rest. 22Hear me, my son, and don’t despise me, and in the end you will appreciate my words. In all your works be skillful, and no disease will come to you. 23People bless him who is liberal with his food. The testimony of his excellence will be believed. 24The city will murmur at him who is a stingy with his food. The testimony of his stinginess will be accurate. 25Don’t show yourself valiant in wine, for wine has destroyed many. 26The furnace tests the temper of steel by dipping; so does wine test hearts in the quarreling of the proud. 27Wine is as good as life to men, if you drink it in moderation. What life is there to a man who is without wine? It has been created to make men glad. 28Wine drunk in season and in moderation is joy of heart and gladness of soul: 29Wine drunk excessively is bitterness of soul, with provocation and conflict. 30Drunkenness increases the rage of a fool to his hurt. It diminishes strength and adds wounds. 31Don’t rebuke your neighbor at a banquet of wine. Don’t despise him in his mirth. Don’t speak a word of reproach to him. Don’t distress him by making demands of him.

Sirach offers down-to-earth wisdom about eating and drinking, and its theme is moderation. Eat modestly, he counsels; do not be greedy at the table; healthy sleep and a clear head come from moderate eating, while the glutton suffers. And about wine he is balanced: wine in moderation is a joy of heart and gladness of soul, created to make people glad; but wine drunk to excess brings bitterness, quarreling, and ruin. The wisdom throughout is temperance, enjoying God's good gifts without excess.

Notice the balance Sirach strikes. He is no ascetic who condemns food and wine as evils; he celebrates them as good gifts, wine created to make the heart glad. But he insists on moderation, because the same good gifts, taken to excess, turn destructive: gluttony brings misery, drunkenness brings bitterness and strife. The gifts are good; the excess ruins them. Temperance is what keeps God's good gifts good.

That is wise and practical guidance for our own enjoyment of God's gifts, not only food and drink but all the good pleasures of life. They are genuinely good, given by God to be enjoyed. But without moderation, self-control, the same gifts become masters that harm us; the pleasure taken to excess turns bitter. The path of wisdom is neither to despise God's good gifts nor to indulge them without limit, but to enjoy them temperately, with self-control. Enjoy God's good gifts, gladly and gratefully, but with moderation, so that what is good stays good and does not become your ruin.

Lord, Sirach celebrates your good gifts of food and wine while counseling moderation, because the same gifts taken to excess turn to ruin. Give me the wisdom of temperance. Keep me from both a joyless rejecting of your good gifts and an excess that harms me. Help me enjoy what you have given gladly and gratefully, but with self-control, so that your good gifts stay good and do not master me. Teach me moderation in all things.