Jesus defied many of the legalistic rules and rituals the religious leaders demanded in his
day. He also, however, opposed their efforts to look pious while privately living self-indulgent
lives. People would whitewash tombs as a warning, because touching a grave could cause
ritual defilement. But whitewash or no, there was still a corpse inside.

• Greed may lead us to simply buy and hoard stuff, even if it sits unused. Gluttony and selfindulgence, on the other hand, are about consuming. How can gluttony tug at people (like religious leaders) who might fear being caught in sins like lust or wrath? What inner and social forces make gluttony “respectable”?
• If gluttony was, in some ways, a relatively “respectable” sin, why did Jesus use such strong language? What made the self-indulgence of the religious leaders hypocritical? In what ways can an addiction to consumption (of food or other pleasures) be like a dead body at the center of a person’s life?