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07.26.09

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

JUNK FOOD

EXODUS 16:11-18; JOHN 6:24-35

• Appetite
• Junk Food Junkies
• “You are what you eat.”—so the saying goes
• Now, there is evidence to back it up, at least where what you snack on is concerned
• Alan Hirsch, the neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, had 800 volunteers take personality tests and then asked them to name their favorite snacks
• The results, reported in the journal Alternative Medicine (May 2007) were astounding
• People who share a personality type choose the same snack 95% of the time
• Lovers of cheese curls have a high sense of morals and ethics
• If you have a passion for popcorn, you are a take-charge type of person
• People that are nutty about nuts are even-tempered, easy to get along with and highly empathetic
• If your passion is for potato chips, you’re achievement-oriented, resourceful and competitive
• If it’s pretzels, you’re the life of the party—you love novelty and quickly become bored with routine
• If you’re crazy about crackers, you’re contemplative, thoughtful, and often a loner
• How accurate these findings are is hard to say, but one thing else it does reveal is how addicted we are to junk food
• Any link to personality traits aside, we’re killing ourselves by what we choose to eat
• In the 2004 film, Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock documents his experiment to see what would happen to his health if he ate three meals a day every day for a month at McDonalds
• By the end of the month, he was 24 pounds heavier and his cholesterol shot up 65 points
• Also during those 30 days, he consumed 30 pounds of sugar from McDonalds food, along with 12 pounds of fat
• Certainly, nobody is supposed to eat like that, but the scary part is that there are people who do eat that stuff regularly, and some do eat it every day
• Spurlock admits that his experiment was a little extreme, but it’s not that crazy
• The crazy ides he proposed was doing away with the super-size option
• Who needs a 42 ounce Coke or a half-pound of French fries
• He continues to be a strong advocate for more choices and healthier eating options
• I recently came across an amusing paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm that illustrates our addiction to food
• It’s entitled My Appetite is My Shepherd  (Pound 23)and this is what it says:
• “My appetite is my shepherd; I always want.  It makes me sit down and stuff myself.  It leads me to my refrigerator repeatedly.  It leadeth me in the path of Burger King for a Whopper.  It destroyeth my shape.  Yea, though I know I gaineth, I will not stop eating, for the food tasteth so good.  The ice cream and the cookies, they comfort me.  When the table is spread before me, it enticeth me, for I know that I sooneth shall dig in.  As I filleth my plate continuously, my clothes runneth smaller.  Surely bulges and pudgies shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall be “pleasingly plump” forever.”

• Animal Instinct
• Sadly, we live by our appetites, and not just our appetite for food
• Not only do we fill our stomachs with food that will harm us and stuff ourselves until we feel sick, we fill our minds with unhealthy thoughts, our lives with unhealthy choices, and we do little to nurture the soul that is within us or feed the Spirit that gives us life
• We are nothing more than human animals, controlled by the baser instincts of animal life—food, reproduction, and survival—anything that gives us pleasure and satisfies our desires
• But we were created to be more than animals
• We were created higher than the animals and a little less than God
• We were created to think and reason and make choices
• We were given the ability to control our appetites rather than allowing them to control us
• And we were created to live in relationship to God, who provides nourishment for our soul as well as our body
• Yet, we have chosen to fill our lives—body, mind, and soul—with “junk food” rather than to feast on all the good things God provides
• The Bread of Life
• The Spiritual Dimension of Appetite
• Control of our appetites is not just a physical issue; it’s also a spiritual issue
• That was the point Jesus was making with the crowd in our text from the Gospel of John
• This text is the continuation of the narrative about the feeding of the 5,000
• As that day closed, Jesus sent the crowds away satisfied, and sent the disciples by boat to Capernaum on the other side of the lake
• On their way across, the disciples encountered a violent storm
• In the midst of the storm, Jesus came to them walking on the water
• As the new day dawned, the crowds from the other side of the lake came knocking on the door looking for Jesus
• Immediately, Jesus recognized their motivation for searching for him
• It wasn’t because they learned anything from his teaching the day before and they wanted to learn more
• It was because Jesus filled their stomachs with food and satisfied their appetite
• They were looking for Jesus because they wanted another free meal
• Jesus then embarks on a discussion about the difference between physical food and spiritual food by telling them not to work for food that spoils, but to work for the food that endures to eternal life that only the Son of Man can give
• The food Jesus gave them the day before was not empty calories like most of our junk food is, but it was still food that would not last
• Once it is eaten, it’s gone, and once it is digested, the people will become hungry again
• The solution to controlling our appetites and satisfying our desires is to believe in the one God has sent who is the true bread that came down from heaven
• Give Us Manna
• Beginning to perceive that Jesus was more than just a man who could give them food, the crowd asked him for a miraculous sign to prove he was who he claimed to be
• This is a preposterous request since Jesus already gave them a miracle the day before when he fed them and still they did not believe
• But what they were looking for was a specific miracle
• It was part of the Jewish belief that, when the Messiah came, he would once again give them manna to eat, just as Moses did in the wilderness
• So if Jesus was truly the Messiah, he ought to be able, not just to multiply loaves and fish, but to provide manna from heaven for them
• Jesus corrects their misunderstanding by reminding them that it was God, not Moses, who gave their ancestors manna, and that manna was only a temporary supply
• It spoiled if it was not used up on the day it was gathered, and the children of Israel had to gather it every day
• It is to this provision of manna that Jesus alludes when he teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
• In other words, “Give us this day our daily portion.”
• The problem Jesus faced with this crowd is the same problem Moses faced with the children of Israel centuries before
• Their complaint about food was more of a spiritual problem than it was a physical problem
• Granted, they were hungry because they were running low on food, but the issue was more about trust than it was about food, and trust is a spiritual issue
• As bad as a life of slavery was, at least the had food to eat, and they would rather return to slavery than believe that God had something better in store for them, and to trust God to provide for their needs
• By providing them manna and quail, God demonstrated God’s faithfulness to them and gave them a reason to trust
• The bread that comes down from heaven is the bread that gives life to the world, Jesus says
• Bread has always been considered a staple, one of the basic necessities of life to provide nourishment for the body
• But Jesus goes on and says, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
• What Jesus means when he says this is that he is more important than bread
• In Deuteronomy 8:3, Moses reminds the people that “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
• Jesus is “the Word made flesh,” the Living Word that came “to live among us, full of grace and truth”
• Jesus is not only a staple for life, he is the source of life, and to fail to partake of what he offers is to cut ourselves off from the strength and power for living
• Everything else is junk food
• Controlling Our Appetites
• Our appetites are as much a spiritual issue for us today as it was for the crowd Jesus taught and the people Moses led
• Our appetites are a sign of our spiritual malnourishment because we often seek to overindulge them
• Our primary desire is to satisfy ourselves—we live primarily for pleasure
• Seeking to constantly satisfy our own appetites is also an issue of control
• We desire to be the masters of our own lives because if we can master our own life, we don’t need to trust anyone but ourselves
• We don’t need God if we can satisfy our own needs, wants, and desires
• The reality is, however, we can’t do that no matter how hard we try
• We can’t truly live by appetite alone
• We need more than “junk food”
• We need to feast on the Bread of Life, the Living Word of God, because he alone is the source of life and the power for living
• How can we better control our appetites rather than allowing them to constantly control us?
• Certainly, a place to start would be to look at what we eat and drink
• Do we really need that $8.00 cup of Starbucks coffee every day, the ice cream, chips, or prime rib?
• What if we decided to forego those things at least once a week and use that money to help feed the hungry or house the homeless?
• How about shutting the TV off and spend time talking with your spouse instead, or reading a book, ore better yet, the Bible?
• How much better would life be for us?
• What if we used some of our time spent playing golf, boating or fishing to volunteer in programs like Family Promise, or visit at the nursing home
• What impact would that have on our life as well as the lives of those we help!
• How about fasting once a week so we can experience better what it’s like to be hungry?
• Why not feast on the Bread of Life through acts of prayer, worship, study, giving and service instead of sleeping in on Sunday morning or blowing off a meeting at the church?
• These are all small steps for sure, but they are steps that will make a significant difference in our attitude toward others and our relationship with God
• I leave you this morning with the words of the apostle Paul to the Philippians:
• “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me—put it into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:8-9)
• How much better it is to satisfy our appetites with these things than with junk food