Faith, Food, and Fitness

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Faith, Food, and Fitness April 11, 2010

Texts: Romans 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 1 Kings 18:16-46; 19:1-9

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Props: Trellis: pillow, yoga mat, bread, bar of soap, half-sheet.

Connections Dinner

One of my sisters as a teenager was swept off her feet by a dashing young man who had a muscular, ripped body that resembled a Greek god. Her excitement over this guy at first was palpable. Though my sister was an avid athlete herself, committed to working out, when she learned that her boyfriend worked out 7-8 hours day to maintain his body, rather than being impressed, she began to wonder about his priorities and depth.

We regard people who are obsessed with working out to achieve a certain body type as being vain and superficial. This is especially true for those who value the development of their spiritual lives. In fact, devoted followers of Christ can actually swing the other way and have a bias against working out because they feel this may pander to their vanity, or that it will consume time and energy that could be directed to more “spiritual” activities like prayer or Bible study or Christian service.

Certainly, excessive working out (and some forms of dieting) can be motivated by vanity and can suck up time that would otherwise be devoted to more important matters, but exercise and care for our bodies can also serve as part of a rule trellis (show) of life that enables us to be more present to God and available to people.

Ancients Greeks believed that while the soul was good, the body was evil. Christians at various times in history have viewed the body as sinful. But the scriptures affirm that while the body has been influenced by the fall (like our mind and spirit) and has the capacity for evil, our bodies also reflect the image of God, and are worthy of respect and care. Our bodies, the apostle Paul tells us, have the potential to serve as instruments for God.

God becoming flesh and blood as a human being in Jesus Christ shows us God views the human body with honour and vessels that can be full of grace and truth. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4 that those of us who belong to Christ bear the treasure of Christ’s life in our jars of clay, that is our earthly bodies. He also wrote in Scripture that, “Our bodies are temples of God’s Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

When I was living in southern California, working to start a new church, a generous couple who traveled up to half the year for their for work, offered me the use of their lovely home overlooking the ocean, free of charge. Because John and Carol had been so gracious to me in so many different ways, because the house was also their primary place of residence, I wanted to take good care of it. No house-wrecking parties while they were gone. I’m not handy, but I tried to keep the house clean and in good shape. If we’ve given our lives to Christ, they are inhabited by the Holy Spirit, our ``houses`` are not our own, and therefore we are called to care for the houses (bodies) that God has entrusted to our care.

Paul speaks of the future resurrection of our bodies as a compelling motive for treating our bodies properly in the present time (I Corinthians 6:14). Our bodies aren’t like a car that will one day be driven off a cliff in a movie scene or end up in some junk yard.

When the baseball legend Mickey Mantle was dying of diseases brought on by a life of heavy drinking, he said that he would have taken better care of himself had he only known how long he was going to live… How should we “take care of ourselves” when we are never to cease? When there will be continuity between our bodies now and our bodies in the life to come? (Willard DC 86).

We are to honor God, by offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1-2). We are to offer our bodies not as instruments of sin, but as instruments of God (Romans 6). Part of the way we can offer ourselves most fully as an instrument to God and the world is by caring for our bodies.

In story of Elijah in 1 Kings 18-19 we see how important the care of our bodies is to God.

The prophet Elijah, zealous for the honor of God, challenged the pagan prophets to a showdown. He set up a contest where the prophets of Baal built an altar and sacrificed a bull to their gods. They would then call upon their gods and ask them to “answer by fire” and consume their offering, proving their gods were real. The prophets of Baal called out to their gods all day long. Nothing happened. Then Elijah built an altar to the LORD and doused it three times with water until a small moat formed around the base of the altar. Elijah cried out to God, and God answered with fire consuming the whole sacrifice! It was a stunning victory for the living God, but also the peak moment of Elijah’s ministry. But Elijah, having expended an enormous amount of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy crashes. Angry Queen Jezebel threatens to retaliate against Elijah by killing him. Elijah, completely spent, was afraid and runs for his life to the wilderness of Judah, He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." (1 Kings 19:5) Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. Then we read that all at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.

Burned out and depressed, we’re told he fell down under a broom tree. What did God do? He didn’t give him a passage to read from the Bible, pray for him, or say, “I know a great therapist.” He allows Elijah to sleep. God gives him fresh baked bread. God cares about our bodies more than we do. Then Elijah was able to run for 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb which from Beersheba was about 200 miles away. Though he was running to get somewhere, his running would have been rigorous exercise. Today, I want us to look at how we can care for our bodies through sleep, eating, and exercise (would love to read about your thoughts on this on the blog—go to our website).

Sleep was one of God’s gifts to Elijah and sleep is one of his gifts to us.

Sleep

Many people believe that they will be more productive if they sleep less. For years I believed that. In my early twenties I worked for a corporation in Tokyo, Japan. As you ride subways there, you find the people who are fortunate enough to get a seat are sleeping. Perpetually overworked and notoriously sleep-deprived, Japanese “salary-men” (corporate soldiers) try to catnap wherever they can. For years I assumed that if I could get by on less sleep like my dutiful Japanese colleagues, I too could be more productive.

I was also mesmerized by the example of the Navy Seals who, as part of their training, get by on five hours of sleep in a week (not per day, but for the entire week).

But over time, I came to discover from Scripture and experience that getting enough sleep is a gift from God and can enable us to flourish in our relationship with God and with each other.

Sleep as we saw in the message on Sabbath can become a way for us to recognize our dependence on God. We see that Adam is given the gift of his wife Eve while he was sleeping (Genesis 2:21). In Psalm 127 we are reminded that God provides for us while we sleep.1 Solomon, who was author (or at least the subject) of Psalm 127, received his greatest gift, his legendary wisdom, while he slept! We sleep and we wake--we find that God has been working…making cherry blossoms and puppies…

Sleep gives us an experience of a daily Sabbath where we turn our productivity--things we are tempted to depend on--over to God. It puts us in place of trust.

(Look at Whack on the Side of the Head and the book on brain by the Cambridge prof).

Getting a sufficient amount of sleep will also help us stay more attentive to God and others, and be less self-absorbed, and irritable.

It also enables us to be healthier. According to Dr. William Dement, a former Stanford professor and the author of the Promise of Sleep, sleep more than any other factor (including diet or exercise and heredity) predicts longevity and health.2

When a baby is born, a good parent will help the newborn learn how to sleep. Most of us may assume we know how to sleep. We’ve doing it our wholes lives, but up to half of the people in North America report having trouble sleeping at some point in lives. Each person is unique and the amount of sleep someone needs will vary from person to person, but a typical person needs between 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

We can help to foster better and longer sleep through an evening ritual that helps us slow down: it might include prayer or the practice of the Ignatian Examen3, identifying where you experienced feelings of consolation: joy, peace, being alive, connection with God and where you experience feelings of desolation: anger, sadness, lethargy, a sense of distance from God.

You might include a time to unplug from TV, electronic gadgets and computer. I have recently tried to read more late at night, and not do as much computer. I have a friend who describes himself as a ``thinkaholic``and finds it`s hard to slow down his thinking process. He`s often tempted to go into his home office late at night and do more work. So now he has a sign outside his home office: that says open on the one side and closed on the other. He has limits to his office hours at home. Dimming the lights at a certain time. Setting a standard sleep time and wake up time to set your sleep rhythm and train you to stay on schedule.

Napping can also be a way to experience refreshment.4 For some people taking a nap is not feasible during the day, but others avoid taking a nap because they think many people feel that napping is for weak people guilty about sleeping during the day. Martin Marty, a deeply respected theologian, finds that a brief nap increases his energy for hours. He has for decades taken two naps on most days. He says, “What keeps us awake and stressful is guilt about yesterday and worry about tomorrow.”5

Winston Churchill was a leader who also understood the restorative value of naps:

You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you’ll be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will accomplish more. You get 2 days in one—well at least one and a half, I’m sure. When the war started, I had to sleep during the day because that was only way I could cope with my responsibilities.6

Not everyone, of course, has the luxury of being able to take a nap on a workday, but when it is possible, naps can provide refreshment of body, mind and spirit and enable us to more fully enjoy God and serve people.

God gave Elijah the gift of sleep, but also the gift of fresh baked bread. Food is also a gift from God and a way we can care for our bodies.

Eating

One of the key factors in health and longevity is a healthy diet. Part of the reason why the Japanese, and the Okinawans, in particular, live so long, with the highest rate of people living to 100 years in the world, is because they maintain healthy, balanced diets.7

Monks have recognized how food affects our spiritual lives.

So Rule of Saint Benedict offers counsel for the body and the soul commending time for meals and laying out that a monk’s day should be begin at a certain time because by then the monk’s food would be fully digested.8

A person might associate a rule around food, with the images of a monk in a habit with sunken cheeks eating gruel. (Saint Benedict’s Rule of Life addresses food. Ch. 39). But Benedict rule requires monks in good health to abstain from eating the meat of four-legged animals such as beef or lamb, goat, but poultry and other two-legged animals, as well as fish and other creatures, are permitted. The Benedictine Rule not allowing the four-legged versus other animals would be expense: raising or buying four-legged animals for meat required wealth in Benedict’s day; by contrast, chickens could be raised by leaving them to forage the monastery grounds, and wild fish could be caught for free.9 Saint Benedict wanted to foster prudent spending among monks when it came to food, but allowed the monks to spend more on food to encourage that which is required to promote health.

Similarly, ideally a rule around food would include prudent spending, but also an eye for health.

Sometimes, of course, these two goals can be in tension with each other. More nutritious food is typically more expensive (There`s a reason fast food is cheap. Be wary of those $1 burgers!). Food that is organically grown is good for us and for the earth, but not everyone can afford organic food. But, a preference for buying nutritious, organic, locally grown where possible is good for us and good for the world (the average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to the supermarket10). Some people have tried to resolve this dilemma by buying better, but less, food.

But, it is possible to swing to an extreme here and become a health food junkie. The term orthorexia has been coined to describe people who are obsessed with health foods. These people only eat food they regard as healthy and ``pure``: they may insist on eating only organic food, or only fresh foods, or only raw food. Their self-identity becomes wrapped up in their eating choices. Ironically, rather than receiving nourishment from eating, they experience stress. They feel fear, rather than joy.

Prudent spending and healthy choices are important, but Scriptures show us that God created food for our enjoyment. Kathleen Norris in her book, The Cloister Walk, describes visiting a Benedictine Abbey and being served strawberry shortcake. Monks and nuns too—contrary to what we might expect—enjoy food!

Food is not provided by God merely as fuel for human beings, but also to delight their eyes and taste buds as well. In Genesis 2:9 we read that “The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food…”11 (what about NLT?) Food is a gift that God intended us to enjoy. Enjoying good food (which doesn’t necessarily mean expensive) is part of God’s gift to us.

The other day someone who came to Tenth was eating some snacks, and joked, “I eat so much here at Tenth that I feel guilty because I’m eating up all of my tithe money.” In the Old Testament tithes were sometimes used to support feasts for God’s people. Tithes typically went to the Levites who led worship, and in some years part of the tithe went to foreigners and to those in need.11 But during other years something astonishing happened. According to Deuteronomy 13:24-26, when the place to make a sacrifice was too far away for God’s people to bring their sheep and chickens to sacrifice, they were simply to sell the animals and crops and use the money to buy whatever they wanted for food and drink and feast and celebrate at the place they would have a sacrificed the animals. Part of worship of God meant celebrating a special meal.

When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we typically serve a minuscule piece of bread and sip of wine (or grape juice), but in the first century church the Lord’s supper was an actual sumptuous meal, not an appetizer, but a full dinner, where the poor were welcome.12 Food is part of God’s gift and meant to be enjoyed individually and in community.

In Japan where part of my family resides, people are conscious about eating a healthy diet: eating plenty of vegetables, and preferring fish to red meat, but it is also widely believed there that if a person enjoys their food it will foster good health. Ironically, being too fastidious about food, cutting out whole categories of pleasurable foods, counting every calorie, it is believed, can back backfire and undermine a person’s health. If a person experiences too much stress over the screening process that they have to run their food choices through, it’s not good for the person.

The occasional treat can be beneficial for one’s health as it helps releases pleasure chemicals like serotonin and endorphins in the brain that help promote a sense of well- being. There is nothing sinful about occasionally eating chocolate or ice cream. Some people think it’s a sin because it may seem to violate Hollywood’s unhealthy, unrealistic commandments around a women’s beauty: you have to be tall, sleek and weigh no more than 100 pounds and resemble Kate Moss or Kiera Knightley. (Someone recently told me she no longer reads Cosmo or In Style because they set up unrealistic standards of what a woman ought to look like and left her feeling depressed.)

As long as you don’t have any health or developmental reasons to not fast, fasting might also be something to consider in your rule of life.13 Fasting promotes our health and healing by resting our digestive organs (and a 3-day fast can help to detoxify our bodies).

Don`t confuse fasting with dieting. Losing weight is not a healthy motivation to fast. Besides fasting, like most diets where you deprive yourself of food, won`t be effective long term as a way to lose weight. The motive for fasting is to draw us closer to God. Though it is not a regular practice that is required by Scripture, God’s people throughout the ages have fasted as way to seek God. Jesus assumed that people in his day were fasting for spiritual reasons (Matthew 6:16-18). It is a practice that is encouraged when a person wants to turn to God in a new way or hear from God. I typically fast for a 24 hour period once a week (that is, I begin my fast after dinner and then I skip breakfast and lunch the next day and break the fast with dinner) and in the summers I may do a 3-day fast. In my hunger I also feel a greater dependence on God and I am reminded that we live not on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Fasting also frees up time and money. Christians have had a great history of fasting to feed the poor. It is estimated that in the year 250 A.D. in Rome under Pope Cornelius, 10,000 Christians fasting 100 days a year may have provided a million meals to the poor (p. 144, Darwin on Trial).

As we`ve seen in this rule of life series, balance is what is desired. So it is when it comes to food, spend in moderation, avoid the extremes of gorging on food and starving yourself. Instead, eat healthy, and enjoy your food. Remember the motivation for eating well is not look like a runway model, but to become more available to God and others.

Elijah slept, he ate and then he ran for 40 days and nights until he reached Horeb which from Beersheba was about 200 miles away. (and before this with God’s help he had run from Mount Carmel to Jezreel, a distance of over 100 miles. That’s almost 4 times the length of a standard marathon. I know people have run 100 mile races, but they are great athletes in superb condition. No one in the Bible runs like Elijah. I know he’s not running for exercise, but to get somewhere. Nonetheless, it’s great exercise.)

Exercise

The Apostle Paul, in writing to his young friend and protégé Timothy, said, “Physical exercise has some value, but godliness has value for all things” (1 Timothy 4:8). Clearly, Paul’s point in writing what he wrote was to emphasize the fact that godliness in the development of character is of great value. But, Paul is also stating that physical exercise has some value as well. Even if you have not been in habit of exercising regularly, as is true of fasting, through regular practice your body becomes accustomed to it and craves it.

Part of the key to exercising, as is true in other spiritual disciplines, is to stay with something long enough so it has a chance of becoming an enjoyable habit, which is typically 4-6 weeks. Bruce Hindmarsh is a theology professor at Regent College. He says. “I’m not an athlete, but I began jogging to help me deal with depressions.” He says, “If we bear the cross (of exercise), the cross will bear us.” If we give to exercise, after 4-6 weeks exercises will start giving to us.

Exercise can also be a form of prayer. Bruce Hindmarsh recites Scriptures or collects (brief prayers from the lectionary) as he runs.

As I exercise, occasionally I will offer brief prayers, but mostly I simply entering into a more “prayer” space as I become more aware of God when running or swimming.

Choosing exercise that you enjoy will help you experience exercise as more prayerful, and will also help you stick with the exercise over time.

It is possible to get exercise doing something you don’t enjoy. It’s also possible to get a comparable (and to get an even superior workout) doing something you enjoy. I don’t especially enjoy running on a treadmill, but I will if that’s the best option I have for exercise while traveling and staying at a hotel, I’ll do it. But, I love to run outside, especially in the woods. I feel a sense of gratitude and joy and experience a sense of worship as I run in the woods. The only weight I lift these days is a wiggling 90 centimeter and 32-pound toddler. But if I did lift weights for exercise, I don’t enjoy lifting weights with a natalist (universal) gym. I enjoy lifting with free weights. I feel more grounded physically and spiritually (and I know this sounds perhaps a bit cheesy), but as I lift I am reminded that God is my strength. I love to swim. Being in the different medium of water and rhythmically using so many parts of my body, fills me with gratitude and joy and gives me a sense of what it is like in God--I live and move and have my being (Acts 17).

Exercise can give us a sense of joy and lead to the heart of worship. It also clears our minds and our spirit in ways that cause us to be more attentive to God and people. It also releases natural chemicals in our brain: endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine which create a sense of heightened well being.

Dr. Stuart Brown, a medical doctor and clinic researcher who taught at the University of California at San Diego, conducted a year-long experiment showing how regular physical exercise could help seriously-depressed women rise out of their depression. This year-long study involved a five-day a week commitment on the part of women who were depressed and unresponsive to antidepressant medication (or refused to take it). Many were experiencing self-doubt and angst as they asked themselves questions like, “Why didn’t my marriage work out?” or “Why don’t I have more friends?” They were persuaded to reach 80% of their maximum cardiac output for forty-five minutes four times each week. The first three months were titanic struggles, but the positive effects of conditioning, exercise, and group connection allowed the majority (some had dropped out) to note the lessening of their depression and the overall rise in their sense of well- being.14 When we are feeling low we may not feel like exercising, but this may be the very time when exercise would be the most beneficial.

If you haven’t been in a regular routine of exercising, build your rule here slowly.

My brother is an artist and filmmaker. He wouldn’t describe himself as an athlete, but he got into regular exercise rhythm by vowing to do one push up a day. While he’s on the ground, he says I might as well do more… A habit has been ingrained for him. He now uses his program on his I-pod touch to regulate his push up routine so he ensures his strength is growing (9 one day, 10 the next, 9, another day, 11 another, etc).15

Find a way to work exercise into your rhythm. Carry this cross and it will carry you.

As is true with eating, remember the motivation is not to look like a Greek god or goddess, but to make you more available to God and others. The key again with the rule is balance: ideally you have some kind of exercise routine—even if that routine is walking, but don`t become obsessed with it. A wise rule of life enables us to give to each thing in our life its due: not less, but not more, either.

This may seem like a somewhat secular sermon, but the simple rhythmic acts of sleeping, eating, and exercise enable us to honour our bodies in mysterious ways we may not be aware of.16 People who suddenly become homeless lose these routine gifts that most of us take for granted and experience a sense of feeling disorientated and desolation.

Kathleen Norris in The Quotidian Mysteries writes about how neglecting the basic acts of self-care, “shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth, drinking enough water, taking a daily vitamin, going for a walk”—can be a signal that we are experiencing isolation from reality itself. Norris notes that being willing to care for our bodies is a part of what constitutes basic human sanity, a faith in the everyday.17

Our body, mind, and spirit are connected…. if our bodies are fit, our mind works better and our spiritual life will flourish. The way we use our bodies will profoundly shape our spirit and relationship with God. So a rule of life will address how we use our create bodies.

Conversely, if we neglect our bodies, our bodies will let us know: perhaps through illness, perhaps of an accident. Our bodies can take desperate measures to get our attention.

The story of Elijah shows that God cares for our bodies more than we do. So, don’t feel guilty about caring for your body.

Parker Palmer says, Self-care is never a selfish act -- it is simply good stewardship of
the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.

The motivation for caring for our bodies is not to look like a god or goddess or wanting to live forever (we have eternal life through Christ—this is why we celebrated Easter), but we do so we to be more available to God and others, so we can offer all of ourselves as a living sacrifice--holy and pleasing to God.