You Are What You Eat

I believe Jesus could have been a Weight Watchers fan.  With their slogan "Believe Because It Works" Jesus could promote the power of losing weight while being able to eat from unlimited power foods.  Jesus could be our faith pantry for life.  For the male disciples, Jesus could preach "Lose Like a Man" by eating anything - no special or required foods, and no forbidden ones either, through making smarter choices.  Quoting Charles Barkley, Jesus can encourage men to eat the food they like & "Lose like a guy who hates losing."  For their city-to-city treks through the Palestinian countryside, there's even a Weight Watchers exercise plan to build up the disciples' strength.  Because Jesus primarily preached to peasants, Jesus could promote budget-friendly meals.  For the Marthas of the world, Jesus could encourage quick meals or snacking-on-the-go, so that ALL could sit at his feet and absorb his life changing words of wisdom. (quotes and slogans from WeightWatchers.com - official website)

But for so many of us today, dieting is about withholding the pizza, doughnuts, and pasta.  So Jesus' encouragement to eat and chew on the bread of life - his flesh and blood - feels countercultural.  And cannibalistic!  In John 6: 51-58, Jesus proclaims "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man (Jesus) and drink his blood, you have no life in you." (John 6: 53b)  The entire pericope is graphic, repugnant to our sensibilities, shockingly hard to stomach and even harder to live out.  For Jesus wants to have ALL of us - nothing withheld from our participation in and our intimate relationship with the wholly human and wholly divine Son of God.

What do you hold back from giving your all to Jesus?  Would you rather consume the temptation to work so hard that your career credentials shine?  Would you choose the power to shop as a conspicuous consumptionist?  Would you choose the freedom of staying up late or sleeping in with online entertainment 24/7?  Are you tied up in knots with your obsession to diet off those last few pounds?  Are your savings accumulating for that perfect vacation or the perfect car?  Would you prefer to study the latest scholarship on Jesus or keep him as your spiritual, otherworldly, uncontaminated-by-the-world kind of God?  None of these alienate you from Jesus unless they have become your idols, so that Jesus shifts into 2nd, 3rd, or 10th place in your priorities.  How are we drawn to that which does not bring life?  What do we withhold from our relationship with Jesus?  How do we keep Jesus at a distance?

If we are what we eat, consider that Jesus wants us to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood as the path to eternal life.  I believe Jesus means the eternal life that we can experience here and now in our earthly experiences as Christ followers, as well as the eternal life with Jesus that follows death.  Jesus wants to assuage our hungers with his body, his blood, his everything, until we are filled with life.  How hungry do we have to be to allow Jesus into the innermost recesses of our veins and arteries that our hearts may be nourished?

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley