“Super-size Me”

• Scriptural Reference: Deuteronomy 14:3-21
• April 27, 2008

The Hebrew Dietary Laws spelled out in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 seem a little odd to us now. Of course, for some teenagers I’ve known, that first verse, “You shall not eat any abominable thing” covers just about everything except pizza and French fries. But then we’re told that the ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, mountain goats, etc. are fine to eat, that cows make great steaks, but don’t eat camels, badgers, pigs, and animals into which category dogs and cats fall.

Why did the Bible go into so much detail prescribing and proscribing things to eat? This attention to food detail underlines what we’ve been saying all through this series: responsible, faithful individual decisions will have a profound affect on the society in which we live, even when it comes to the food we produce, gather, and consume. God was interested in the Hebrews being healthy and whole, so through God’s spirit, the law givers discerned what was best for the individuals making up the people of God.

It’s interesting to note that we still largely adhere to these dietary guidelines, at least among Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and Christians – with the notable exception of pork, oysters, scallops, lobster and shrimp among Reformed Jews and most Christians I know. I wonder though, if when Moses told the Israelites that they weren’t to eat the meat of snakes, someone piped up and said, “Why not? It tastes just like chicken!”

Most probably the dietary laws outlined in the Bible stemmed from long experience. In those days they didn’t know the absolute necessity of the proper way of cooking pork and shellfish, both of which carry huge amounts of toxins. Pigs, after all, are scavengers, as are most shell fish, and they’ll eat anything. The cud of cows, etc, is disgusting, but at least the stomach enzymes have knocked off most of the toxins. These dietary laws, given the culinary knowledge of the time, insured the health of the society. If they adhered to these guidelines closely, they wouldn’t have the health problems, communicable diseases, and general weakness that the surrounding cultures often experienced. Indeed, we still have Hebrews, whereas you can’t find many Hittites, now can you?

Most importantly, though, these dietary laws underlined what we’ve been emphasizing all through this series. Even when it comes to our eating habits, individual decisions have an impact on those with whom we’re related. This disconcerts many of us. In fact, it feels like a profound intrusion. What I eat is MY business. But the effect of these biblical laws is to remind folks repeatedly that the way they treat their bodies through the daily ritual of preparing and eating food determines not only the quality of their individual lives, but the quality of life for all around them. These laws function to remind the faithful that even in eating, there are limits. Even in eating there is foolishness and there is wisdom – and in the end every morsel we bring to our mouths is a gift of God and should be treated that way.

Besides, there’s one more basic message behind these dietary laws. I can see the Hebrew people getting these instructions and someone saying, “You mean we can’t have bacon at breakfast! No shrimp creole? No lobster bisque? What am I going to do with my white wine sauce if I can’t have seafood fetucini?”

And an exasperated Moses just gives up and says, “Oh, just do it because it’s good for you.”

You know what’s NOT good for you? Gluttony isn’t good for you.

Ooo. There’s that word – gluttony. When a sermon series gets around to this particular sin on the classic list of the “Deadly Seven” you REALLY go from preaching to meddling. The best that a preacher can do in a case like this is to try his or her best to have some fun. That isn’t exactly easy since I’m talking about gluttony. (Yikes! He’s going to talk about gluttony! I knew I shouldn’t have come to church today!) Along with greed (one of the other on the Big Seven list) our society has gluttony honed to a science.

I need to offer a caveat here. Gluttony as a huge, steady miscue isn’t confined just to those who are overweight. Skinny people can be gluttons, too. You see, you can be gluttonous over things besides food. Gluttony refers to extravagant consumption whatever it is you’re consuming. That could be food: it could be something else. Driving an SUV can be gluttonous even if the person driving it is slim and fit and quite attractive. Gazing at the TV for hours on end can be gluttonous (and for those who use TV as their primary mode of pass time, the posterior often begins to show it physically). Gluttony has an addictive component to it and as such, whatever substance our gluttony involves, it will eventually kill us.

Most often, though, gluttony involves food, and if we Americans weren’t gluttonous about anything else, which we are, we’d still have us a huge problem here. The number two cause of preventable death in the United States behind smoking is overeating. Over 400,000 people die every year as a direct result of overeating. If you haven’t heard that obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the US, you’ve been on a mission to Mars. Incidentally, those 400,000 number only the folks who don’t survive. They do not include the millions more who DO survive but require huge investments of time and money on a regular basis, again, to ameliorate the effects of years of bad habits.

Right off the bat, we can see how the individual decision to overeat has direct affects on the social system in which we live. Our gysering insurance rates in the US stem in huge part from the amount of medical resources devoted to taking care of folks who haven’t taken care of themselves. A 50 year-old man who watches his diet and exercises regularly will pay insurance rates based on the consequences of the bad habits of other 50 year-old men.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Now, I’m not going to go on about this any further. You know if you eat right and if you don’t. You don’t need me to tell you to practice wisdom. Nevertheless, it might help us some if we realize that according to our long faith tradition, God has a profound interest in how we treat our bodies, and food is a major part of our bodily treatment.

That’s why we have these dietary laws: they remind us that people of faith always focus on what’s good for them, and practice the discipline necessary to do what is good for them. “Why can’t we eat that stuff that God said don’t eat?”

“Because it’s not good for you.”

Man, I heard that growing up. My mom used to cook fish and put it in front of me and say, “Eat this, Dreehhksul, because fish is brain food. It’s good for you.” And I’d look at that white, slimy stuff on my plate wafting aromas that reminded me of the pier down at Southport and nearly wretch.

Or collard greens. She’d put greens in front of me and tell me that they were full of iron, that they’d make me strong. And I’d look at that green goo and feel what I felt with the fish. And she’d say, “It’s good for you!”

And sometimes, she’d put both the fish and the greens in front of me. The ONLY motivation I had with that was the enticement of coconut cream pie for desert.

My mother never used the starving-children-in-China argument with me. If she had, I don’t think I would’ve been as creative as Paul Draisey. Paul Draisey was the chair of the pastor search committee that called me to Middleburg Baptist Church. You’ve never met anyone with a quicker sense of humor. Once when he was little (I got this from Paul’s mother), she had placed before the family some steamed asparagus. Paul ate the other stuff on his plate but left the asparagus. His father pointed at the green shoots and said, “Eat that, son. Starving kids in China would love to have it.” Paul picked up his plate, went to his father’s study, pulled out a manila envelope and emptied the plate into it. “Here, dad, send it to them.”

No, my mother never used the starving kid enticement, which I think never did work. But she DID say, “It’s good for you.” And she said it was good for me because she loved me and wanted the best for me.

You see, when someone prepares food for you, it’s an act of love. Julie knows that I love spice cake. I’ve always loved it since I was a kid. When she learned this, she got the recipe from my mom, improved on it, and every birthday bakes that cake for me. It’s an act of love; though we both have to admit that the cake probably isn’t all that good for me.

You see, those who love us are concerned with what’s good for us, not necessarily with always stroking us or stimulating our pleasure zones. Those who love us know that love takes time and discipline, and frequently the things that will make us whole, peaceful, and free of sickness and distress involve material that isn’t always fun and easy.

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced love at a drive-through window, but then, MacDonald’s doesn’t do their thing because they love you. They DO love their stock holders, but that doesn’t have anything to do with food. The last thing they want to promote is the idea that you’ve had a sufficiency. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of professional nutritionists will tell you never to eat fast food, but if you do, at most once or twice a month. Our American food industry doesn’t know anything about eating a sufficiency because if we did what was truly healthy for us, their profits would plunge through the floor. They want you to come in a say, “Supersize me.” They want you to say that again and again.

I remember Auto Burger. It was a hamburger joint that stood at the corner of Independence Blvd. and Pearson Drive in Charlotte back in 1960. They sold hamburgers that were slightly larger than communion wafers and had little bitty onion chips sprinkled on them. In the middle of the burger were a squirt of ketchup and a squirt of mustard and one dill pickle slice. You got with it a small bag of French fries that was a little larger than a Barnes and Noble gift card box. There were two sizes of Cokes; six ounce and eight ounce. Most people ordered a hamburger and fries with a small Coke. About once every other month on the way home from church on Sunday evening (that’s right, Sunday evening after Training Union and evening worship – I made my profession of faith at an evening worship service) dad would stop at Auto Burger. It was a real treat – six times a year.

Then along came that franchise out of California, and soon Auto Burger was gone and in its place some golden arches lit up – and their garish yellow light shown right through the vacant lot behind the restaurant between the Kesslers and Smith houses directly into my bedroom window. I’d sit there at night gazing at those neon arches, fascinated by the way that number on the sign between the arches would gradually rise: over three million sold.

We couldn’t have foreseen at that time how radically America’s eating habits would change and how completely the idea of sufficiency would disappear from our dining expectations.

Carl Bates, my pastor at FBC Charlotte, told the story once that he, his wife, and only daughter, Judy, were dining at a church member’s house. The portions were generous and when the hostess offered Dr. Bates more, he said, “No thank you, ma’am. I’ve eating a sufficiency and am fully satisfied.”

Little Judy took her dad’s response in with wide eyes. When the hostess offered her a second helping, Judy responded, “No thank you, ma’am. I’ve eaten a missionary and am fully sanctified.” Probably not entirely true.

And then there’s that story of the American missionary family gathering around the table, and the youngest daughter ran in directly from play and skidded to a stop at the table, obviously without stopping in the washroom. The mother said, “Abbie! Go wash up! You’ve got so many germs!”

Little Abbie dropped her head and sulked away from the table, but a guest overheard what she was muttering to herself. “Germs and Jesus. That’s all I ever hear and I’ve never seen either one.”

According to the biblical model, preparing and eating food should involve discipline born out of a love for God and people. That discipline should be infused with the consciousness that every good thing comes from God. Eating should be disciplined and infused with gratitude, celebration, and love. When that’s our motive, to be nurtured not just by the food, but by a consciousness infused with gratitude, then we know from within what the sufficiency is. And to be honest, Jesus becomes quite visible.

One of the dearest people I’ve ever met in ministry was Bev Sherry. Bev was one of the deacons we had a First Baptist, Winchester. Bev had a degenerative lung disease and through several years slowly lost more and more mobility and ability to work. Soon, she was working half days and through it all, continued to serve in various capacities at church. We had a contemplative service every Sunday evening which we called Evensong, and I had quoted Ignatius Loyola’s doxology “I come from God. I belong to God. I am destined for God.” It became our benediction at the end of each service.

One day, Bev presented a piece of needlework in a frame bearing those words, a picture I still have hanging in my study at home.

Eventually, Bev went into the hospital and after a short period of struggle, died. We had the funeral, a huge celebration, and her two children, a daughter and a son helped plan and lead it. After the service was over, I went back to the house where the folks of the church had laid out an impressive array of victuals, impressive even by Walnut Grove standards. I sat down in the kitchen with Bev’s daughter, Amy, and Amy began to reminisce.

“You know what I’m going to miss the most?”

“What’s that?”

“When I’d come home from school, when she couldn’t work any longer, we would spend an hour together preparing supper. She had that special diet and we had to take special care to do things correctly. When we were making those preparations together, we’d talk, and without even knowing what we were doing, got real close. Before, when she was working late every day, we’d get KFC or Pizza Hut take out, and that would be fun, but only when we got into the tedious job of doing things ourselves, because we couldn’t buy it anywhere, that’s when I grew to love her most.”

Maybe that’s why God gave the Hebrews such elaborate eating instructions. They had to help each other remember how and what to cook. In that process, they would grow to love each other. I wonder what would happen if more of us decided to take the time to prepare our food ourselves, to clean enough clutter out of our lives so we could become acquainted with the source and make-up of our food. I wonder if we’d learn the meaning of sufficiency and in the process begin to see the invisible Jesus, who resides in the fellowship.