You Are What You Eat

This morning’s scripture reading is Galatians 6: 1-10, and can be found on page 826 of your pew Bible.
-I invite you to listen for the word of God.
Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.
Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
-The word of the Lord
-Thanks be to God
Sermon
Some would say that a German man named Karl Barth is the most influential theologian of the 20th century. In his most celebrated work, Church Dogmatics, Barth puts into writing his theology, much of which can be applied to our lives today if we take the time to understand what on earth he is talking about. In his volume on the church Barth seems to draw precisely on Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and claims that the Bible must not become a rule book for our lives, for it offers something much more complicated than simple legalism. In fact, if life were a game of cards and the rules for this game were written down in the Bible, the outcome is already obvious, we have all lost; and while some of us will continue to attempt to earn salvation through doing good works, continue to see others as either better or worse than they are, those who read Paul’s letter to the Galatians and take his teaching on circumcision seriously must come to the conclusion that salvation is not something that we can earn through circumcision, through right diet, through living upright lives in any way – for salvation is a gift given by God through Christ’s crucifixion. However, while salvation is given and guaranteed, our happiness is not. While salvation will not come through abiding to the law, through avoiding alcohol, shrimp, or pork, we still are what we eat, and so in the first half of this last chapter of Galatians we find practical wisdom that sounds something like the saying that I have been hearing all my life, you are what you eat.
In our society, like all societies this is an inescapable truth, but in our culture of diet and exercise the saying takes on a particular meaning. As I asked a few people what they thought of when I said, “You are what you eat,” the reaction was always the same, if you eat healthy you will feel healthy, if you eat unhealthy you will feel unhealthy. This kind of option makes me think of the check-out isle of the grocery store where on one side stands the rack of magazine covers presenting women and men so skinny, healthy, and good looking they almost don’t seem real, and on the other side stands the candy bars. Which side will I choose? Will I side with the skinny celebrities or the delicious candy – what will I pick, will I stick to my diet as these celebrities are so good at doing or will I give into the temptation and bite into that delicious Snicker’s bar?
However, neither side of the check out line offers us the happiness that we seek. The candy bar may offer a momentary satisfaction, while the lifestyles of the rich and famous so often only offer a shallow smile that covers a life of insecurity, a truth we come to know too well when these celebrities fall from the pedestals that we place them on.
To a great degree, we are what we eat, and the pictures of celebrities’ show us just how true that is - especially as I think about their diets and the bodies those diets produce as compared to my diet and the stomach that my diet has produced.
But I have recently wondered how much do we really know about those things that we eat? We live in a world of constant spring and summer. The tomatoes that are only now becoming ripe in Georgia have been sitting proudly on our hamburgers all year round, though maybe not as ripe and juicy as they could be. We live in a world where we can eat a much greater variety of fruits and vegetables than what our local farmers can grow, and we so often eat potatoes from Idaho and Peru, Apples from Washington and Chile, not simply Georgia peaches and peanuts. If then, we are what we eat, what are we if we don’t even really know where our food comes from?
We are simply not the agrarian society that Paul addresses in this letter to the Galatians. He says: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
We are no longer a culture of reapers and sowers. We do not depend on the land that we live on to nourish our bodies, we do not worry about our livelihood during a drought, but only the health of our lawns; but we can be sure that Paul’s audience knew exactly what he was talking about.
If you only plant one kernel of corn you should not expect to reap in a full harvest, and if you plant just one seed you should not expect to feed your whole family through the whole winter.
Just as our lives are far from the reality of the Galatians, just as our culture of grocery stores is so different from their culture of farm land, just as we cannot be too sure of what we are for we hardly know what it is that we eat, we are also often misguided as we think of the realty and the consequences of what we sow.
So often we live lives unconcerned with the consequences of our actions. Our cars spew forth exhaust fumes but we wonder why on earth the city is covered in a grey cloud of smog. We sit in front of the TV for hours and wonder why we never talk any more, why we don’t know our neighbors (Pause).
Never was the harsh reality of actions and consequences, or sowing and reaping to use Paul’s language, more striking than when a drug dealer told me about the time one of her clients came to her door with her two children, soaked to the bone by the rain. This mother, addicted to the drugs that this woman was selling, brought with her two wet children, one with a diaper that it seemed had not been changed all day. The woman who told me this story said that she took the two children and told their mother to get clean, and to come back later when she could take care of her children properly.
She took in the children bathed them, held them in her arms and saw exactly how bad the drugs she was selling were. She was in the business of sowing drugs, and so on that rainy night she reaped in a harvest of child cruelty that resulted from those drugs.
This week in Washington it seems as though the same was true, as some of this country’s most judgmental representatives were judged for breaking the moral code that they so boldly preached. They sowed judgment and so they are now being judged.
Though in our own lives it is not often so obvious - but the same is still true.
Our society has sown an economy and a way of life dependent on foreign oil, and how can we expect to survive as the oil runs out if we do not develop new technologies?
If we sow relationships that devalue our bodies and our emotions, can we expect to reap the reality that we are one of God’s children?
In our marriages, if we sow adultery, pornography, or abuse, can we expect to reap happiness, mutual respect, and good self-esteem for our spouse?
In a society obsessed with low cost and good deals, should we be surprised to find low paying jobs filled by the most desperate to work, should we not expect to reap bad service and the end of Mom and Pop businesses?
In a world that sows war, we must ask if it will be through sowing war that we can expect to reap peace.
In a world that puts a priority on making more and more money, working longer and longer hours, who can expect relaxation, happy families, and good marriages?
In neighborhoods without side-walks filled with houses without front porches, who can expect to find the kind of community that we all need?
If we sow individualism, if we only look out for number one, what can we expect to reap but loneliness and isolation?
If we value money first and our families and friends last, will the money fill the emptiness that we are sure to reap?
If we don’t tithe, then can we expect to reap a church that can satisfy all our needs and that can be a strong voice in the community?
Just Friday over ice cream a wonderful person named June told me about an obituary that listed, “member of the Sam’s Club” as one of the recently deceased accomplishments. I hope and pray that my obituary will not be concerned with my ability to buy toilet paper in bulk, but that by the time I die I might be remembered as being generous, being kind, being a good husband, for it is in sowing these things that I believe I will reap happiness and joy.
The thought of such happiness helps me to remember God’s plan for us; that we find true joy – but we must remember that we will not find it in those places that the world tells us we will.
We must trust Paul, following our maker’s instruction, not so that we might avoid some eternal hell fire, but so that we might find the happiness that God wants us to have.
“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”
-Amen.