I stink at exercise. Every morning, I get up and my dog, Ella, who is just one and a half, is already itching to go. I rub my eyes and feel sorry for myself as I get ready to take her on a jog, or you might call it a slog. She pulls like crazy, running me. Most days I do run for about 20 minutes at a kind of a slow pace. Some days I just walk fast. The trees and the air wake me up. I begin to give thanks to God for a new day, to pray, maybe a song runs through my head.
And then I see someone coming towards me. Another woman my age, and she is really running. All of a sudden, I pick up my pace. I try to look really in shape, like I am going for miles and miles. I smile and say hello. Then, once she is out of range, I slog again. I come up with the most amazing excuses for why I need to stop running…
It’s not really that good for you, to pound your body into the pavement.
There are really fit people who walk
Maybe I am just too vain
I’ve done enough.
I need to be satisfied with the body I have
I can’t pray as well when I am running
It’s all a bunch of hooey-all the stuff that runs through my mind. I know what this is really about. It’s about my spiritual life. My body is a part of my spiritual life. And if I don’t manage to take care of my flesh, I won’t be able to grow closer to God.
It’s hard to understand the apostle Paul. He wrote these incredibly profound things, but he wrote them in the form of run-on sentences with a density that intimidates most of us. But Paul was the Christian theologian who took what Jesus said and did for us and made some sense of it. He was brilliant and vital and, although he was a bit one-sided, absolutely in-love with God.
In the letter to the Galatians, Paul talks about the relationship of the flesh and the Spirit. We inhabit bodies that God has made and these bodies are important. But our relationship with God far exceeds our bodies. We have a spiritual life that can soar beyond the clouds. The body is holy, it was made by God, but it cannot have the last word, or we will never be free to experience God. The body is like a child that must be given boundaries and discipline, or it will distract us completely from God.
If I did exactly what my body wanted, I would lie in bed most of the day. I would eat Breyers ice cream by the quart and watch stupid romance movies. But I would become depressed and I would feel removed from God over time. So I must haul my body out of bed in the morning and run that hyper dog, not to try to look pretty but to discipline my body so that I can both serve God and grow closer to God.
Back in Kansas, I joined a gym. There was a woman there who was in her sixties. She began to talk to me while we were on the eliptical machines. She had been a beautiful blonde, just a knock-out in her younger years. Her whole identity had been caught up in her body. She dressed immaculately and noticed how both women and men seemed to respect her. Then she began to age. So she injected her skin with botox. Then came her first real face-lift, then second. Both nothing looked as good as it did when she was young. Now, after multiple surgeries, she looked like a plastic specter of herself. And she realized that something was terribly wrong. There must be more to life than just trying to look good. There just had to be more…but she could not escape the slavery that she had created. She was in bondage to her body, exercising madly for hours each day and never satisfied. Each year, it grew worse.
Another woman I knew had been hurt by her father at a tender age, and she wore about two hundred pounds of extra fat. She claimed it was genetic, but every day, she drove by Krispy Kream. She had to get her knees replaced. She was in constant pain. Her slavery to her body was just as great.
If you are to truly follow Christ, to be free, Paul is quite clear that you must liberate yourself from your body. And that means, quite simply, learning what is best for you and saying no. Create a physical rule of life for yourself, find out what you need to do to care for your body enough so that you don’t have to think about it all the time. What would it take to liberate you from your body? Whatever that is, do it.
If you want to be a disciple, you also have to travel light. Remember that when Jesus ushered an invitation for someone to follow Him, he did not wait around. He did not have time for folks who wanted to pack. He did not even have time for the man who wanted to bury his father. He wants you and me and he’s not going to wait around.
Do you have too much stuff? Too much stuff can create another kind of fleshly bondage. Are you enslaved to your home? What do you need to get rid of to liberate yourself? In the eyes of God, your excess really belongs to someone else and it will not serve you, it will only drag you down. I am convinced that this oil spill along with other realizations of our modern world will lead us to begin to value less rather than more. Can you live more simply? Do you know where all of your belongings are? Are there things that you haven’t used in over a year? Give them away. Free your soul from too much stuff. When Jesus comes, you don’t want to be caught packing.
The same holds true of your relationships. Have you said all that you need to say to your loved ones? Do they know how you feel? Make sure that they do, for life is precious and you don’t want to be bound to unresolved issues if you are hit by a car tomorrow.
Strange isn’t it, how the spirit is bound to the physical world? It is only when we handle our physical realities that we can begin to grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord. You cannot begin to truly love God if you are obsessed with your body, your stuff or your relationships. Your mind needs to be freed from obsessing about these things, so handle them, and make room for the most important thing in your life: God.
Picture a playground in the edge of the Grand Canyon. It has wonderful equipment. Any child would want to play, but the parents won’t let their children near it. Why? Because there is no fence and the children could fall off the edge of a cliff. But put in a nice strong, steel fence and the parents will laugh and praise their children as they play. So it is with God. If you and God are worried about your body opr your stuff or your safety or your vulnerability in relationships, you will never be free to truly play with God. And God wants to play with you. God wants to dance with you!
Your Vestry has created a Rule of Life, a statement for how they choose to live each day, attending worship, giving, serving. It is in your bulletin. Read it. Find out what you need to do to be free.
At the base of our altar are the icons that were painted this week here at the Cathedral. Ann Brodt led an Icon painting workshop. In order for God to shine through these icons, the Orthodox have a very disciplined way of painting. You must use a set image. You must pray constantly as you paint, using certain paints and gold leaf. The Holy Spirit flows best through a disciplined practice, for it liberates the mind to seek God.
Strange isn’t it? You must provide structure and discipline to the flesh if you are to experience the depth of God’s love. Size down, travel light. You are too valuable to waste your life focusing on your body or your stuff. You, my friends, are so much more.
