08/15/2021
Good morning, I come to you from the week hour of 5:06 a.m. Life is different in the dark and the quiet. It is somehow steady. I pray steady for you today. Blessings, Pastor Denise Westfall-Neuschwander
August 15, 2021
Opening Prayer Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
Affirmation
I am a Beloved Child of God and a Beauty to Behold.
Hymn Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrwkCOUOliI
Call to Worship adapted from Psalm 111
The LORD is gracious and compassionate.
God provides food for those who will receive it;
God remembers God’s covenant forever.
God has shown the power of God’s works,
giving them the lands of other nations.
The works of God’s hands are faithful and just;
We can trust in our God.
Song Holy Ground/ We Are Standing on Holy Ground https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTx36JyflOQ
Prayers of the People by Richard Einerson
Eternal God, we thank you today for your goodness. You have given us beautiful days. You bless us richly with goodness daily. We thank you and praise you.
We live in a time of considerable confusion. We ask today for your wisdom as Solomon asked for wisdom. We are often fearful as was Solomon. We live in a time of peril, war, and world unrest. Different and competing interests strive for our attention and loyalty.
Help us, O God, to pray for wise and discerning spirits.
Give us wisdom to know good from evil.
Give us wisdom to assess the clamoring voices and concerns with which we are daily bombarded.
Give us wisdom so that we might learn to be accepting of all the diverse people you have created.
Give us wisdom to be peacemakers and mediators of understanding where there is conflict.
Give us wisdom when we are in conflict to make it possible both for us and for those with whom we differ to save face and win and move forward hand in hand.
Give us wisdom not to violate any of your creatures by discriminating against them.
Give us wisdom to discern what is of ultimate value for our souls and to make wise choices.
O GOD, GIVE US WISDOM.
O GOD, GIVE US DISCERNMENT.
O GOD, GIVE US THE WILL TO BE FAITHFUL.
O GOD, GIVE US THE POWER TO LOVE. Amen
Hymn In My Life, Lord, Be Glorified https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5bpU3hzMXs
Offering
Thank you for thinking of OPUMC and for your generosity.
Ocean Park UMC (OPUMC)
P. O. Box 326
Ocean Park, WA 98640
Scripture John 6:51-58 Common English Bible
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 Then the Jews debated among themselves, asking, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Human One and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me lives because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. It isn’t like the bread your ancestors ate, and then they died. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
Message You Are What You Eat Pastor Denise
What's the meaning of the phrase 'You are what you eat'?
The proverbial saying 'You are what you eat' is the notion that to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food.
What's the origin of the phrase 'You are what you eat'?
The origin of 'You are what you eat'.
The originator of 'You are what you eat' was Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. His version was 'Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are. 'You are what you eat' has come to into the English language by quite a meandering route.
In 1826, the French lawyer Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, in Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante:
"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.)
In an essay titled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, 1863/4, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wrote:
"Der Mensch ist, was er ißt."
[Man is what he eats]
Neither Brillat-Savarin or Feuerbach meant their quotations to be taken literally (that would be rather messy). They were stating that that the food one eats has a bearing on one's state of mind and health. Although they coined French and German variants of 'you are what you eat', the phrase didn't migrate into other languages and wasn't used in English until decades later.
'You are what you eat' emerged in English in the 1930s. That's when the American nutritionist Victor Lindlahr, who was a strong believer in the idea that food controls health, developed the Catabolic Diet. That view gained some adherents at the time and the earliest known printed example is from an advert for beef in a 1923 edition of the Bridgeport Telegraph, for 'United Meet [sic] Markets':
"Ninety per cent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat."
You are what you eat - Lindlahr
The American nutritionist Victor Lindlahr coined and popularized
the expression 'You are what you eat'.
In 1942, the phrase entered into the public consciousness when Lindlahr published You Are What You Eat: how to win and keep health with diet. Lindlahr is likely to have also used the term in his radio talks in the 1930s to 50s (now lost unfortunately), which would also have reached a large US audience.
The phrase wasn't much used in the years after Lindlahr stopped his radio broadcasts in 1953 but got a new lease of life in the 1960s hippie era. The food of choice of the hippie champions of the 'you are what you eat' idea was macrobiotic whole-food and the phrase was adopted by them as a slogan for healthy eating.
You are what you eat - Adelle Davis The macrobiotic campaigner
The belief in the diet in some quarters was so strong that when Adelle Davis, a leading spokesperson for the organic food movement, contracted the cancer that later killed her, she attributed the illness to the junk food she had eaten at college.
Some commentators have suggested that the idea is from much earlier and that it has a religious rather than dietary basis. Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are changed into the body and blood of Jesus (Transubstantiation).
So, is the phrase catabolic or Catholic?
Transubstantiation certainly links food and the body, but there doesn't appear to be any documented link between the belief and the phrase. It's safe to assume the origin is more about supper than supplication.
There are several claimants to the coinage of 'you are what you eat' but there's no doubt that it was Victor Lindlahr who brought it to general public attention. (https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/you-are-what-you-eat.html)
As a “fallen away” Catholic, the phrase “you are what you eat” was certainly taken in a spiritual fashion. And as I look down at the 30 lbs. I would like to lose, I know, “you are what you eat” is definitely more literal!
This morning I would like to propose some ideas about the spiritual meaning of “you are what you eat” in light of what Jesus said, “51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
To be clear, we are not talking about cannibalism! In the early years of the church, this is how the scripture was interpreted by those outside the faith. So, what does it mean?
I don’t know. However, I will give you some thoughts to ponder.
Even in the 100+ weather in Spokane, WA, my brother sent pictures Tuesday of the two loaves of bread he had just baked. What does bread have that makes one bake it even when the climate calls for lemonade with extra ice?
My mother baked a lot bread. To come home from school to the smell of freshly baked bread was a sign of love and a sign that we would be fed that night with love.
Food nourishes the body. Food is a necessity. Food is delicious! Here is the question of the day: What does God feel when we reject God’s life-giving self?
Debi Thomas writes, “That is, what is at stake for God in this invitation? If Jesus is the bread of life, what is it like for him to feed us? How does a feeding, nourishing God experience our “consumption?” What does Jesus feel when we refuse his sustenance? (Journey with Jesus, August 15, 2001)
If you have children, or nieces or nephews or been to a restaurant, you have witnessed a child who refuses to eat what is put in front of them. How does that parent feel? I felt angry that my child was behaving this way in public. I was embarrassed by such behavior. If we were at home for dinner, I could send the child to their room, out of my sight. But what I really wanted was for my child to eat, what was put before them. I wanted them to enjoy the food and the companionship. I wanted meal time to be something we looked forward to, not another hour- long fight to eat cauliflower!
Do you remember in Christmas Story when the family is at the dinner table and Randy, the youngest, won’t eat his dinner? Dad wants to send him to bed. Mom coaxes him to eat: Randy, what does the piggy say? (oink oink) That’s right. And how does the piggy eat? (face first into the mash potatoes)
My son David was my little piggy. We would replay the scene from Christmas Story, my husband did a great job of imitating the dad (oh, wait a minute, he wasn’t imitating anyone. He was grossed out), and I would laugh so hard, as the mother did in the movie.
And Thanksgiving! My son’s favorite holiday! Lots of mash potatoes to dive into (which he doesn’t do any longer). The food is great (except the year we thought craisins would be good in the stuffing. No, they are not.), but it is the comradery as we bake pies, and bread, and get the turkey ready. It is communion with one another.
God has offered us the bread of life in Jesus. We can throw a tantrum and refuse the grace offered to us. We can cautiously try a bite to see if we like it. Or, we can say “thank you” and consume all the grace God has to offer in Jesus!
“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” he says in our Gospel reading this week. I wonder what profound pleasure God takes in this intimate, bodily abiding.
But there is another side to eating. Or should I say, not eating. It is a mental health diagnosis of anorexia nervosa. The mental picture that one has of themselves is distorted. And, it is distorted in a physical way that when the person looks in the mirror, they see what they imagine, not what is real. They see “fat” as opposed to the American ideal of “thin.”
If you know someone with this disease you know that every bite is a victory, and every bite is dangerous. Sometimes the disease gets to the point that its bearer must be fed via a tube to keep them alive. Debi Thomas writes of her experience with her daughter:
Wrecked by anxiety, perfectionism, and American culture’s toxic obsession with thinness, our daughter had developed anorexia nervosa, one of the deadliest of all mental illnesses. Within a matter of months, our family dining table became a battlefield. Grocery shopping became an exercise in desperation and agony.
All attempts at persuasion failed, and my husband and I faced the real prospect that our child might starve herself to death in the name of what her illness insisted was “health.”
There are no words to express what I felt as a mother as I watched my child waste away. All I wanted in the universe was to feed her. To cook anything she’d eat, to place warm and nourishing plates of food in front of her and coax her — even if it took hours — to take those essential nutrients into her weakened body. When she kept refusing, my heart broke, hardened, and broke again. Too many times to count. I panicked. I seethed. I grieved. I begged. I experienced a kind of powerlessness I hope never to experience again. I was her mother. The one who was supposed to nurture, nourish, feed, protect, and sustain my children. What was this monstrous sickness that made basic, elemental feeding impossible? (ibid.)
How does God feel when I see myself in a distorted fashion? How does God feel when I refuse the life-giving bread that is right in front of me? How does God feel when I settle into anxiety or depression because I’m not “good” enough and I know I never will be? How sad does God get when the ones God loves so mightily don’t hear the words, “You are a beloved child of God, and a beauty to behold”?
In our lectionary this week, Jesus doesn’t mince words: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,” he says, “you have no life in you.” I know that his words sound harsh and unforgiving, but I wonder if we might hear them as the desperate words of a parent who knows exactly what makes for life and what makes for death — and longs to spare her children the latter. I wonder if Jesus sounds the alarm so urgently because he knows how much and how badly we need the nourishing, life-sustaining food he alone can provide. I wonder if he, too, grieves and weeps, seethes and pleads, fears and hopes, when we walk away from his table, refuse his bread, and say no to his outstretched hands. I wonder how he sits with his own vulnerability, his own powerlessness — the terrible cost of the freedom he’s given us to starve ourselves if we so choose. I wonder how our Mother God yearns to gather us around her table, coax the bread of life into our mouths, and watch us once again thrive and flourish under her care.
“Whoever eats me will live because of me,” Jesus says. He is our bread, he is our bread, he is our bread. Our lectionary asks us to linger over this truth for a reason; this teaching is elemental. It is rock bottom. It is the core of who God is, and who we are. May we ever eat, and live. (Ibid.)
Hymn One Bread, One Body John Foley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FFHmGUaylA
Benediction
Receive this blessing:
You are the children of God,
gifted with dreams and visions.
Upon you rests the grace of God
like flames of fire.
May the deep peace of Christ be with you,
the strong arms of God sustain you,
and the power of the Holy Spirit
strengthen you in every way.
Amen.
Dismissal
Go in peace, belief and comfort and risk and community are yours this day and every day, to treasure and to share.
Postlude What Does the Lord Require of You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNv1z2qwZHU
CSPL154797
Diocese of St. BenedictOld Catholic Missionarieswww.oldcatholic.usWe exist to serve the poor.
