Since I have been on my diet I have learned to do without foods that I use to worship.  I was once a first-rate chocoholic, and now nothing.  I quit cold turkey.  I ate one last Almond Joy and never looked back. And do you know what?  I don’t really miss it anymore.  Sure I went through D.T.s for about a month.  I was so desperate for chocolate that a stale chewy butter finger or a rotten malt ball would have been nirvana. I needed chocolate like Matt Jones needs rehab.  I took coffee intravenously because I needed C.R.T. (caffeine replacement therapy).   I sang boisterously “sometimes you feel like a nut” to which Dianna was quick to reply and “sometimes you don’t” as in really, really don’t, so put a lid on it you nut.”  But now things chocolate taste too sweet to me.  I now eat some of the sugar free stuff, and it is not bad.  Of Course, if you eat too much of it you will have a big belly ache, guaranteed. I never thought I could beat chocolate, but I have won. I am claiming the victory!

Now fried foods are a different matter, I still eat those occasionally.   But I mostly stick to my plan of no potatoes, no pasta, no rice, no bread and no sugar.  I am the most successful with the no sugar and no pasta or rice parts of the equation.  I am still pretty good with the no potato thing although I have them once or twice per week.  I have not faired as well with the no bread deal.  I have breadless days alright, but I eat bread several times per week now.  But what the heck, I am exercising like a crazy man, and will enter my first 5k since 1995 in the near future.  I can run one now, but would like to be able to finish on the same day that I start!  I would like to be timed on something else besides a sundial. I would like to finish ahead of some of the walkers.  The last race I ran in 1995 was ironically and fatefully the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis, the disease which sidelined me.  I was in tremendous physical condition in ‘95, could still bench 200 pounds at 39 years old, and could run 10 miles.  I finished in the 26-27 minute range, ahead of a thousand people.  But I do remember Craig O’Neal announcing right when I was gutting it out at the finish line, “ladies and gentlemen our first walker just finished the race.”  Walker????????  I hope that was Walker Texas Ranger ahead of me and not that 75 year old man that laps me at the gym on the track. But seriously, I am right at the 30 minute mark for three miles, so I am getting there.  I will not be last with that kind of time, maybe the middle of the pack.  I also know that intense exercise is my only ticket to keeping my weight low enough that I can eat like I like to eat, so I am motivated.

I say all this because I had a recent lapse, but I did not get away with it.  I partook of a Krispy Kreme Donut that was just sitting there unobtrusively in a box in the kitchen at work.  Just one I thought.  I haven’t had a donut in more than a year.  I took a nibble and then inhaled it at break-neck speed.  I ate it faster than that Japanese guy eats hot dogs.  I immediately felt the sugar rush, but no big deal.  My fasting blood sugar is excellent now, in the 90’s every morning, so why not have that donut I reasoned.  And thinking I got away with it, I got home and had a big-time attack of hypoglycemia.  My blood sugar was in the 50’s, and I think brain cells start dying below 70.  So, not really wanting to lose any more brain cells as I almost forgot my way to church this morning, I am returning to an all sugar free lifestyle.  I repent.  No more.  Donuts are evil. Even though they have holes, they are not holy.

Well, my diet has been good for my waistline and my health, and I am now in excellent physical condition.  One of my motivators all along has been that type 2 diagnosis. I daily see the complications of diabetes in many that I work with at the hospital.  It is very bad news that will do all kinds of bad things to your body and kill you prematurely.  And when faced with the choice of a piece of pie or no feet, I chose to keep my feet.  For one thing, all my suits would be way too long for me if I didn’t have feet.  I think I look better with feet, although I might be closer to the height of my wife without them.

Seriously, I used mental pictures of things like no feet as a motivator.  Pie or feet?  You choose.  And my inspiration came from a conversation I had with a former fat Baptist preacher who worked downtown in a great big office made out of marble.  The bro. governor lost more than 100 pounds (even though he would look less like ET if he had stopped at 75, I mean look at him – his head looks small and his ears look huge) and he offered me this story when I ask him about his weight loss at a function.  He said Frank Broyles told him, “Guv-nah that pie shuah (sure) looks good on that plate for a feeew minutes, but it will look bad on my waist for a loooong time.”  Frank of the Ozarks was of course speaking of the wisdom of forgoing the pleasures of immediate gratification for the enduring satisfaction of delayed gratification.

Immediate gratification made me fat, and it gave me a big assist in the type 2 department. I would eat without being hungry, at least physically hungry.  We take comfort in comfort food because we are hungry on some level. And that is one of the problems with us in America today.  We are all about immediate gratification.  We want it, and we want it now. We go to the barn dance without ever considering the fact that we will have to pay the fiddler, sooner or later.  We fly with the wild geese knowing we could get shot down. This drive for immediate gratification permeates all areas of our society, all facets of our culture; it infects our values and enslaves our passions.  This desire for pleasure right now, for a quick fix is an epidemic in our country.  None of us are immune to the reach of its tentacles.  Success becomes about conspicuous consumerism and acquisitive lifestyles.  We sooth our pain and cover-up our insecurities by a fix that is a quick injection of pleasure regardless of the long term effects or consequences. 

And on some level we understand that this is so, that is why we coin terms such as “guilty pleasure.”  A guilty pleasure is something that we enjoy when no one is looking that we ourselves know that we shouldn’t do, or is not good for us.  A guilty pleasure is something we do when no one is looking.  But it is good for the moment.  To heck with the long term effects, we will deal with them when we have to.  We all have them.  I have a heck of a lot less of them than I did a year ago.  But we all have them, for we all desire immediate gratification.

Our lectionary text today from Genesis 25 is a story of the virtues of delayed gratification as opposed to the folly of immediate gratification.  It is the story of Esau and Jacob, the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah, and it was a struggle from the get go.  They evidently wrestled each other in the womb which foreshadowed the fact that they would be at it all their whole life long.  Esau was firstborn, and so named because he was very hairy, evidently he was a little red colored fur ball, as Esau means something like a red headed hairy little rascal in the Hebrew.  I guess in Hebrew your names were often descriptions of a characteristic, a practice we have thankfully abandoned.  I mean who wants to name a kid “so ugly that the doctors fought over who got to slap him when he was born,” or “Coney” because their head is shaped like a cone.  Or as the famous 19th century preacher who was named “if Christ had not died for our sins the whole world would be damned” paired with the last name of Barebones so that every time the role was called in school he would be preaching a gospel sermon.  Trouble is the kids just shortened it to Damn Barebones.  Jacob was second and was dragging Esau down by the heel as he popped out, and thus was named “the supplanter” or Jacob.  Now their names and this fanciful story seem a little metaphorical to me, but the point is that Jacob was chasing that hairy guy from the get go. Esau was a hunter, was rugged and hairy, maybe like an Eddie Bauer outdoors type, or maybe like Abercrombie and, uh, well never mind, no one hairy in that store. Jacob was a shepherd, a planter, a farmer, again the contrast maybe metaphorical in some way; they were opposites to the extreme. Esau was a man’s man, and was daddy Isaac’s favorite.  Jacob was more comfortable hanging out with the women and was Rebekah’s favorite.  Our story continues that Esau had a tough day hunting and came home very hungry.  Jacob was cooking bean stew, literally “red stuff” (again a play on words as Esau was the hairy red guy) and Esau wanted some.  So Jacob, said sure, give me your birthright and I will dish out the soup. Esau said, ‘I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?’ Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’ So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.”

One author I read this week (J. Philip Wogaman) comments:

On the basis of the story, you might wonder about Esau! Jacob’s “offer” to him was, “I give you the stew, you give me our whole inheritance.” Some kind of bargain! Do you get the impression that Esau wasn’t too bright? Certainly he wasn’t into “deferred gratification.” He wanted what he wanted right now. The story becomes a kind of parable on the foolishness of giving up what is enduring for the sake of what is transitory. A story like that can set you to thinking. How often people neglect really important things for the sake of some passing attraction. Esau really wanted the stew. That was his immediate desire. What of the big inheritance? What could matter less at the moment? He quite forgot that in that culture, birthright was everything. It was his link to the long past. It was his tie to the distant future. It was the very meaning of his humanity. He said, “of what use is the birthright if I die?” Of course, he wasn’t about to die! But even if he was, couldn’t he just as well have revered the question? Shouldn’t he have said, What is the use of living if it is at the cost of my reason for living? But let’s face it, we’re all like Esau—at least part of the time. We can be so attracted to ephemeral things that we forget our birthright. (from 30 Good Minutes, online at http://www.csec.org/csec/ sermon/ wogaman_4301.htm)

            So Esau was pretty stupid, huh?  He sold something great big for a bowl of stew.  Hope it was good stew; the bowl of “red stuff” descriptor kind of makes me think that it wasn’t Emeril Lagasse cooking here. So he gave up his all for a hot meal.  But lest we be too hard on him, many have made ridiculously bad decisions to benefit the here and how over the long haul. How about buying Manhattan for a handful of beads worth 24 bucks?  Yeah, yeah I know, the pilgrims got took.  Or how about selling Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver?  That proved to be a bad deal as well. 

            I would suggest to you that this morning that if we were hungry enough, we would sell our own souls for a can of Dinty Moore Red Stuff Stew.  And if you think not, you have not been hungry enough.  Hungry to the point of death—Esau thought he was dying at least.  When we are short of the essentials, we are quickly reduced to a place that we didn’t know existed inside of us.  Stress does that to a person. 

            So what did Esau give up for the soup?   His birthright. And what the heck is his birthright?  Well, that is the million dollar question. Whatever it was, it was way more enduring and important than a bowl of soup.  Esau’s birthright would have been the progenitor of a great nation through which all the earth would be blessed, but gave it all up for soup.  To father such a people was a sign of God’s greatest blessing, and who doesn’t need a great big blessing from the Almighty?  

Esau passed on the significant for the immediate.  He was short sighted, impulsive and only thought of right now.  He did not have the vision to discern the powerful implications of his decision for generations to come.  He traded the profoundly spiritual for the basic earthly.  Immediate gratification.

            I believe that while the kick you in your gut impact of this story is lost cross culturally, that there is a very important lesson here on what is important in life.  It is difficult to see the big picture when all we take are Polaroid’s.  We want it, and we want it all, and we want it now.  It is human nature.

            What will it take to sell your birthright?  Not a fair question you say?  I see Christians selling their souls everyday, and I see churches doing the same. So much of what we are about in church today is shallow, and lacks eternal significance.  We base our churches on corporate models of success where big buildings, budgets and baptisms are our benchmarks of a healthy church.  We target attractive groups for membership in the right part of town with all the acumen of a corporation. We custom tailor programs who purpose is to bring ‘em in, and we show them just enough DVD’s to elicit a few bucks for people half way around the world so we won’t have to get our hands dirty with those in need in the shadow of the steeple. What I would say to you that despite the merits of such enterprises, we are often about things that give us an immediate feel good even in church, and we ignore the hard things.  Just give us 30 minutes and we will give you something to get you through your week a big church in town advertises as they push their 30 minute service.  We will entertain you, we will not ask anything of you, you will leave here better off and better feeling so that you can face your tough week ahead.  We preach a subtle prosperity gospel, even those of us who abhor the God wants you rich shtick.  We do believe that God wants you to be successful and happy in life, and if you do the right things then this will happen.  And maybe the problem isn’t so much that we eat red stuff, after all Jacob ate it too, it is what we are willing to substitute it for that gets us in trouble.

            You see, our churches are a product of our culture.  So much of what we do and believe is cultural not theological. We are an egocentric society, everything is always about me, and our churches can be very egocentric as well.  Church is about our best life now, about life principles that get us through our week.  Ministers are life coaches who teach others how to be successful.  We are into what makes us feel good, what gives us a lift, what quickly fills the hunger in our bellies.  And we constantly have to sweeten the pot to keep up with the next big feel good church down the road. The problem is that this is not what the Jesus of the Bible was all about.  Not anywhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.  He was not about the immediate, but the significant.

            If we are to ever get past what is immediate to what is significant, we have to become counter cultural people.  That is what a German Baptist pastor did a hundred years ago. In 1885 this man became pastor of the Second German Baptist Church in New York City, located at the edge of a depressed area known as Hell’s Kitchen. Here the young pietistic pastor confronted unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, disease, and crime. “Oh, the children’s funerals! They gripped my heart,” he later wrote. “That was one of the things I always went away thinking about—why did the children have to die?” He immersed himself in the literature of social reform and began to participate in social action groups.  In so doing, he raised a whole nation’s awareness of how our faith must impact the deep issues of our day, real problems that consume real people. Walter Rauschenbusch’s social gospel made us aware that we have a great obligation to society, that our message is not just one of rugged individualism.   Rauschenbusch was a countercultural Baptist, foregoing the immediate for the significant.

            Or how about the guy who had life served to him on a platter.  He had accomplished a life time of work by the ripe old age of 26.  He had earned a PhD. in theology, published one of the most important classic theological works of the last century in his 20’s. He was a world renowned organist and musician, and wrote the definitive book on Organ building also in his 20’s. He was famous, wealthy, a citizen of the world. But at the ripe old age of 30 he had a life transforming experience.  Albert Schweitzer had resolved to repay the debt he owed the world for all the success and happiness he received, he felt so undeserving.  He heard of the great need for medical care in French Equatorial Africa, so he did the hard thing and went to medical school and then founded a hospital in what is now Lambarene, Gabon.  He and his wife as Germans were arrested and interned for seven years at the outbreak of World War I, but he made it back to Lambarene. He had scratched the hospital out from the jungle beginning in 1913; he had designed it; he had worked as an artisan in constructing many of its buildings; and, although the station was many times beset by adversities that would have discouraged a less dedicated man, it had grown at his death to more than 70 buildings, 350 beds and a leper village of 200.  He built the leper village with the money he won for the 1953 Noble Peace Prize.  His enduring concept was “reverence for life,” and he meant all life.   He would have nothing to do with immediate gratification; he called happiness nothing more than good health and a poor memory.  The significant was important to him, and he reminded us by example, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” Dr. Schweitzer was countercultural, forgoing the immediate for the significant.

            You see friends; we must go against the grain and seek to be countercultural people.  We may seek an Hour of Power on Sunday morning for a quick fix, but the power comes from our radical faith Monday through Saturday that is exercised for the redemption of the whole world. We must learn to forego the quick fix of the red stuff and seek our birthright as children of God.  We must begin to see past the immediate and look to the significant.  Friends, life is not just about us.  Our faith is not just about us.  Church is not just about us.   And the significant almost always involves looking outside ourselves, the walls of our churches, and our culturally encapsulated ways.  We have to think outside the box and be willing to get dirty for the gospel’s sake.

            Hundreds of years later, long after the bowl of stew was gone, Jacob’s acquired birthright led to a great nation who birthed our savior Jesus Christ, who in turn has blessed us all.  That same Jesus put it best when he asks us all, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?”  He was the ultimate example of foregoing the immediate in favor of the significant.  And in so doing, he gave us all a chance at both significance and a full and meaningful life.  And that my friends, is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Thanks be to God! Amen.