- Sermon - Mickey Anders

"Skin or Spirit?"

By Dr. Mickey Anders

First Christian Church

Pikeville, Kentucky

January 15, 2006

I remember watching a comedy produced by the Farrelly brothers in 2001. It was about a character who was a typical twenty-something and a nerdy kind of guy. He was terrible with women, but he had incredibly high standards. There was never a woman that was beautiful enough for him. He really was "Shallow Hal." Everything about his life was shallow. He only judged women by their imperfections. He was always on the quest for the perfectly beautiful woman. He never judged any woman except on physical appearance.

As the plot develops, Hal finds himself stuck on an elevator with the self-help guru Tony Robbins. Through cinematic magic, he was transformed. Now when he saw women, he didn't see their outside. He saw them for their inner beauty.

When he saw the character played by Gwenyth Paltrow in a fat suit, weighting 300 or 400 pounds, he saw instead the slender, beautiful woman she was on the inside. Suddenly he was falling for women who had inner beauty. His equally shallow buddy was horrified that Hal was attracted to unattractive women.

It was a silly movie with humorous stunts, but it came to my mind when I read the Scripture passages for today. I struggle with this passage because it deals with our bodies. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made." I realized I had never preached a sermon about our bodies, probably because I am not comfortable with mine. I would guess that 95% of us are unhappy with out bodies.

I am a part of the baby boomer generation, and we are all getting old. Some baby boomers have lost their hair (like I have)! We are at the age where things are sagging that shouldn't be sagging. We struggle with our memories. There was a time I could remember your name better than I can today. I have age spots! I keep going to the dermatologist who says, "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is - you don't have cancer. The bad news is - you will get more of these spots as you get older."

We, baby boomers, are so obsessed with our bodies that we keep trying to make things better. We are getting botox injections, liposuction, silicone augmentation, teeth whiteners, phony tans, hair coloring, and skin rejuvenators. We are doing everything we can to keep these bodies looking better. While there is nothing wrong with looking as good as we can, I fear that many of us are obsessed with how we look.

We are as bad as Shallow Hal! We keep looking at the skin and not the spirit. That was the message of the scripture for today. We are judging people and ourselves by appearance.

The Bible has a high estimation of our bodies. In 1 Corinthians 6 we read, "Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit." The Psalmist says we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Paul says we are not to be using our bodies for the wrong things. We are to respect our bodies because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are to be good stewards of our bodies just as Adam and Eve were stewards of the Garden of Eden. They were there to take care of it, and we should also develop healthy habits and take care of our bodies. Stewardship of our bodies is a spiritual exercise.

Our bodies are a wonderful gift. In spite of the parts of my body that are falling apart, it is quite amazing that at 57, I still function as well as I do. I thought back about a lawn mower I bought several years ago. It was made of steel and it was the best that humans could design. But it lasted only four or five seasons. I remember the new cars I have bought. They also were made out of study materials and gleamed when new. But in just a few short years, it became a piece of junk. It became a rattle-trap that I couldn't wait to get rid of. But my body, made of flimsy flesh, is still working. It is a miracle that our bodies continue to function when things made of steel are rusting and falling apart. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

But the Bible would tell us to keep this in perspective. We sometimes become so consumed by the body that we evaluate ourselves by appearance. That is clearly the wrong thing for us to do. It is not the skin that matters, it is our spirit.

In 1980, I watched a movie called "The Elephant Man." It is a story of John Merrick in 1884, who was discovered in a freak show. He had a terrible disease that made cauliflower-like growths on his head. The bones of his skull were badly misshapen. They called him "the elephant man" and people paid to see how horrible he looked. A medical doctor learned about him and brought him for medical examination. He wondered if he could read or if he was mentally disabled. When they got to know John Merrick, they found him to be an incredible personality and a brilliant man. Through the course of the movie, other people in society discovered the "elephant man," but they discovered the inner person he was. They discovered that he was a beautiful man on the inside!

Here we are, worried about our little imperfections, and we see John Merick with gross distortions of the body. But he found that inner strength and beauty to make him an attractive person.

Sometimes we get so obsessed with the outside that we don't remember that every one of us is made in the image of God. Our worth, our value, does not depend on our appearance!

Yes, we are to take care of, and use this body that is wonderfully made, but we should not be obsessed by the skin. When we forget to nurture the spirit, we commit a sin against the image of God within us. We need to not be shallow, like Hal, judging only from the skin, but to nurture and value the spirit within us.

The Psalmist says that our problem is not that our skin is sagging, but that our souls are sagging. Our spirit within us is our real problem. The Psalmist makes several points to encourage our sagging souls.

First, he asks, "Where can I go from your spirit?" Where can we go to run from God? If we pull the darkness over us, we could never hide from God. God knows us.

As I shared with the children this morning, God is looking at us because he values us. God loves us that everything about is fascinating to God. As we study and admire the birds, God studies and admires us. As a parent loves a child, God loves us.

Christine brought her twins to Sunday School today. They are not identical twins, but they looked alike to me. But Christian protested, "No, they are so different. It is easy to tell." That's because she has studied everything about them. That's the way God does us. God knows us and loves us and admires us. Such great love, we should all celebrate!

God knows us. All of us could say that a lot of people don't really know us. I read a sermon by a pastor named Billy D. Strayhorn entitled "The Awesomeness of Being Known by God" (epulpit.net/billy22.htm. Retrieved August 10, 2005). His name happens to be the same name as a famous song writer, so he said, "Did you know that Bill Cosby knows my name? He used it in one of his shows. Duke Ellington knew my name; Ella Fitzgerald knows my name; Count Basie knows my name; Lena Horne knows my name. Any jazz musician worth his salt knows my name. They all know my name because Billy Strayhorn wrote 'Take The A Train' and 'Lush Life' and a whole bunch of others. Billy Strayhorn was Duke Ellington's arranger and creative consultant. Lots of people know my name but they don't know ME."

Can't we all say that? We may know one another by name, but we don't really know each other. You know my name, and you may know a lot about me, but you don't really know me! You may see my body and recognize me by name, but you don't really know the me inside. God does! God knows the inside of me. God knows us and loves us.

I was struck by the power of knowing in one of Garrison Keillor's stories many years ago. He told the story about a young boy on a bus with his aunt. They decided to play a game that they did not know one another. The boy then made up stories about how he wasn't from Lake Woebegone at all. In fact, his parents were famous actors in New York City, and he was going there to meet them. The aunt then made up a story and said she didn't have any nephews. Suddenly the boy began to be disturbed by the game.

She said, "I don't know you." Finally, when he is almost in tears, she touches his knee and says, "It's Okay. I know you."

That's the power God has with us. God knows us, the real us. God searches for us and finds out all about us.

The Psalmist says, "You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me." God doesn't care what our bodies are like. God knows our spirit and God is all around us.

Friends, we can celebrate and have our souls lifted because God knows that inner us, not the Shallow Hal view of us, but the Gods-eye view. God knows us, loves us and is with us. When we are right with God, we are working on that inner self. We should be less concerned about our Botox and our bald heads, and more concerned our inner spirit. God wants our spirits not to sag. God gives us the gift of who we are and every one of us is of great value to God.

We confess the sin of our age - that we judge ourselves and we judge other people by appearances. Remind us once again how shallow we are. Lord, we pray that you will give us the eyes of God who looks deep within our hearts to see who we really are. And miracle of miracles, God sees within us the image of God. Help us to see that kind of image in others. Help us to have eyes to see the inner beauty in everyone. Amen.