Greta's Glorious Body
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
62 Stories For Cycle B
Greta Schmidt huffed and puffed her way through the church hallways toward the Parish Nurse's office. She detested tardiness. It was bad enough in others, but totally unacceptable in herself. As it turned out, she had eased her bulk into the largest, sturdiest chair with two minutes to spare, and it took all of that time for her heart to stop racing and her breathing to settle back into its normal wheeze. Another "fat class," Greta sighed to herself.
Weight loss clinics, diet clubs, exercise groups and calorie counting were nothing new to Greta. She had fought a losing battle with fat from the time she was a small child.
"My momma was an excellent German cook!" she always laughed, by way of explanation. "Sauerbraten, wiener schnitzel, kuchen and stollen, sauerkraut, bratwurst, knockwurst and strudel. Always so much food! And I loved it so much! And Momma always demanded that we EAT! EAT! Is it any wonder I look the way I do?"
But Greta had paid dearly, her entire life, for her love of food. The other children had teased her and called her names; adults clucked their tongues and whispered as they stared. She was never chosen to play games or to be on prom court. No boy ever asked her out ... ever.
Still, Greta's family life was close-knit and comforting - and there was the food! She completed high school, attended college and became a librarian. She lived at home, learning to cook all of her mother's best dishes. As the years passed, Greta cared for her parents, and then her older brother, until, one by one, they went on to be with God. Now, in middle age, Greta's own health had become affected by her food obsession.
"The doctor says I have hypertension, heart problems, gout, and adult-onset diabetes," Greta said in answer to Nurse Betty Anderson's request for all the group members to state why they had come to her class on Wholistic Lifestyle Management. "I've tried every kind of diet on the market. I figure one more can't hurt."
Others in the class shared Greta's health concerns, and more besides, but she noted that few shared her girth. The next largest person present was a man who probably weighed around 250 pounds. Greta couldn't remember when she had weighed that little.
"Would someone volunteer to begin with some scripture readings?" Nurse Betty asked, passing around sheets of paper with several printed texts. A man named Max raised his hand and read:
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them ... God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
- Genesis 1:27, 31
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
- Psalm 8:3-5
Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
- Psalm 22:9-10
Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
- Psalm 100:3
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits - who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit ....
- Psalm 103:2-4
"Now, tell me," the nurse said, "what theme you hear running through these scriptures?"
"That God made us and we are good," said one woman who was wearing an oxygen mask.
"That we belong to God," said another.
"That God heals our diseases," said Max.
"I want to suggest," Nurse Betty continued, "that this class on Wholistic Lifestyle Management is the beginning of thinking of ourselves in a new way. Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. But we can't love our neighbors the way we should if we don't love ourselves! And if we love ourselves, we won't want to put harmful things like cigarette smoke, fatty foods, too much refined sugar and harmful chemicals into our bodies. We need to take care of our bodies through exercise, good nutrition, daily prayer and meditation.
"I'd like to lift up a portion of Paul's advice to the Corinthians as God's advice to us:
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything ... Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body.
- 1 Corinthians 6:12, 19-20
Greta huffed and puffed her way back to her car, lost in thought. Never had anyone told her that her body was special. Never had she considered that the food she so loved to eat was a substitute for love and acceptance.
Was that why all the other diets and exercise programs had failed? ... because she had never loved herself - her own body - enough to care for it?
"Let me start over again, God," she wheezed as she squeezed herself behind the steering wheel of her large car. "Help me to love myself enough to glorify you in my body."
Weight loss clinics, diet clubs, exercise groups and calorie counting were nothing new to Greta. She had fought a losing battle with fat from the time she was a small child.
"My momma was an excellent German cook!" she always laughed, by way of explanation. "Sauerbraten, wiener schnitzel, kuchen and stollen, sauerkraut, bratwurst, knockwurst and strudel. Always so much food! And I loved it so much! And Momma always demanded that we EAT! EAT! Is it any wonder I look the way I do?"
But Greta had paid dearly, her entire life, for her love of food. The other children had teased her and called her names; adults clucked their tongues and whispered as they stared. She was never chosen to play games or to be on prom court. No boy ever asked her out ... ever.
Still, Greta's family life was close-knit and comforting - and there was the food! She completed high school, attended college and became a librarian. She lived at home, learning to cook all of her mother's best dishes. As the years passed, Greta cared for her parents, and then her older brother, until, one by one, they went on to be with God. Now, in middle age, Greta's own health had become affected by her food obsession.
"The doctor says I have hypertension, heart problems, gout, and adult-onset diabetes," Greta said in answer to Nurse Betty Anderson's request for all the group members to state why they had come to her class on Wholistic Lifestyle Management. "I've tried every kind of diet on the market. I figure one more can't hurt."
Others in the class shared Greta's health concerns, and more besides, but she noted that few shared her girth. The next largest person present was a man who probably weighed around 250 pounds. Greta couldn't remember when she had weighed that little.
"Would someone volunteer to begin with some scripture readings?" Nurse Betty asked, passing around sheets of paper with several printed texts. A man named Max raised his hand and read:
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them ... God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
- Genesis 1:27, 31
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
- Psalm 8:3-5
Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother's breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
- Psalm 22:9-10
Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
- Psalm 100:3
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits - who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit ....
- Psalm 103:2-4
"Now, tell me," the nurse said, "what theme you hear running through these scriptures?"
"That God made us and we are good," said one woman who was wearing an oxygen mask.
"That we belong to God," said another.
"That God heals our diseases," said Max.
"I want to suggest," Nurse Betty continued, "that this class on Wholistic Lifestyle Management is the beginning of thinking of ourselves in a new way. Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. But we can't love our neighbors the way we should if we don't love ourselves! And if we love ourselves, we won't want to put harmful things like cigarette smoke, fatty foods, too much refined sugar and harmful chemicals into our bodies. We need to take care of our bodies through exercise, good nutrition, daily prayer and meditation.
"I'd like to lift up a portion of Paul's advice to the Corinthians as God's advice to us:
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything ... Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body.
- 1 Corinthians 6:12, 19-20
Greta huffed and puffed her way back to her car, lost in thought. Never had anyone told her that her body was special. Never had she considered that the food she so loved to eat was a substitute for love and acceptance.
Was that why all the other diets and exercise programs had failed? ... because she had never loved herself - her own body - enough to care for it?
"Let me start over again, God," she wheezed as she squeezed herself behind the steering wheel of her large car. "Help me to love myself enough to glorify you in my body."
