A mother was preparing breakfast for her two-year-old daughter. She asked the toddler, “What would you like for breakfast a bagel or a bowl of cereal?”
The little girl answered, “Chocolate.”
“No,” her mother replied, “You can’t have chocolate for breakfast. Do you want a bagel or cereal?”
Again the little girl said, “Chocolate.”
Slightly exasperated, the mother said, “No, honey. You can’t have my chocolate until after lunch. Now what do you want . . .a bagel or cereal?”
The little girl said with a grin, “Lunch!” (as told by Don Colbert, What Would Jesus Eat? [2002], 145).
Cravings. We all get them. Whether they are the need for ice cream at midnight, or hot wings during the big game, or some Sunday evening yearning for a mystery casserole your grandmother cooked up when you were eight. We crave flavors with our taste buds, but even more we crave them with our memories, and our souls.
As life unfolds our “good food” memories are too often gradually replaced by appetites of a different nature. Instead of sweet or salty, savory or creamy, we desire more expensive, heady, sometimes toxic mixtures. Our appetite is whetted not by honey or gravies, but by success, by advancements, by money, by security, by power.
Our appetite shifts from “tasty” to “take-over.”
Both the gospel text and the epistle text for this week are all about appetites. In Matthew’s gospel Jesus notes that he is crushed and criticized by the religious authorities because he came “eating and drinking.” Jesus, the Messiah of the Open Table, dared to dine with those who were outside the comfort zone of the religious establishment those who were “large and in charge.”
Jesus ate with Romans and other Gentiles. Jesus ate with sinners. Jesus ate with tax collectors. Jesus ate with all sorts of “out there” persons. Yet John the Baptist, the one charged with announcing the coming of the Messiah, was discharged and dismissed for being some kind of aesthetic weirdo — living in the wilderness, living off locusts and wild honey, baptizing people in the river, not fitting in with the first century dress code. He too, was “wrong.” Both life-styles of fasting and feasting were refused and rebuked by the mainstream.
In the Pauline text, his letter to the Roman Christians, the apostle’s lament was about how much he wanted to do something better than what he did every day. Paul, the Pharisee who had lived his whole life according the letter of the Law, wrote with regret that, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This is almost a direct quote from the Latin poet Ovid (43BC-17/18AD), where he admits “The good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not I do.” It was both a personal apologetic and a profound confession of the human spirit. Paul’s contorted confession in Romans 7:15-25 is one of the most vulnerable, open moment that Paul offers to his readers, as from 2 Corinthians 11, where he lifts up his toga and shows his scars.
Is there anyone who has not wished he had not said some things? Who among us has not belatedly bit our tongues? How many nasty remarks and bad deeds have all of us regretted and wished to recall? How any empty excuses have we made, how many promises have we broken? With all of us, Paul admits, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.”
It is the human predicament. We know what is good. We want to do what is good. Then we do something else. Then we feel the weight of that wrong decision (mostly, maybe, hopefully).
Appeasing our “appetites” is not always a good thing. When we do what we “want” it almost never ends up being what we ultimately “want.”
There is a distinct difference between what our most basic human nature “wants” and what we know with our whole heart and soul is something that we should desire. Fulfilling “wants” come fast and furious. Fulfilling the desires of one’s heart, well, that takes something more. Finding a way to discern our true desires, well, that takes Jesus.
I repeat: there is a vast chasm separating our earthly “appetites” and our eternal “desires.” Don’t be fooled. Our “appetites” are not met on the “Food Network” channel or on QVC. Our biggest cravings develop later in life and are met by Harvard Business School, by corporate mergers, by back room deals, and also, more subtly, by public accolades, and the “thatta-boy/thatta-girl” approval of our work by others, whatever that work might be.
“I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Paul wrote a lot of theological essays. But among all his amazing spiritual gifts, he probably never wrote a truer insight into the human spirit than in this Romans’ text. Our appetites drive us. They can drive us to dream, to work hard, to achieve, to strive for personal excellence. But those same appetites, if not steeped and serviced in the Spirit, ferment into something toxic. They become an insatiable striving for more for more riches, more personal power, more fame, and a “name” that will live beyond our lifetime — or at least make it onto the “E” channel.
Jesus, the Messiah who came “eating and drinking,” did not smooze and knosh for fun. Jesus, the Messiah who came “eating and drinking,” did so in order to connect and communicate with the people who most needed to hear the gospel, who most needed to know about the coming of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ actions were not stimulated by “appetite,” they were motivated and driven by “desire.”
The desire that Jesus offered was not for fame or fortune. It was for something totally different. It was not for a desire that was motivated by any “human” appetite.” Instead, Jesus offered a new taste temptation — a new desire — wholly motivated by the Spirit.
Instead of having an “appetite” for chocolate, or seafood, or pasta, Jesus gives us a “desire” for something more. Something more than a melt-in-the-mouth, milk chocolate moment. Something that sustains our soul for a lifetime, not just our stomach for a season. Jesus gives us a desire to love God and love each other with heart, head and hand. There are really only two stories anyone can write with letters or with life: the desire to be loved and the desire to love.
Paul’s personal appetite had been for “success.” He was scholar, a Roman citizen, a respected Pharisee. His “appetite” for success had been sated and satisfied. But Paul’s “desire,” his longing for personal redemption, had still been unfulfilled until he met up with Jesus on the Damascus Road. It was only after Paul’s personal experience with the risen Christ that Paul realized that the satisfaction of his previous appetites had nothing to do with his soul’s satisfaction. It was only after Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ that he felt the “desires” of his earthly life miraculously and suddenly fulfilled in the love of God and the love of others.
Yet human appetites are not all “bad.” The hoopla of human joys — of births, triumphs, milestones, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries those are all good things. The problem is that our appetites for such moments become overwhelmed by the short-sightedness of our human needs. We focus on the promissory future of a child, we look towards the gifts that graduation might convey, we look for closing dates, or even probate conclusions.
Those are appetites. Hungers for something more than what we have. Desires . . . now those are something different. Desires are not for “more.” Desires are for something “different.” Desires are the call of our souls to urge us to something beyond the ordinary and every day. Desires of the Spirit moves us beyond the mundane to the miracle, beyond living moment-by-moment to abundant life.
Our “appetites” often drive us to do whatever we can to make more money, to be more successful. But sometimes our “appetites” are not that identifiable. Do you have an appetite to “always be right?” Do you have an appetite to always be in charge? Do you have an appetite to always organize, but never obey, to always be a host, but never be a guest?
When Paul met up with Jesus on the Damascus Road, he did not just lose his pecking-order place in the ladder-climbing hierarchy of the Pharisees. He lost it all. He lost everything. But he gained something more than “everything.”
He moved from the realm of “appetite” to the realm of “desire.” Paul might have spent his lifetime whetting his appetite for the rewards of success. But “success” changed when he welcomed the crucified, maligned, rejected Jesus, and received him as the Messiah. Suddenly Paul’s desires were reordered, and his “big” success moments were ones like bringing Gentiles into the faith and spreading God’s redeeming love to all of humanity.
That is the difference between an “appetite” and a “desire.” When Jesus comes into our lives, he doesn’t change our appetites so much as revolutionize our desires. All of us have “appetites.” But the grace of God exchanges the supremacy of our biological “appetites” for the supremacy of divine “desires.” To each one of us comes a moment when we must decide which way to go: to live life according to our appetites, which feed the desires of the flesh, or to live life according to the desires of a changed heart, which indulges our appetites in a whole new way. Which way will you go? The desires of the human flesh, or the desires of the redeemed heart?
There is a legend about the 16th century Spanish explorer Pizzaro (1471-1541) that used to be a favorite of preachers in the 19th century. They told this story over and over again, and in so doing, I’m sure, added a little burnish each time they did. But here’s the story.
Pizarro was in Panama with his soldiers. They were ready to begin again, after repeated tries, the search for the unknown territory of Peru and the treasures that were hidden there.
His numbers were down to 12, and even those 12 started to revolt. Some expressed a desire to settle down in Panama, which had become their outpost. Though it was a poor country, it was a friendly and comfortable place to settle down. Besides, no one knew the difficulties and hardships which might lie in Peru.
Calling his men together, Pizzaro dramatically pulled out his sword and drew line from east to west in the sand.
“Friends and comrades!” he cried. “On my side are toil and hunger, nakedness and drenching storm, desertion and death. On your side, ease and pleasure. This way lies Peru with its uncertainty and endless possibilities, there lies Panama and its surety and safety. Choose each man what best becomes a brave Castillian. For my part, I go south.”
Jesus also drew something in the sand. We don’t know what he wrote there, but we know it was more than a line. It was an invitation to open up the human heart to a new desire the desire to love as God loves, and the desire to be the beloved. The only line-in-the-sand Jesus ever drew was an invitation to step over the line to love and be loved. Once again, these are the only two storylines that have ever been written in any lines on the sands of life or in the sands of time. But the price of this desire, the desire to love as God loves and the desire to be the beloved of God, is very high. The price of love is a broken heart. Or as Jesus put it, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
By the way, Pizarro’s raggedy remnant of men responded to his challenge and went south. Will you choose to follow Jesus to a new heart’s desire this morning it may be south, the more difficult path, but the King travels with you.