Body Sculpting and Self Shaping

As a society, we are obsessed with our external images. As Christians we should recognize that our energies need to focus on how we can allow Christ to shape and mold us into new beings.

The two texts focused on for this week approach the question of self image from two different but related perspectives. The text from Mark tells the story of an exorcism, a dramatic but not unbelievable or unheard of event in the first century A.D. Today we think that the type of demon exorcism Jesus practiced in Capernaum is no longer a part of our culture. In reality, however, we are all engaged in superhuman efforts daily to drive out demons from our modern lives. Only our methods have changed. The text from Corinthians features a particular demon we still fixate on - the god of food.

We are a nation of food fetishists. We try to rid ourselves of anxieties and insecurities through over-use and addiction to both food and, more recently, technology. Whereas being overweight and keeping out of the sun used to be marks of status (we tend to forget how recent this preoccupation with the body is: as late as 1954 only one in ten French dwellings had either a bath or a shower), now the...