{"id":1316,"date":"2012-09-25T17:30:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T17:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=787"},"modified":"2012-09-25T17:30:48","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T17:30:48","slug":"its-all-smoke-a-mirrors-our-bodies-a-the-media-lori-unger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1316","title":{"rendered":"Smoke & mirrors – the Body & the Media- Lori Unger – September 23, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons
<\/a>Listen to this Sermon<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Samuel 16, Romans 12: 1-2<\/p>\n

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Smoke and Mirrors: the Body and the Media<\/span><\/div>\n

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TUMC, September 23, 2012<\/div>\n

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I wish I had a mirror here in front of this circle of chairs, facing all of you.\u00a0 A big one, one in which, if you would stand in front of it you could see your whole body.\u00a0 And then I wish that some of you, one by one, would come and stand in front of the mirror, seeing what you see, even as all the rest of us watch you see what you see.\u00a0 And I wonder what you would be thinking, standing there in front of the mirror, watching all of us watch you.\u00a0 I wonder what you think we see.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

And then, had I the resources of a massive multi media stage with multiple screens, I would flash images, the very images that we see every day.\u00a0 Images on billboards and on the television, in magazines in the grocery store check out lane, and in movies.\u00a0\u00a0 Dashing men and perfect women, trim waistlines and high fashion.\u00a0 \u00a0Perfect symmetry, immaculate smiles, not a hair out of place.\u00a0 Ever.\u00a0 Now look back into the mirror, and remember that all of us are watching you as you see yourself.\u00a0 What do you see now?\u00a0 What do you think we see?\u00a0 What do you think God sees?<\/span><\/p>\n

As Marilyn introduced to us last Sunday, the theme for the fall season will focus on our bodies and how our bodies intersect with our faith expression.\u00a0 My topic for this morning is how the media shapes and even determines how we see our bodies.\u00a0 We can agree, can we not, that we are inundated, even those of us who try to insulate ourselves from the power of the media, inundated with images, telling us who we are, who we want to become, what\u2019s important, what\u2019s normal.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a clip from Jean Kilbourne, a one-time model, who has come to reflect on the effect of media on the way we perceive our bodies and the bodies of those around us.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=PTlmho_RovY<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one called \u201cEvolution of beauty\u201d that unmasks the smoke and mirrors behind the images of bodily perfection that we consume every day.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IHqzlxGGJFo<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Evolution of beauty \u2013 so that the standard of beauty to which we hold ourselves and each other isn\u2019t even real.\u00a0 Standing here, looking in the mirror, now clouded and muddied by our comparison with these images of unattainable \u201cbeauty,\u201d how can we help but play the comparison game?\u00a0 How can we do anything but despair of our inevitable failure to measure up?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

These clips tend to deal with images of women \u2013 almost all white women, if you noticed. The images we consume tend to be homogenous, not just in bodily perfection or facial symmetry (did you know there\u2019s mathematics to what\u2019s considered a beautiful face?) but also in many other ways, making most of our society invisible.\u00a0 Where are indigenous people portrayed in the media we consume?\u00a0 Where are the beautiful, wizened faces of our elders?\u00a0 Where are LGBT folks, or those who don\u2019t fit easily into \u201cMale\u201d or \u201cfemale\u201d distinctions?\u00a0 What about disabled people?\u00a0 The media we consume renders them invisible, and in our consumption, we are rendered complicit in their invisibility.\u00a0 And it all comes down to bodies \u2013 is it the right kind of body or not?\u00a0 Does it get to be considered \u201cnormal?\u201d\u00a0 The message is that if we don\u2019t conform to \u201cnormal\u201d there\u2019s something wrong with us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The values that emerge in most advertising, especially when it comes to our bodies, conflict sharply with (what God thinks is important.)\u00a0 We read the Samuel passage this morning in order to notice that physical beauty didn\u2019t rate very high on God\u2019s priority list when it came to choosing a king.\u00a0 There were more important things to consider.\u00a0 How many of (Jesse\u2019s) sons did God pass over, strapping, capable lads who presumably were the picture of vim and vigour and still didn\u2019t meet God\u2019s muster.\u00a0 \u201cGod looks at the heart (find quote)….\u201d\u00a0 Samuel must have been confused when he got to the end of the line, knowing that he must find the new king from among these very sons, yet God had rejected them all.\u00a0 It turns out there was another son, tending the sheep in the field, whom no one had considered.\u00a0 Evidently, he didn\u2019t rate when it came to looking for kingly attributes.<\/span><\/p>\n

God knew something about David that the rest of them didn\u2019t, however.\u00a0 Something about his heart, about the quality of his character, about the strength of his will and resolve.\u00a0 God knew something about the man David would become, something about the way in which David would grow and serve and lead.\u00a0 And God deemed those more important than mere appearance.\u00a0 It seems so intuitive.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to me that the biblical writer himself couldn\u2019t resist commenting on David\u2019s striking physique, as though he had forgotten what he had written just a few short sentences earlier.\u00a0 Did you notice it?\u00a0 (Read…)\u00a0 It would seem that the impulse to rely on physical beauty to take the measure of another is as old as the hills. <\/span><\/p>\n

What I\u2019m saying here, and what this passage in Samuel reminds us of, is that the world is lying to us \u2013 lying to us about what\u2019s important in life, about what we should care about, about what we should spend our money on.\u00a0 Lying to us about what makes us and those around us valued members of the world community.\u00a0 We know these things, and yet we can\u2019t escape it.\u00a0 Images are everywhere, with constant and pervasive reminders of what our values are, about what matters most in life, and about how little we have of any of it.\u00a0 Our inadequacy, our insufficiency.\u00a0 It also helps us measure the people around us, holding us all to an impossible standard that doesn\u2019t even matter in greater scheme of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I know it\u2019s not enough to stand here and say to you \u2013 how you look isn\u2019t important, it\u2019s what is on the inside that counts.\u00a0 That\u2019s faint consolation to anyone who goes through life worried about the size of her thighs, or frantically covering up his acne for fear of public ridicule.\u00a0 Or feeling invisible and undervalued because she\u2019s too fat, or too old, or disabled, or \u00a0– you fill in the blank.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

But God\u2019s standards should be heartening.\u00a0 They remind us about what we already k
\nnow, somewhere in the backs of our minds \u2013 that there are more important things in life than chasing the pervasive and ever elusive standard of beauty presented to us in myriad ways every day.\u00a0 The beauty of our bodies is not in their immaculate perfection, but in their capacity to carry out God\u2019s purposes in the world.\u00a0 None of us will be chosen to be King, I daresay, but each of us is chosen, and our chosenness isn\u2019t annulled by the wrinkles on our faces or by the cellulite in our nether regions.\u00a0 Our bodies, in their astonishing diversity and marvelous particularity, whatever they look like and however abled they are, carry us into our calling, to contribute to God\u2019s purposes in the world.\u00a0 And when we live into our best and God-intended selves, we come face to face with our inner strength and the beauty of our hearts will transform even our outward appearance, and make it beautiful.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what can we do? <\/span><\/p>\n

When I was growing up, my family played a game with advertisements called Find the Lie \u2013 we do this sometimes with Ezra and Ani too.\u00a0 It\u2019s about turning a critical eye toward the advertising we are exposed to.\u00a0\u00a0 We could see, for example, that in an ad for a fancy new sportscar, the woman draped across it had little to do with the quality of the actual product, except to make you think that if you drove that car, you might also get the girl.\u00a0\u00a0 The first thing we can do is to raise our own consciousness about the media we consume and how it attempts to shape our values and priorities.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve begun that process today.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can also notice our complicity in all of this.\u00a0 We are not simply passive recipients of the media we consume.\u00a0 Rather, our consumption fuels the marketing economy, our demand generates the very values that we must later resist.\u00a0\u00a0 Establishments that we frequent, entertainment that we consume, things that we buy, even institutions that we support, all bolster this media driven culture in which we participate. <\/span><\/p>\n

Secondly, we can choose to limit our exposure to media and its tepid values.\u00a0 We can opt out and fill our minds and our time with things that remind us of what\u2019s really important.\u00a0 Turn off the TV, better yet, cancel your cable.\u00a0 Read a book or the newspaper in your spare time rather than surfing the internet, have a family games night, spend time outside, enjoy the company of friends, put energy into something that\u2019s important to you, find ways of making the world a better place.\u00a0 Become contributors rather than consumers.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Third, we can cultivate our capacity for seeing as God sees, for curtailing our judging spirit, our age-old instincts to use physical markers to judge character and worth.\u00a0 To see and find the best in the people we encounter rather than cutting them down or making them feel worthless and unvalued by our words and actions.\u00a0 Imagine a high school in which everyone looked for the best in everyone else, where what you wore or looked like had no bearing on your value as a person.\u00a0 It starts with you.\u00a0 It starts with me.\u00a0 And in the starting we\u2019ll begin to live into God\u2019s real purposes in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

My call to you echoes Paul.\u00a0 Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you (and your body) can truly live into God\u2019s purposes.\u00a0 So that when you look into the mirror you can see as God sees, without the smoke and mirrors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View Archived SermonsListen to this Sermon 1 Samuel 16, Romans 12: 1-2 \u00a0 Smoke and Mirrors: the Body and the Media TUMC, September 23, 2012 I wish I had a mirror here in front of this circle of chairs, facing all of you.\u00a0 A big one, one in which, if you would stand in front of it you could see your whole body.\u00a0 And then I wish that some of you, one by one, would come and stand in front…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}