We live in what many have called “the age of addiction.” Recovery groups are a normal part of our lives. The twelve step process that we usually associate with Alcoholics Anonymous is used to help people deal with their addictions to alcohol, to sex, to work, to gambling, to food or lack of it, to religion.
My sermon title “The Itch for Euphoria” comes from a great book by William Lenters entitled The Freedom We Crave. Lenters worked for years as a minister in an alcohol rehab center. He shows in his book how our culture is set up for problems of addiction because it is infected with what he calls “the itch for euphoria.“ According to the dictionary, euphoria is “an unaccountable feeling of well—being or elation“ (a high). As a culture, we are preoccupied with feeling good, and doing so in short order——we want a quick fix.
Years ago I had a visit with a person who was looking for advice on a relationship she was in. Mary (we’ll call her) was a widow of 10 years. She was about 50 years old now, and had madly fallen in love. But she had a problem. Her boyfriend was about 60 and was not in too great of health. And if she remarried, she would lose the lucrative pension and Social Security benefits of her deceased husband. She was seeing me to get my blessing on her creative solution to this problem: namely, just living with the guy.
I empathized with the bind she was in. I conceded that many people these days come up with her solution. But my bottom line to her was: as a Christian, which she was, I just don’t think that’s an option. I think you either have to marry the guy and take all the risks and make all the sacrifices that go with that, or you have to not marry him but then live unmarried. You can’t have it both ways.
Now, you may disagree with my advice to her, but her reaction to my advice is the reason I tell this story: She was incredulous. “Duane, you’ve got to be kidding. I can’t marry him, so you’re asking me to be celibate the rest of my life.“ That was totally unreasonable to her. From two points of view, first, she seemed to think that was sexually impossible, as though no one in human history has ever succeeded in being celibate. Second, she felt like somehow my alternatives infringed upon her rights: her rights to pleasure, to happiness, to self—fulfillment, which, in this situation, she equated with letting her romantic and sexual desires take the path of least resistance. (Which, is a funny definition of happiness.)
That’s just one example of the way “the itch for euphoria“ (for feeling better than good) infects us and infects our way of thinking and living. There are many other examples:
- Shopping and just the act of buying something gives some people a high. Advertisers know all about this.
- Work can give us a high.
- More and more people itch for euphoria through pornography or through addiction to the Internet in general.
Now, I think there is a combination of things in our culture that make our age in particular an age of addiction. But we have to understand that this is not really a new problem.
In our text today Paul is addressing exactly the same problem in his day. In Philippians 3 v. 18, Paul describes people who were driven by their sensual appetites and desires.
He says (with tears——he’s crying as he’s writing this part of the letter to the Philippians) that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. What kind of behavior is it that makes someone an enemy of the cross of Christ? Paul answers that question: “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.“ Paul is talking here about a sensualism, a slavery to our appetites, that is just like our culture today. And notice how closely he ties this to our bodies:
He not only mentions the stomach, and earthly things. But his contrast between our present situation and our new situation turns on the difference between our bodies now and our new bodies: (how interesting) Jesus Christ will transform our lowly BODIES so that they will be like his glorious body.
Paul continues his description in v. 19 “Their destiny is destruction.“
When you are enslaved to feeling good, when “the itch for euphoria“ controls your life, your friends, your spending, every decision you make, you are headed for destruction. “Their god is their stomach.“ Now Paul isn’t saying that these people bow down and pray to their stomach. But he’s saying, When the impulse to feel good (the craving for euphoria—— whether through sex or booze or eating or spending) when that impulse to feel good is what drives your life, then that’s your highest value, that’s your god. You need to be honest about that “Their glory is in their shame.“ They’re actually proud of their behavior. Now, if they looked at their behavior for what it is, if they could separate the behavior from the drives inside of them it’s connected to, and the needs inside of them it appears to meet, they would be ashamed of themselves, ashamed of their behavior, but as it is, they actually glory in what is shameful. “Their mind is on earthly things.“ These six words offer a penetrating analysis of the problem. “Their mind is on earthly things.“ The problem is when one’s whole life is built around gratifying our own desires and drives and needs. The total focus of the mind is upon feeling good. It’s all absorbing. What else is there? That’s all life is.
“Their mind is on earthly things.“ I hesitate to even talk about a “solution“ to this problem today, about a way out of this, because this “itch for euphoria,“ in our culture and in our bodies and lives, is so subtle and so pervasive. It’s easy to make the even Christian religion (and, by the way, Christian worship) just another way to scratch the itch. I also hesitate to talk about a solution to our “itch for euphoria” because life is complicated. There are often chemical and physiological and environmental and hereditary factors that go into our itch for euphoria.
Yet Paul gives us good news, powerful news, today that can help us in our struggle with our bodies. Paul gives us a new way to frame this struggle, a new way to see this problem. If the heart of the problem is that “our mind is on earthly things“ (that term meaning most broadly: self, self—fulfillment), then the way out is to totally change our mind, to see things differently. Paul hints at what that transformed mind looks like when he says (v. 20), “Our citizenship is in heaven.“ There’s another whole vantage point, Paul says, from which to live and see life. In fact, there’s another whole life beyond this bondage to self. In fact, Paul says, “Our home is somewhere else.” And now we find out the secret, the lynchpin of this new way of life: “And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies, so that they will be like his glorious body.“ Let’s be clear——we’re talking about new bodies here. Jesus Christ offers a new life, a freedom in which our bodies will not hold us captive to our desires.
It’s interesting, though, that this whole verse about Jesus Christ is future tense. I wish that verse read differently. I wish this verse said, “He has transformed our lowly bodies, so that already now they are like his glorious body.“ But there is unmistakably a future dimension to our total release from the itch for euphoria. Even Jesus Christ is not some simple, here—and—now quick—fix solution to our cravings——even though often people try to make him that. “The itch for euphoria“ is as old as the Garden of Eden and will be around until Jesus Christ comes back and gives us new bodies, and brings us into a new situation where we will be full, at rest, content.
“But,” I hear you asking, “What do we do NOW?” Maybe the best way to answer that question is to go back to Mary, the widow who wanted permission to live with her boyfriend. I said to her (or at least this is what I tried to say to her when she wondered how she could possibly do what I was asking her), “Mary, eventually you have to decide how you define this problem. If you begin with what you see as your romantic needs and your sexual needs and your right to happiness (as defined by letting sexual desires take the path of least resistance), then you’re sunk. That is (to use Paul’s words) to live with your mind on earthly things. Your whole picture of life is built around you——your needs, your desires, your rights, your drives, your appetites.
What if we took a different approach?
- What if, we began with the idea that God knows better than we do what our needs are, and how we should deal with our needs and feelings and drives? (Remember, he did make us. He knows how we work.)
- What if you looked around you and discovered all kinds of people who have similar needs, similar drives to yours, but who have managed to build a life where something else controls how they deal with those things, not simply responding to the deep feelings and aches within us?
- And what if you came to the conclusion that this is simply too big a problem for you handle all by yourself? What if you said, Lord, I can’t win this battle. My willpower is just not doing it. I need a power greater than my own. I need God. Some of you who are listening to this program are right there in your life. You are ready to surrender control, to surrender yourself, to “give up” (as it were), to put your life in the hands of a gracious and loving and all—powerful God. Every person in the grip of their own itch for euphoria testifies to this moment, when we finally acknowledge, I can’t do it. I need God. And I can’t do it alone. I need other people.
The good news is that when you finally let go, and give your life to Christ, you understand what Paul meant when he said, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me. Jesus Christ knows the battles you are fighting on the battleground of your body today. And he wants to help. I hope you will let him. The Bible says that the one who is in us is stronger than the one who is in the world. Christ says to us today, Fear not. Have courage! I have overcome the world and I will be with you always.
Duane Kelderman
Rev. Duane Kelderman is the Vice President for Administration and an Associate Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. Before his current position he served as pastor in Christian Reformed congregations in Toledo, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rev. Kelderman is married to Jeannette and has three children and two grandchildren. He was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa and attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary. He enjoys reading and carpentry.
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