Most weeks I share a carafe of coffee with all the Sunday schoolers. I approach the kitchen counter and hope for doughnuts. Selecting a mug—the one that says “Shalom, y’all” is a hot commodity—I fill it to the brim with splashing caffeine. Classes meet all over the church building, but everyone makes a pilgrimage to the coffeepot. Like ants to a picnic.
We stand around talking, weathering awkward silences with sips. Doors swing open again and again, letting in cold air. Once again, the warm mugs are there for us. Eventually, we find chairs; we talk about the gospel reading and a couple of poems. I’m thoroughly caffeinated by the time class ends. I lap up the last drops and head upstairs for worship.
Coffee dominates church life. The consumption of caffeine, as one writer quipped, is “Christians’ acceptable vice,” seeing us “through a Reformation, modernity and postmodernity, through boring Sunday sermons and lively evening rituals. Now it takes its place on the kitchen table, next to the Bible—close enough to be in the same frame.” We get out of bed and begin our days with, as John Mark Comer puts it, “the ancient Christian spiritual discipline of really good coffee.” Only after arming ourselves against drowsiness do we set about praying.
Last year, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I started experiencing chest pain, and coffee sharpened it. Eventually, I visited a doctor, who told me to cut back.
It’s forced me to wonder, Can I live a happy life without coffee? Sounds extreme. But it’s tough to go without. Coffee transforms boring work into creative contribution and absorbs my attention with friends’ voices. Vocation, friendship, worship—all crucial to flourishing, all reliant on caffeine. I find myself craving its effects. If I had this sort of relationship with something else, say alcohol or social media, my pastor would certainly have concerns.
Maybe happiness isn’t the goal here. But can I live a Christian life without coffee? It’s as intertwined with the practice of my faith as hymns and potluck chili. When I struggle to engage with practices of faith, coffee keeps me alert to the work of God.
I imagine if I were in Gethsemane waiting for Jesus to finish praying, I’d try a few things to keep me awake—some conversation, food, maybe singing. But when all those failed, there’s one thing that would undoubtedly do the job.
I really do wonder whether coffee is my “acceptable vice.” Can I keep watch without it?
According to legend, coffee originated in a religious context. The story goes that a goat herder named Kaldi noticed his sheep were acting differently after eating berries from a particular plant. They weren’t falling asleep at night. Kaldi, I imagine, thought to himself, I wonder if I could get in on that. He shared his observation with the abbot of the local monastery, who made a drink from the berries. Soon the abbot was able to stay “alert through the long hours of evening prayer.” Centuries later, here we are.
Caffeine isn’t the only intervention that has kept Christians awake while praying. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Saint Francis and his followers used rigging. A biographer at the time, Thomas of Celano, explains that the contemplatives believed they should always be praying and praising God: “They thought themselves abandoned by God if in their worship they did not find themselves constantly visited by their accustomed fervor.”
But sometimes they got tired.
When they wanted to throw themselves into prayer, they developed certain techniques to keep from being snatched off by sleep. Some held themselves up by suspended ropes in order to make sure their worship would not be disturbed by sleep creeping up on them. Others encased their bodies in iron instruments. Still others encased themselves in wooden girdles.
To them, metal and wood were the antidotes to drooping eyelids and nodding heads. The body’s needs were considered obstacles to prayer that needed to be overcome. Fatigue was a problem to solve rather than a sign to sleep.
Living Like a Monk in the Age of Fast Living
The Franciscans not only ignored their bodies’ needs; they actively subverted them. They stripped naked in the cold and pierced themselves with thorns. These expressions of faith may be foreign to us. But consider the reasons we deny ourselves sleep—the prospect of gain and notoriety, for instance—that cause some of us to overwork.
Saint Francis and his followers harmed their bodies because they believed it would bring them closer to the crucified Christ. Many of us, on the other hand, harm our bodies because we think it will bring us closer to worldly success.
Of course, lacking sleep is not the same as stripping in the cold or piercing one’s own skin. But it does denigrate the body. This modern denigration creates the caffeine craving, and rampant addiction arises from this refusal to rest.
I go to church with a biology professor who has the spiritual gift of explaining science in a way that I understand. He taught me that the plants that produce caffeine use it as a natural pesticide. Caffeine kills hungry bugs. It’s also a psychoactive substance, like marijuana and cocaine, meaning that it affects humans’ mental processes.
Caffeine interferes with adenosine, the chemical that tells our brains when we’re tired. That means caffeine’s main job is to lie to us. Adenosine, any time we are tired, tries to stage an intervention. But caffeine steps in front and tells adenosine that there’s no problem, it’s making a big deal out of nothing, and we’re doing just fine. It slams the door on adenosine’s intervention. Caffeine doesn’t give us energy. It enables us to pretend we have it.
Whether using caffeine or wooden rigging, some treat their bodies as inconvenient at best and an obstruction to devotion at worst. If communion with God happens in spite of physical bodies, then they keep the coffee coming. If prayer is meant to transcend the physical, then rigging can only help.
In this view, flesh and blood are hurdles between us and God’s vision for salvific reconciliation. We don’t need to take heed of our bodies’ needs. We need to get past them.
But bodies don’t have to obstruct communion with God. In fact, it is through bodies that communion with God is made possible. Consider the Eucharist.
Historical theologian Gisela Kreglinger writes that “we receive spiritual sustenance through our physical and communal sharing in the Eucharist, by walking to the altar to stand or kneel, by opening our hands and our mouths to receive the physical matter of bread and wine. We chew, we taste, we listen, and we swallow. We digest.” It makes sense that Jesus taught us to remember his flesh and blood by eating and drinking. You can’t get much more bodily than digestion.
In eating the bread, our bodies tangibly interact with the body of Christ. And we enact our identity as the church, the body of Christ.
Bread is different from caffeine. It gives energy by providing calories that our bodies need. And while the Lord’s Supper doesn’t typically involve eating enough bread to sustain the body’s literal needs—just a wafer, just a crumb—bread’s physical effects reflect a spiritual reality: that prayer might have less to do with transcending our bodies and more to do with nourishing them.
Wine, on the other hand, is more like caffeine than bread. In larger quantities, it’s a psychoactive substance that affects mental processes. What, then, should we make of its place in the Communion ritual?
In her essay “Prayer and Incarnation: A Homiletical Reflection,” the religious philosopher Lissa McCullough writes that absolute good transcends us, “lying beyond or outside the limits of our desire.” Humans are limited by our bodies—tired, hungry, suffering from headaches or sore backs—and that limitation can keep us from the absolute good of God. I might believe that I need to give my undivided attention to a hurting friend, but if I am exhausted, my conviction is limited by my body. I want to pray with loving attention toward God, but my drooping eyelids limit that desire.
Part of prayer, McCullough argues, is a “sacred petition” that takes us beyond ourselves and to an absolute good that “can reconcile us to the incarnational will of God as that will is actually unfurled providentially in events.” Humans are broken. So communion with God requires a spiritual elevation above human nature, above the limits of our bodies and minds—above tiredness.
Notice the ultimate purpose that McCullough outlines: Transcendence is intended to “reconcile us to the incarnational will of God.” Jesus came down to live an earthly life with a bodily existence. God’s will is incarnational. It doesn’t ignore our earthly bodies but works through them, even when ultimate goodness requires transcending our bodies’ limits.
Communion wine acts as an agent of transcendence, at least figuratively. But it does so not to denigrate the body (as with self-flagellation and overwork) or ignore it (as with wooden girdles and a double shot of espresso). Instead, both the bread and wine enter the body for the sake of the body. In McCullough’s words, prayer should “be directed not toward the transcendent disincarnationally, but into the world, toward the body and the earth, giving rise to a fully incarnate saintliness or holiness.”
We’re humans that need sanctification, and this sanctification is accomplished not in spite of our bodies but through them. Kreglinger draws out how God sanctifies us through our bodily existence:
As we bring ourselves, including our bodies, and as we bring the fruits of the earth in bread and wine (which includes our participation in labor and creativity in its production), God sanctifies them and meets us in bread and wine. The fact that we bring ourselves together with bread and wine to God in the Lord’s Supper and that we receive Christ in bread and wine solidifies our close kinship with creation in the world of salvation.
God meets us during Communion. A couple in my church is beloved by everyone because they have loved everyone. She led the children’s choir for years and greets every person with the truest of smiles. He makes a point to greet newcomers any chance he gets, with a soft handshake and curious questions. Christ’s love sparkles in their eyes. Recently they’ve had some health problems, and she uses a walker and oxygen tank.
During an evening Eucharist service, while everyone else walks up the aisle to receive bread and juice, they remain seated. The servers walk to them. They eat, drink, and receive God’s grace. Watching them raise their hands as we sing our final hymn, I become more aware of God’s will for incarnational salvation. The limits of their bodies do not keep God from communing with them. If anything, the beauty of the Eucharist is made more beautiful by the limits they face.
To enact incarnate holiness, prayer does not avoid the world but goes into it. The Eucharistic prayer gives us the food and drink of this reality, building a closer kinship to creation with each swallow.
Saint Francis didn’t think bodies were all bad. One day, he came across some birds and began to preach to them: “My brothers the birds, you should love your creator deeply and praise him always. He has given you feathers to wear, wings to fly with, and whatever else you need.”
Being thankful for our own feathers and wings means taking good care of them. This requires eating good food that gives good energy. It means getting rest and not using caffeine as a crutch. If we are exhausted, glorifying God might mean taking a nap or going to bed early.
It could also mean making a cup of coffee to comfort a friend. It might mean going through a drive-through for that hot, bitter drink that will get you through the third stretch of a long day. Sometimes, tiredness is worth the tradeoff. Sometimes, we need coffee.
But just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s always good. Gisela Kreglinger was raised in a family that has been making wine for generations, but she recognizes the substance’s potential for abuse. In The Spirituality of Wine, she writes,
When we use wine or food or any other substance as an anesthetic to cope with the stress, suffering, pain, and perhaps boredom of our lives, we not only abuse God’s gifts but also close ourselves off from the possibility of receiving comfort and healing that comes from being in a relationship with God and one another.
Kreglinger calls for us to enjoy the gifts of God’s creation yet to be wary of using them in a way that keeps us from loving relationships with God and each other.
I’ve started drinking coffee again. (Not every day, and I sometimes have to adjust my diet to accommodate.) I have reasons that might hold water, but at the end of the day, it’s mostly because I enjoy it. I’ll leave it to someone with more fortitude or hypocrisy to call Christians to stop. But I’ve started insisting on one thing—I pray before having coffee.
Sometimes I practice morning prayer with friends. Sheer embarrassment, at the very least, keeps me from giving in to any sleepiness. Speaking aloud, standing, and kneeling allow me to focus myself even when my mind wants to wander. Once we finish, we flock to the church kitchen for several cups of coffee together. It’s a perfect start to my day.
There are all sorts of ways to engage in prayer without caffeine in our systems. It might be a worthwhile practice to abide in God’s loving presence in a mental state unaltered by psychoactive substances.
The question the church needs to ask is how caffeine is affecting our communal lives—whether it’s enabling us to mistreat our bodies and the bodies of others.
Are we giving in to the temptation of caffeine that promises productivity without rest? Are we practicing sabbath, or are we fueling a hustle culture that values success over well-being? Are we tangibly caring for brothers, sisters, and neighbors overworked by financial strain? Are we letting prayer nourish us as the Eucharist teaches?
Let’s go back to coffee on Sunday mornings. The brew I hold was made by a good friend who just asked me how I’m doing, audaciously expecting an honest answer. In the circle of chairs, parents, teachers, and technicians discuss the difficult drudgery of the everyday. University students tell of adventures and philosophies and aspirations. Retired-aged gardeners and hikers share their joys, hopes, regrets, and hard-earned wisdom. Hospital workers speak hopefully about their work. These words encourage and instruct, comfort and enliven me.
In this time, I am sustained by the body of Christ—the church that gives the gift of communion with God by communing with one another.
After the benediction, a middle-aged father empties the dishwasher so we can fill it with mugs again. Some caring hands might put away the chairs so they’re out of the way of the next gathering. And we will ascend the stairs to the sanctuary where our bodies will, once again, receive the nourishment of the body of Christ. And in that moment, through that gift, our bodies will be fulfilled in the transcendent love of God.
Whatever it looks like, honoring our bodies allows us to worship as the birds do: Saint Francis’s birds “exulted marvelously in their own fashion, stretching their necks, extending their wings, opening their mouths, and gazing at him.” Let us remember our needs and tend to them. And we will glorify God with our arms and legs, our skin and neurons.
Isaac Wood is a NextGen Accelerator Fellow for Christianity Today, and produces local history podcasts in East Tennessee.
