February 5, 2006

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Eat, Drink and Be Wary

Some people employ bumper stickers to express their feelings about life; at our house, we seem to do better with buttons and refrigerator magnets. In our kitchen you will find such aphorisms as, "This is an equal-opportunity kitchen," and "A Gourmet is just a discriminating glutton," and the button my wife wears a lot, "If wearer appears depressed, administer chocolate immediately!"

Well, it works! And there is even some scientific basis for it. We just have to be careful not to become "chocoholics." Of course we already admit to being "foodaholics", a foodaholic being someone who will eat anything that doesn't eat them first! We don't just eat to live, we live to eat!

We are largely (no pun intended) becoming a society of foodaholics, a luxury in a world where most are lucky to eat at all. We enjoy the consumption of food more than any society since the Epicurians and ancient Romans. And yet at the same time we are becoming more and more conscious of what we eat, and are more serious about eating sensibly and healthily and in moderation. A few years ago, TIME Magazine had a cover story on all the gourmet and epicurean delights available to the discriminating glutton. The very same week NEWSWEEK's cover story was on the dieting craze. Shortly thereafter the DOONESBURY comic strip pointed this out and observed, "The two biggest fads in America are eating and not eating." And now, of course, we have a whole cable TV network devoted to food, with shows like “Emeril Live” and “30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray,” so you can obsess about food 24 hours a day!

We are becoming aware of just how important the right kind of food, and in the right amount, is to our total well-being. We are learning what sugar does to kids, what white flour and lack of fiber does to our innards, what caffeine does to our nervous systems (it makes them nervous!). We are learning how vitamin deficiencies may be responsible for more disorders than we had supposed, that many diseases and conditions have nutritionally based causes. We are learning that we really are "what we eat."

And cookbooks are reflecting this new consciousness. No longer are they just a collection of recipes of particular ethnic or regional foods. Now they express a whole philosophy of eating!

We have in our kitchen indispensable cookbooks with titles such as these: DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET, THE VEGETARIAN EPICURE, THE EIGHT WEEK CHOLESTEROL CURE COOKBOOK, COOKING WITH LOVE AND WHEAT GERM. Recently I saw a cookbook for kids: THE TAMING OF THE CANDY MONSTER (Continuously Advertised Nutritionally Deficient Yummies). Alas, I found it twenty years too late! All of these book are products of cooks who hold definite philosophies of cooking and eating, whether that as we eat we need to be mindful of the problems of hunger and thus eat justly, or that we need to consume more or less of certain types of food, or that we will be come healthier, happier, more energetic or balanced persons as a result of what and how we eat.

I've tried following some of their advice. I've tried to add more basic, less-refined foods with fewer additives and preservatives to my diet. I’ve tried oat bran. I’ve grown organic vegetables. I take six different kinds of vitamins. And I think it makes a difference. And since I’ve been on the South Beach (low carb) diet, it has made a huge difference! Years ago, as newlyweds, we tried becoming vegetarian, as a kind of Lenten discipline, but we didn't know what we were doing or how to properly get our protein, and after three weeks, and much weakness, we made a late-night, emergency trip to the Temple of the Golden Arches. Then, any inclination on my part to vegetarianism was dealt a near fatal blow when I took my first church in Tombstone – a congregation of cattle ranchers -- followed by a move to Long Beach and a church whose annual feast day was a BBQ! (They slaughtered not just one fatted calf, but about 10, and had a giant fund-raiser attended by a thousand people!)

We did much better at it beginning in the late 1990's when we did practice vegetarianism successfully for nearly five years. But the discovery of other food allergies meant we were running out of things to eat, and so we carefully added meat back in, as long as it is free-range and hormone-free.

All this is by way of saying: we are pretty typical of Americans who are becoming increasingly conscious of the type of things we eat; we are more and more aware of the connection between food and health. We are enjoying eating more than ever, but at the same time we are wary of what we eat and the effect it is having on us.

But let me put this in another perspective: This concern about what we eat is a uniquely American luxury. As the WASHINGTON POST pointed out in an editorial, "The next time you're in a supermarket checkout line, you might give a moment's reflection to the great fact - one of the central facts of American history - that North America is the only continent that has never experienced a great famine, and does not have massive, catastrophic hunger in its memory. The American government sometimes worries about the price of food, but never about the availability of it..."

This is not to say, of course, that there is not real physical hunger and malnutrition in America -- there is much! But the problem is not a lack of food: it is one of economics and distribution -- all of which makes gluttony an even more deadly sin. Isaiah's words in the larger context of justice are appropriate here:

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house...?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly...

There is an important issue of justice involved here, and I agree with those who believe that food is a basic right, like air. All of our personal attention to diet and health means nothing if we allow others to go hungry.

Related to this is the justice-issue of how we treat those who harvest our food – Last Spring the Taco Bell Boycott came to an end; thanks to the work of the Immocale Farm Workers coaltion, supported by the UCC, Taco Bell agreed to pay a just wage to the tomato pickers. Now it turns out that McDonalds is underpaying, so another boycott may be in order...

But let's return to this issue of eating itself. The Bible has a lot to say about it, and plainly, is concerned with "what we eat". A great many verses in books such as Leviticus are devoted to various dietary laws, as for example, the proscription against eating pork, which many good Jews still observe. Originally, and until rather recent times, there was a legitimate health basis for this. Modern curing methods and chemical additives have eliminated trichinosis as a threat, but these same methods and chemicals have made pork products hazardous in other ways. If I eat ham, I will get a headache from the nitrites.

An equally valid reason for all the Kosher food regulations of the Jews had to do with the issue of "identity." Dietary laws were formed and followed in order to set the Jewish people apart -- they made them unique, special, were a sign of their identity as God's chosen. And many Jewish people keep Kosher as a part of their identity and it sets them apart. Of course they aren't the only ones -- just ask any vegetarian if they do not feel somewhat "set apart" in any group of eaters. Their vegetarianism affects not only their physical health; it also defines a great deal of their social interaction.

The New Testament gives us many pictures of Jesus' actions involving food. Early on, we read of him going into the grain fields on the Sabbath, in order to feed the hungry. Later on, he tells 5,000 of his followers that he is the "Bread of Life", but not before he literally fills their stomachs with loaves and fishes. Centuries later, Mahatma Gandhi would proclaim that a hungry person will recognize God first in the form of bread.

Later in the Gospels, Jesus' reputation as a "glutton and a drunkard" indicates that he enjoyed the business of eating; and he was criticized by the Pharisees for going into the homes of known sinners and eating with them! His “open table” was a radical idea and got him into a lot of trouble! Beyond that, he broke bread with his disciples on many occasions, as he did in the Upper Room on the final night of his life. Meal time was special for him. But more than worrying about the content of the food, Jesus' concern seemed to be the people he was eating with, and the something special that seemed to happen over the breaking and sharing of bread. He reminds us that a meal -- any meal -- is the enduring and daily sign that God has gathered us into a family and that we discover the divine presence in friendship, in acceptance, and in grateful use of God's gifts.

I sometimes hear people say they would like to have a greater sense of community in the church, and also that they long to deepen their spiritual lives. There are many ways to help this happen, but a very simple one that does both is eat together – whether at a church social (like we’ll have next Sunday), or inviting one another over for dinner (Dinner for 8), or in the sacrament of Communion, which we are celebrating this morning. But of course you have to be intentional about it, and remember to invite the presence of Jesus to you table, and thus make eating a spiritual practice.

Paul addressed this in his first letter to the church at Corinth, our New Testament Lesson for the morning. There the Lord's Supper was observed in conjunction with what was known as the "Agape Meal", or "Love Feast", a sort of early church potluck supper. But for too many, this had simply become an occasion to consume food, rather than share love or fellowship. And so he wrote, "When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord's supper,... for each of you goes ahead with your own super, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk." When you come together to eat and drink, he told them, you must be wary -- be aware of the sacred context and meaning of your action. Share with one another, of your food, of your love, of your spirit.... so that your meal is not just a matter of consumption, but communion.

That’s a good word for us as well, for surely we are what we eat -- but even more we are how we eat, and with whom. Health and wholeness and fullness of life come not in consumption, but in communion, with God and with one another! May all our meals, and all our living, truly be sacramental acts which feed both body and soul, create community and become acts of justice and compassion which feed the world.