Phil Kniss: Shared until all are fed

June 21, 2009
"Faith, Food, and Money"
Isaiah 58:6-10; Proverbs 13:23; Matthew 25:34-35, 37, 40; Acts 6:1-7

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Faith, Food, and Money—
the economics of food,
the justice (or injustice) of our food production and delivery system,
and how our faith affects our participation in it.

There’s probably no sermon topic I’ve taken on in recent years
that is more complicated, and potentially divisive, than this one.

That being said,
there is probably no sermon I’ve preached in recent years
that has a more simple, straight-forward message
than this one.

This one message has already been articulated, in a dozen ways,
in the scriptures that were read this morning.

And to make the message even simpler to grasp,
the Old Testament readings were read
in the Contemporary English Version,
which is said to be written at a fourth-grade reading level.

Here’s a sampling of what we heard,
in words a fourth-grader can easily understand.
I quote:
“I’ll tell you what it really means to worship the Lord . . .
Share your food with everyone who is hungry,
share your home with the poor and homeless.
The Lord blesses everyone who freely gives food to the poor.
God gives justice to the poor and food to the hungry.
Plant and harvest your crops for six years,
but during the seventh year,
the poor are to eat what they want
from your fields, vineyards, and olive trees.
Every third year, take ten percent of your harvest, bring it into town,
and put it in a community storehouse . . .
Give food to the poor who live in your town,
including orphans, widows, and foreigners.
If they have enough to eat, then the Lord your God will be pleased.”

That’s a small sampling of the nearly infinite number of texts
that speak directly to God’s people about
how God expects us to live in relation to the poor and hungry.

It is clearly, and eternally, God’s will
that the poor are adequately fed and sheltered,
and that food is to be shared with the poor
from the supplies of those who have plenty.
That is an incontrovertible biblical principle.
It is a major and recurring theme in all of scripture,
that those with plenty have a moral responsibility
to see that the poor are fed.
There will be plenty for everyone,
if it is shared,
if there is justice.
That is today’s simple message.

God is grieved when injustice robs the poor of what they deserve.
Our key verse this morning is Proverbs 13:23—
“The field of the poor may yield much food,
but it is swept away through injustice.”
And God is deeply grieved when this happens.
_____________________

Now, we need to remember that all these verses
about the poor, the hungry, and about sharing
were written in a much simpler time.

It was an agricultural economy.
Wealth was not necessarily in banks.
It wasn’t tied up in some amorphous entity called, “the market.”
Wealth was in land and food.
If you had the legal right, and the resources, to own land,
you would grow good food on it, and you would live well.
But some people—whole classes of people like the Levites,
like widows and other unmarried women,
like orphans,
like foreign-born residents—
were legally prohibited from land ownership,
and were thus put in a position of utter dependence.
They were always a hair-breadth away from poverty,
and potentially, starvation.

So . . . in the laws God gave to the people of Israel,
God made provisions for the care of the poor.
God set up procedures that guaranteed they wouldn’t go without.
Israelite agribusiness operated six years out of every seven.
They had to harvest a seven-year supply of food in six years.
And the seventh year, the Sabbath year,
they let the fields and olive trees
produce whatever they would without interference.
And anything that grew for that year belonged to the poor.
It was theirs to eat, and to store up.

And every third year, the tithe, the ten percent of the harvest
did not get eaten up in the festivals, as in other years.
It went to a community storehouse.
And was divvied out to the Levites, the poor, the widows,
the orphans, and the foreigners.

In God’s economy there would be a range of wealth, naturally,
between the rich and the poor.
But it would not get out of hand, out of normal balance.
The poor would always have something to eat,
because there would be sharing.
They would share until all were fed.

That is how God wants it. Period.
“Is not this the fast that I choose?” God asks in Isaiah 58.
“Is it not to share your bread with the hungry?”
_____________________

Now, as I pointed out,
we live in more complicated times.
We have a global economy and food system
powered by multi-national economic entities
that are too complex for most of us here to understand.
In a simple family farm economy,
the scriptures explain precisely how the poor can get food:
by picking up the grain that gets dropped during harvest,
or that grows up volunteer in the Sabbath years.
But that doesn’t help us very much today.
We don’t have biblical instruction on
which foods at the grocery store we should buy
and which foods we shouldn’t,
because of the hardship they cause for small farmers
in Mexico or Peru or our own immigrant communities.
We are not given specific moral guidance on how to work
within the environment of a global food system.
We are not instructed on the relative moral and ethical merits
of eating bananas or drinking coffee
produced on a former rainforest,
or eating grapes in the middle of winter,
because they were grown in Chile,
or shopping at chain stores versus independent grocers,
or at what price-point, if any, it begins to make more sense
to buy food at Wal-Mart or Food Lion,
instead of the local farmer’s market.
There are no Bible verses, sorry to say, to instruct us
on particular matters concerning food and money
such as industrial agriculture, discount grocery outlets,
Food Co-ops, and dumpster diving.
_____________________

I am not an economist, by any stretch of the imagination.
I am no expert on agriculture,
or the environment,
or food sciences,
or international development,
or the workings of the global marketplace.

But I am a follower of Jesus.
I am a person who believes
the scriptures carry some authority for us
as we try to navigate life in a very complicated world,
and do it with some integrity.

So my message this morning
is not to speak to the finer points of argument pro and con
on the various approaches to questions of global food justice.

It is worthwhile talking about those issues in the church,
that’s for sure.
But we first need to be clear, and unified,
in affirming what scripture says
about what God wants for his people to do,
in regard to the poor and hungry.

God wants the poor to be fed. Adequately. And absolutely.
God wants there to be a just sharing
of the essential resources for life.
When some of us have an excess, a food garbage problem,
and others are dying for lack of food,
God is deeply grieved.
It is a grievous sin, according to scripture,
for me to have plenty,
and to have the ability to feed the hungry,
yet fail to do so.

In fact, it’s so important,
Jesus said it will actually be held up to me
as a measuring stick at judgement day.
Matthew 25:
“Then the king will say to those at his right hand,
‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world;
because . . . because I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”

It’s so important,
that the very first church business meeting . . . ever,
was called to solve this problem.
In Acts 6, which was read, the twelve apostles called together
the whole community of disciples
to address the issue that some widows were getting neglected
when the food was being shared.
We don’t know all the economic and social dynamics going on there,
and it was very early in the development of the church,
but I think it’s significant
that the very first church committee in history,
the first programmed ministry established in the church,
was a committee of seven deacons,
whose explicit job description was to ensure
a just sharing of food resources within the church,
so that no one would go hungry.

And as soon as that problem was resolved, it says in Acts 6:7,
“The word of God continued to spread;
the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem,
and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”
People were coming to faith in Jesus,
because the church concerned itself with food and justice.
_____________________

You know, I’m really not very concerned that we all agree
on the ideal economic theory
on food production and distribution.
It’s not critical to me that everyone in the church agrees
on the relative merits of capitalism and socialism
and any other isms,
or on the relative moral goodness
of local agriculture vs. large-scale agribusiness,
or on whether it’s more Christian to shop
at a Food Co-op, than at Red Front, than at Wal-Mart.

In the whole of scripture—Old and New Testaments—
there is one overwhelming concern that God keeps bringing up,
over and over and over and over.
Are those who have much . . . sharing with those who have little?
Are the poor getting justice?
Are the hungry getting all the food they need
for a full and healthy life?
Those are the questions that God keeps bringing up.
So those are the questions we ought to be asking, too.

If you want to support a particular economic theory,
or agricultural and food system model, great!
But don’t argue it just on the basis
that it makes for the strongest economy,
or that it’s best for American farmers,
or even that it’s best for the environment.
All those are good things.
But that’s not what the Bible keeps bringing up again and again.

If you want to defend a particular approach to food production,
or a particular economic theory,
defend it on biblical grounds.
Defend it with hard evidence that it is lifting up the poor.
Defend it with evidence that the hungry are getting fed.
Defend it with evidence that the gulf
between the rich and the poor is getting smaller.
If it’s going the other direction,
something has gone wrong spiritually, morally, biblically.
People are not sharing.
And that is clearly not the way God wants it to be.

From a biblical standpoint,
it doesn’t matter how solid the economic theory is.
If the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer . . .
If there are more people dying of starvation and over-indulgence,
it is sinful,
because it is directly opposing God’s plan for human life.

As one of our hymns says,
“For the healing of the nations, Lord, we pray with one accord,
for a just and equal sharing of the things that earth affords.”

And as one of our new hymns says,
“Longing for food, many are hungry
Longing for water, many still thirst
Make us your bread, broken for others
Shared until all are fed.”

Let’s turn to Sing the Journey, the green book, and sing together #54.

—Phil Kniss, June 21, 2009

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Phil Kniss: It is God’s gift

June 14, 2009
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

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I found a new treasure this week
in that pessimistic piece of sacred literature we call Ecclesiastes.
Said to be written by wise King Solomon.
But it sounds like the work of a depressed blues musician,
if they sang the blues in the 9th-century BC.
Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!

You can almost hear the lyrics:
“I got those low-down, empty,
and meaningless vanity blues.”
There is nothing new under the sun.
all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
“I got those same-old, same-old,
nothing-new and wind-chasing blues.”

It’s always been a challenge finding inspiration in this book.
Except for this one passage we read this morning,
“For everything there is a season,
a time to be born, a time to die, etc...”
Now that’s beautiful poetry, and even profound.
They were inspiring enough that Pete Seeger and the Byrds
and other idealistic and forward-looking folk musicians
took the words and sang them out with hope and gusto.
Became a great peace anthem.

But pretty much the rest of Ecclesiastes . . .
it’s not folk music, it’s the blues.

But I found a treasure in it this week,
and it shows up in one form or another all over Ecclesiastes.
Here’s what we heard this morning:
“It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink
and take pleasure in all their toil.”

The act of eating and drinking,
and all the hard, physical work required to eat and drink well,
is one of God’s generous gifts to us.
A precious gift, lovingly given,
to be treasured and to take pleasure from.

And the preacher in Ecclesiastes echoes that all through the book.
Here’s just a sampling.
“my heart found pleasure in all my toil”
“There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink,
and find enjoyment in their toil. This is from the hand of God.”
“There is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work,
for that is their lot.”
“It is fitting to eat and drink and find enjoyment
in all the toil with which one toils under the sun.”
“[To] find enjoyment in their toil—this is the gift of God.”
And there’s more.

These wise words come from a time in human history,
when an extremely high percentage of work
was directed toward food production.
Hard manual labor was required of the vast majority of people,
just to produce life’s basic necessities for the local population—
food, clothing, and shelter.

Everything they ate they grew on their land, or hunted nearby.
Everything they wore came from plant or animal products,
which had to be raised, harvested, shorn, beaten, combed,
twisted, spun, tanned, scraped, dyed, rolled, and/or woven,
and finally cut, fitted, and sewn.
And they lived in houses created from scratch,
from stuff they extracted from the earth surrounding them.
Hard manual labor was the life of the people
to whom the Preacher in Ecclesiastes was preaching.

I wonder how they heard his words.
How did the people of Israel feel about their hard work?
Did they find pleasure in all their toil?
They were a very small nation, a minority culture
surrounded by the culture of empires
that saw the world in a different light.

In the Greco-Roman world
manual labor was de-valued, looked down upon.
It was delegated to the lower working class, and slave class,
who were deemed best suited for manual labor.
The “higher” things in life—
politics, philosophy, the arts, athletics, and leisure—
were activities fit for those with education and power,
those with full and free citizenship in the empire.

The Israelites had a different view of work,
according to a renowned Mennonite OT scholar, Waldemar Janzen.
He says that in contrast to surrounding societies that devalued work,
the biblical view of work, is that it “is deeply and positively
stamped by its association with God.”
God worked!
God worked and worked and worked, to create all things,
all creatures, and all people.
And God said, when he looked upon his work, “It is good.”
And then, God rested.
The Bible develops a strong work ethic,
directly linked to a strong rest ethic.
So according to scripture,
when we work, and when we rest from work,
we are participating with God
in God’s creating and sustaining and restoring work.
We are co-laborers with God.
_____________________

And how we view work
has everything to do with how we view time.
The people of the Bible
had a counter-cultural view of work and time.
How about us?

We live in a society driven by the desire
to achieve greater speed and greater efficiency,
and to work less.
The American lifestyle is all about
accomplishing more and exerting ourselves less.
Technology allows people to work 60-hour weeks—
at a desk, phone, computer,
or at the controls of heavy machinery—
and then come back to a home well-stocked
with convenience food and labor-saving gadgets.
Pop open a can of soup,
pour it in a bowl and nuke it,
and then carry it to the La-Z-Boy chair,
with a built-in pocket for the TV remote.
We have created a disturbing national paradox,
we are a nation of workaholics,
who go to almost any length to avoid work.

We longer need to work with our hands,
and we can still eat all the food we want.
Why spend valuable hours in the kitchen
planning and working and sweating to produce something
you can pull out of the freezer and microwave,
or grab at a drive-through window,
or dump out of a can?

We have come to the point where fast-food and convenience-food
is the norm.
And the cook who regularly creates a labor of love in the kitchen,
is practically a freak of nature,
whose neighbors and friends speak of in hushed reverence
and wonder how in the world they do that.

By forgetting how to grow our own food,
and not having a clue how to cook a meal with
red beets, okra, or kohlrabi,
we have not only lost our direct connection with the earth
which brings forth everything we eat,
we have lost our connection with each other.

The same cultural forces that moved us out of the kitchen
have also moved us away from the table.
It’s a waste of time to sit on our hind ends at a dinner table.
We could save an hour or more,
downing a Whopper or Quarter-Pounder in the car
on the way to a late evening shopping trip or the movies.
Fewer and fewer meals are eaten at home,
with the family,
gathered around a table,
with the TV turned off,
with full attentiveness
to those with whom we are sharing a meal.

Thankfully, some of these things I’m lamenting,
are beginning to trend a different direction.
The booming success of the Harrisonburg Farmers’ Market
is a very hopeful sign.
People are being introduced to new vegetables,
and need to figure out what to do with them,
and whatever they come up with,
will very likely not be consumed in a car.
It will be savored, appreciated,
and often shared with loved ones.

But making these lifestyle changes requires work,
and therefore, time. Lots of time.
More time than what we think we have.

But the wisdom of Ecclesiastes would suggest
doing so is not just the smart thing to do,
it aligns us with God’s very intentions for our lives.
“It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink
and take pleasure in all their toil.”
“There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink,
and find enjoyment in their toil.
This is from the hand of God.”

By rushing through life trying to maximize speed and efficiency,
we are spurning a gift
offered to us from the very hand of God.

God knows, and we know, that time is stuff of relationships.
Without time, there can be no nurture of relationships.

In God’s great economy,
time is what gives us the capacity to grow,
the capacity to change,
the capacity to create deep connections with others,
the capacity to develop into the persons God desires us to be.

Time is the realm within which relationships become possible,
within which true community is formed.
Time is the realm within which God moves among us,
where it becomes possible to experience the activity of God.
Why, in our obsession with doing more in less time,
would we intentionally turn down a gift God is wanting to give us.
“It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink
and take pleasure in all their toil.”

Every moment we have is really a gift of God to savor,
a gift for which to be grateful,
a gift to receive and to use well, as good stewards.

Recently when Irene was working in the church nursery
2-year-old Isaac Sachs wanted a rice cake to eat,
and Irene gave it to him.
But he stood there holding it, and wouldn’t eat it,
and finally asked Irene for a chair.
When he got his little chair,
he pulled it up to a little table and sat down.
Then he sat down and happily ate his rice cake.
Someone is raising him well.

Eating at a table slows . . . things . . . down.
By slowing down, breathing more deeply,
being more attentive to the world around us,
being more attentive to the people with whom we share space,
by taking more time to enjoy the pleasures of toil
involved in good eating and drinking,
and in other activities of living well,
we are opening ourselves to greater possibilities for God to act,
and to move in and among us,
and to heal the brokenness and alienation
that we have brought on ourselves.

When we rush through life inattentively,
when we gulp down food and drink alone,
without a thought of gratitude,
We are effectively separating ourselves from God,
from other people,
from ourselves,
and from the earth itself.

The simple act of sitting at a table with neighbors or family,
around dishes of food over which someone has lovingly toiled,
and offering thanks to God for these gifts
of food and drink . . . and work . . .
that is a communal act of healing and peace-building.
And it is one we should do far more often.

Now, I am not calling for instant perfection,
and I’m not suggesting we can live without any compromise.
There are some food pleasures rooted in our fast-food culture
that I am not quite ready to give up completely.
I think I can assure you that I have not ordered my last
Whopper-no-cheese-hold-the-mayo, with a side of small fries,
at a Drive-thru window.

I don’t do it often. And I could do it less.
But I’m not asking us all to be the perfect gardeners,
and perfect cooks, and perfect eaters all the time.

What I am asking us to do, all the time,
is to take time to be more attentive and more grateful.

Despite the current popularity of local foods,
and farmers’ markets, and community agriculture,
we are still fighting against a culture that, as much as ever,
worships speed and efficiency,
and hates unnecessary manual labor.

I invite us today to make a counter-cultural commitment.
This commitment is for one week only.
For some of us, it might be a very easy commitment to make,
because we are doing it already.
For others, myself included, it might be a challenge.
In a way, it’s building on Barbara’s challenge last Sunday—
to eat less, more often, and with more friends.
This one is getting pretty specific.

Here it is. In two parts.
First, today and every day the rest of this week,
let us commit to sitting down to a table,
with undivided attention on the activity of the meal itself,
in the morning, and around noon, and in the evening.
Three times a day, we sit down at a table.
That is, a table intended for dining.
A desk with a computer monitor on it
doesn’t count as a table.
Neither does a TV tray in the living room.
Second, at least one of those daily meals
will be shared with friends or family.

I realize right away the challenges this will present to some.
It means some will have to get up 5 or 10 minutes earlier,
so their granola bar and juice can be eaten at a table,
instead of grabbed on the way out the door.
Or you might have to adjust an evening ritual
of eating in front of the TV watching the news.
It means some, like myself,
cannot stay in my office working through lunch.
I’ll need to walk out of my office,
and find a real table and eat a real lunch,
It means that some who live alone will have a real challenge
to find ways to share a meal with others at least once a day.
It might mean more inviting others in,
or inviting yourself to someone else’s table,
even if you offer to bring the food.
And some of you might be saying, “What?
I already do this. Everyday.”
That’s great, just keep doing it,
and realize what a gift that is to yourself and to others.

I do think it’s something that everyone of us is capable of doing.
Whether we’re willing to accept the imposition of time,
or inconvenience, is another question.
But it’s only a one-week challenge.

I am committing myself to it.
And I invite all of you to join me.
And when the week is over,
let’s talk to each other about what we learned.
It might turn out to be a change we want to keep.
And if so, it will be God’s gift.

—Phil Kniss, June 14, 2009


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Barbara Moyer Lehman: A Modest Proposal X 2

June 7, 2009
I Corinthians 6:19-20; Psalm 104:1-4, 14-31; Philippians 4:10-13; Proverbs 30:7-9

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Several weeks ago we had in our church mailboxes the latest issue of Beyond Ourselves, the monthly publication of Mennonite Mission Network (MMN). I was immediately drawn to the colorful cover, as well as the beautiful artwork, layout and great quotes that were in this issue. The theme was Creation is Christ’s. For those of you who don’t know or who forgot, the art editor of this publication is David Fast, the young adult son of John and Barb Fast. He grew up in this congregation.

Inside are many attractive pages but I was captivated by the center one, entitled Wheat, by Jesse Graber. The art piece has an interesting interplay between the Divine and humankind.. There is progression from the seed sown in plowed fields, watered by the rivers, while the sun shines brightly over the land. It moves to the golden field of grain ready for harvest, the wheat stalks hovering over the mortar and pestle, as grain is being ground into flour. With the right ingredients in the hands of someone who knows what this is about, the dough will be kneaded, shaped, baked. Hands take this bread, human hands, hands that hold it, bless it, slice it, break it, and offer it to one who is hungry. In the art work, another sits at the side, waiting patiently to receive, to be served, to be fed. One who might be literally hungry for daily bread, but it might also be one who needs nourishment for the soul, the spirit. One who is searching, seeking community and a place to commune.

In the Genesis 1 account of the creation, we read, “Let the land produce vegetation; seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation; plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”

Today we begin a series on Faith and Food. Somehow for me, that art work in Beyond Ourselves, touched on some of the aspects of this series. The weaving together of our faith as Christians with important daily concerns like how we view food and how we care for our body. The topics are broad and could go in many directions, but let me begin by posing these two questions:

1. As Christians should our faith impact in any way how we view our bodies and care for our health?
2. As Christians should our faith impact in any way our understanding of food and our food practices?
   

..like

• what we eat, how much we eat?
• where we purchase our food?
• what we feed our children?
• what we serve at our table?

From whom do we take our cues? What are our guidelines?

It soon becomes apparent when studying the scriptures, that we can find some clues and even a somewhat clear point occasionally, but there really are very few specifics. We know that physical exercise is good for us, even necessary for optimal health, but I haven’t yet discovered a chapter in the Bible that outlines for this 60 year old female a physical fitness regimen. And even though we keep reading that eating a small amount of dark chocolate each day can be good for you, I haven’t found that verse either.

We do find in I Corinthians 6, words from the apostle Paul about how we should view our bodies. The verses that were read are part of a larger section where Paul is responding to some practices of the Christians at Corinth that he found disturbing. They were misusing their bodies, involving sexual immorality. They wanted to do what they wanted to do. They wanted freedom, autonomy. A favorite slogan was, “I have the right to do anything I want to do.” Paul is arguing that, they may be able to do anything, but not everything is beneficial or appropriate. What the Corinthians were voicing is not much different from what we hear today. It’s my body, I will do with it what I want. or We can do anything we want to. In the section from verses 12-20, Paul weaves together several different arguments against the Corinthians.
The CEV reads:(v. 19): “You surely know that your body is a temple where
the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own. God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.”

Paul’s arguments:
1.) The body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives.
Too often we fail to emphasize and teach this in our time and culture. We need to cultivate a deeper awareness of the indwelling presence of God. Maybe if we would teach more about respecting our bodies and developing an authentic reverence for the reality of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our bodies, we would have less promiscuity. Maybe we would have fewer women and men getting involved in extramarital affairs and fewer young people falling into premarital sexual relationships. The powerful forces and temptations to abuse and misuse our bodies are just as strong in our time and culture as they were for Paul and his readers.

2.) The body is the Lord’s.
This is extremely difficult for us to understand and accept because our Western culture shouts different messages on a daily basis....we hear words like ‘freedom of choice’ and ‘one’s rights’ and autonomy and......
But we are not our own.....as people who give allegiance to Jesus as Lord, we are bound to that relationship of obedient faithfulness to Christ. We are people who are shaped by that desire to honor God with our bodies....to glorify God with our bodies.
Even though this passage was speaking primarily to some issues of sexual immorality, it holds true for other parts of our lives? If we are to understand that the Spirit dwells within us, that we are the Lord’s, that we are to honor God with our bodies, then I think it also pertains to how we care for our bodies...that we should become caretakers, good managers, wise stewards of our bodies.

Do we pay attention to what we do in our leisure/spare time? Is it healthy and helpful to our bodies and mind? For some of us we may need to step away more from the computer or turn off the TV and go for a walk, or play with our children or grandchildren? Others may need to leave the wellness center or gym earlier and spend some time with our spouse or aging parent.

Do we pay attention to what we take into our bodies, and to have some understanding about the number of calories we need and the amount of exercise required to maintain a good weight for our age and build?

Do we care about what we eat, how much we eat and where we get our food?

That leads us to the second question I posed....
Should our faith impact in any way how we think about food and our food practices?
It is probably safe to say that most of us, if not all of us, like to eat, and like to eat well. But then what does that mean....
case in point...
Mary Louise Bringle, a professor of philosophy and religion at Brevard College in N.C. wrote an article several years ago, titled, “Eating Well: Seven Paradoxes of Plenty.” She begins by sharing a story of Roger and Sally, a married couple who just returned from a holiday cruise. It was an anniversary present from their adult children. When they arrive home, the children are eager for a report. “Well, how did it go?” they ask their parents.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” their father replies. “We sure ate well! (as he rubs his stomach contentedly, remembering the delights.)” “ Everywhere we turned on that ship, there was food and more food......(describe many possibilities)....all you can eat buffet, ice cream sundaes.”
The next morning, one of Sally’s friends, ask her the same question. Sally, too, pats her stomach as she ponders her response, but her emotion is closer to dismay than satisfaction. She replies to her friend, “Oh, the cruise was lots of fun, but just between you and me, I don’t feel as if I’ve eaten well in weeks! All that high calorie food constantly available, and so little opportunity for exercising it off....”

This report illustrates clearly the tension we often have in our attitudes toward food....how do we interpret the phrase “to eat well”.
For Roger, “eating well”, means good food, lots of it, immediate pleasure.
For Sally, “eating well” means not abundance, but moderation, keeping a balance between calorie intake and adequate exercise, thinking more of the longer term health and well being, not the immediate pleasure.

It’s not necessary to take sides in this little story for both understandings can teach us something. In Bringle’s article she describes Roger’s approach and perspective as celebration-centered. He enjoys good food, the lavish spread readily available and knows this is a special time, not an everyday ocurrance. It is a special occasion, a gift and time to celebrate.

For Sally, in contrast to her husband’s, hers might be called stewardship-centered.
She knows how easily the pleasures of food and drink can tempt us to overindulge, to eat and drink in excess. Her agenda is focused more on taking care of the health of her body. Feasting on too much ‘fat things’ leaves her feeling guilty and physically out of sync.

Bringle, in her article, refers to this pleasure and restraint duality as one of the paradoxes of plenty. And it is only in a culture of some affluence, like ours, that this occurs, otherwise one would eat whatever is available when it was available.

Can we practice both celebration and restraint? Can we enjoy and participate with enthusiasm in times of feasting, knowing that there may also be days and periods of time when we are called to fast?

Maybe as we think about how our faith impacts our view of our bodies and our understanding of food, we need to think about and use words like, moderation, healthy balance, wholistic, being content, satisfied, and to consider what is ‘enough’.

In Proverbs 30: 7-9 (CEV): saying of Agur: There are two things, Lord, I want you to do for me before I die: Make me absolutely honest and don’t let me be too poor or too rich. Give me just what I need. (TNIV- give me only my daily bread). If I have too much to eat, I might forget about you: if I don’t have enough, I might steal and disgrace your name.

Several years ago, Phil and I preached on a series of the Seven Deadly Sins. One of those sins is gluttony. Recently I came across a book called, The Virtue in the Vice by Dr. Robin Meyers. (Finding seven lively virtues in the seven deadly sins). He writes that “gluttony is not only about eating too much, it is about eating for the wrong reasons. It is about a deeper hunger in the soul.” p.120
In the early church the opposing virtue of gluttony would have been abstinence or temperance, but that is really impossible because we need food to live. We also believe that a well prepared meal, lovingly served and consumed with good friends and loved ones is one of life’s great joys and blessings. Too often in our society we think, if a little bit is good, then a lot must be better. The simple phrase, too much of a good thing, contains much wisdom.

Some folks here, I am sure, enjoy a good “all you can eat” buffet, especially if the price is right. Dr. Meyers writes, “All you can eat really means more than you need, and people who gorge themselves on any good thing eventually destroy the goodness in it.”

Meyers rejects the idea that abstinence needs to be the virtue for gluttony. He offers the idea that it is communion. He writes, “Food is what brings us together, and food is what opens us to one another through conversation. Communion is what happens when pain and joy are served along with bread.” p. 128

Communion becomes a sacred time, a special and holy experience of eating together, moderately and joyfully. Whether it is the sharing the bread/cup of the Lord’s Table or sharing soup and bread in the home of friends, communion and communing with one another becomes holy ground.

In this book, Meyers explains the ancient act of offering a toast as one tangible way of seeing this communing experience as a virtue. “At the table of mutuality and respect, one does not belly up to the trough and begin to gulp and slobber. One recognizes the moment, raises the glass, looks present company in the eye and with words of hope and encouragement converts nourishment of the body into nourishment for the soul. It is not just what we eat, but why we eat and with whom we eat." p. 130

We are among the privileged in the world. We have something to eat almost anytime we want it. We give thanks before our meals, whether alone or with friends. It sometimes becomes a habit. It is not just a social custom. It is a reminder that we are privileged and it acknowledges the meaning of food.

In closing I offer you a challenge, a modest proposal, actually two of them. During this month of June, as we continue with this series on Faith and Food, I offer you this challenge:

1. eat less, more often, with more friends. (from Meyer’s book, p.136)
2. make a toast occasionally, in addition to offering a prayer of blessing on your food.

Bringle concludes her article on Eating Well with these words:
“In the final analysis, eating well is not just about what we do or do not put into our mouths. Far more, it is about the comple4x ways we negotiate a path through the paradoxes of plenty, attending to the health of our bodies, our spirits, our communities, and our planet. Eating well first requires that we hunger and thirst after righteousness, for then, and only then, will we be fully satisfied.” p.33

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Phil Kniss: The Big Pentecost Conspiracy

May 31, 2009
Acts 2:1-21

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I want us to do a little warm-up exercise,
to get ready for this sermon.
When I raise my hands, everyone inhale,
when I lower my hands, everyone exhale.
All together, now . . . inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Great.

Knowingly or unknowingly,
you just joined a vast congregational conspiracy.
I mean that literally. You were conspiring.

It may not have occurred to you before,
but it’s actually pretty straight-forward.
The literal meaning of the word conspire
is to “breathe with” or “breathe together.”
You break down the word into its two parts,
and you have “con,” a simple preposition meaning with, or together,
and “spire” . . . from a root word meaning breath.
That root shows up in lots of words—
respiration, inspire, expire, aspire,
the word “spirit” itself can easily be translated “breath.”
So . . . “con-spire” . . . “breath with.”

A conspiracy is a group of people—
could be two, could be thousands—
but a group of people with a common goal,
who are working together so closely,
that they’re sharing the same motivations,
the same intentions.
Conspirators are persons who are breathing the same air,
fully synchronized with each other.

From that standpoint,
it’s plain to see that the day of Pentecost, as told in Acts 2,
was one big conspiracy.
It was a breathing together
that changed everything from that point on.

Some preachers before me have pointed out this connection
between Pentecost and conspiracy.
I guess it’s too obvious a connection,
that most of us miss it.
See, everyone was together in one room, Acts 2 tells us,
and then the Spirit-breath blows into and through the room,
with a sound of a mighty wind.
Everyone together, experiences this powerful spirit-breath.
The disciples and the Holy Spirit were con-spiring.

Barbara Brown Taylor,
in her published sermon “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”
said that when the Holy Spirit blew into that upper room in Acts 2,
what God was doing was, and I quote,

Performing artificial resuscitation
on a room full of well-intentioned bumblers,
turning them into a force that changed the history of the world.
Shy people became bold,
scared people became gutsy,
and lost people found a sure direction.
Disciples who did not believe themselves capable
of tying their own sandals without Jesus
discovered abilities within themselves they never knew they had.
When they opened their mouths to speak, they sounded like Jesus.

That’s what conspiring with the Holy Spirit does.
It fills our spiritual lungs with the very breath of God,
and we are changed.

It’s just like our physical breathing.
The oxygen we inhale, and the carbon dioxide we exhale,
is a marvelous, even miraculous, combination
that gives us what we need for life.
Our body processes the oxygen,
and turns it into a vehicle to carry away excess carbon,
too much of which would kill us.

In the same way,
God’s Spirit-breath gives us what we need for life with God.
It flows into our spiritual beings,
transforming and replacing what we need to get rid of.

It is marvelous, even miraculous,
what happens when the breath of the Spirit of Jesus moves in.
And even more so when we are together with other
co-conspirators, other God-breathers.

Here’s how Barbara Brown Taylor put it. Again, I quote.

What happens between us when we come together to worship God
is that the Holy Spirit swoops in and out among us,
knitting us together through the songs we sing,
the prayers we pray,
the breaths we breathe.
[How do you know when it’s the Holy Spirit?]
Whenever two plus two does not equal four but five—
whenever you find yourself . . .
offering forgiveness you had not meant to offer . . .
taking risks you thought you did not have the courage to take
or reaching out to someone you had intended to walk away from
. . . you can be pretty sure that you are learning
about the gospel of the Holy Spirit.
And more than that, you are taking part in it,
breathing in and breathing out,
taking God into you and giving God back to the world again.

She weaves some wonderful words, doesn’t she?
Powerful. Poetic.
So what does it really mean, in terms of practical everyday life,
to take up the practice of breathing in God,
and breathing God back to the world.
Sounds pretty esoteric.
How we implement such a practice,
and how do we know it’s God we’re breathing?
How do we distinguish between Holy Spirit-breath,
and just a bunch of spiritual hot-air?

That’s not a question that is easily answered.
But let me suggest this.

The breath of the Holy Spirit today
is the same air that God breathed into Creation;
it is of the same stuff as the Spirit that filled the biblical prophets
and moved them to speak and act as God’s agents,
calling God’s people back to justice and holiness;
it is a continuation of the same breath
Jesus breathed on his disciples,
saying “Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit.”

We sometimes say, “There’s a new wind of the Spirit blowing.”
But that’s only partly true.
There may indeed be a wind blowing today
that is bringing about new works of God in our midst,
and which calls for new responses from us.
But it’s not new air.
If it’s really God breathing,
it will be consistent with the breath of life
that God breathed at creation,
it will be true to the breath of God that inspired the prophets,
it will, above all, resonate fully with the Jesus of the Gospels.
Because the Spirit we’ve been given is the Spirit of Jesus.
So if, indeed, we are con-spiring with the Spirit of Jesus,
when we talk, we will “sound like Jesus”
to use Barbara Brown Taylor’s phrase.

So what I suggest,
if we want to join this Big Conspiracy
that began on the day of Pentecost,
we do like the disciples did.
We make it a practice to actually spend time
being together with,
waiting expectantly with,
living in hope with,
other God-breathers . . .
so when the Spirit moves in and among us,
we are in a good position to con-spire,
to breathe in synch with the Spirit of God.

And then test the results of that wind,
to see if it produces the kind of results
we’ve come to expect God’s Spirit to produce.

If it’s God’s breath blowing,
God has a long track record to compare it to.

Is new life being created, that is good, and beautiful, and fruitful?
Is righteousness and justice and peace being brought forth?
Is salvation being found?
Is shalom being birthed?

It’s hard for me to read the Bible and not conclude
that God’s primary agenda
is to save and restore and redeem and reconcile,
and to do that through the people God has called and sent.

So if we are truly con-spiring with the Spirit of God in Christ,
we will see communities of God’s people brought together.
And as a result of the life of these communities in the world,
we will see enemies being reconciled,
we will see offenders and victims being brought together,
we will see people repenting and renouncing lives of sin,
we will see justice being demanded,
we will see violence being forsaken,
we will see the hungry fed and the naked clothed,
we will see forgiveness being offered,
we will see the broken being made whole,
we will see the lost coming home,
we will see the alienated brought back into community.

When the wind blows . . . trees bend.
We can’t see the wind.
We can’t capture it and package it,
but we know it is there by the evidence.
If leaves are not rustling,
it’s safe to say the wind isn’t there.
_____________________

We often think of Pentecost as the birthday of the church,
and it is.
But let’s not be fooled.
The proof that God’s spirit-wind is blowing
is not that more churches are being established,
that more people are becoming church members,
that creative Sunday School lessons are being taught,
and powerful sermons are being preached,
and beautiful hymns are being sung.
Yes, the drawing together of believers into community
is a foundational activity of the Spirit.
There cannot be a Pentecost con-spiracy
without a people coming together,
and breathing together, in synch.

So by all means,
let us continue to gather, to worship, to sing, to pray,
to minister to each other,
in large groups and in small.
But that’s not the ultimate direction the wind is blowing.
Life in community is not the end but the means.
This Spirit that brings us together to worship,
is the same Spirit that sends us into the world,
to take risks for the kingdom of God.
It both draws and sends.
It breathes in and out.
It’s one continuous movement.

If we are going to con-spire with the Spirit of God,
we better put our seat belts on,
because we’ll be going places.
We will be drawn together by the Spirit-Wind,
to open ourselves to each other more deeply,
more honestly,
more completely.
Community will be formed—
in all its multilayered, complicated, exhilarating,
and sometimes painful beauty.
And then, just as surely, we will be driven by that Spirit-Wind,
out into a deeper and riskier and more richly satisfying
way of living in this world.

The Spirit of Pentecost comes to us in the rooms where we gather,
but in the same gust,
it sends us into a violent, broken, and sin-filled world,
to be bearers of God’s Good News.
_____________________

Just as I began this sermon with a simple little exercise in con-spiracy,
so I end it calling for another exercise in conspiracy.
But it’s neither simple . . . nor little.
It is a call for us to open ourselves more fully to this Spirit
that longs to con-spire with us.
It is a call to gather together with other co-conspirators,
and pray fervently,
saying “Come, Holy Spirit,” in whatever language you speak . . .
and wait patiently,
opening yourselves completely to the Spirit-Wind that will blow.
Test it against the Wind that blows through scripture,
from Creation to Revelation,
but then, if you find it to be true,
give yourself to that wind.
Give yourself.
Spread your wings and see where it takes you.

I cannot tell you where it will take you,
I can only assure you, it will be a life-transforming ride.

Come, Holy Spirit.
And may God have mercy on us all.

—Phil Kniss, May 31, 2009

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