Phil Kniss: In praise of feasting

June 28, 2009
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Mark 14:12-25

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Most Americans have forgotten how to feast.
Yes, here in this land flowing with milk and honey.
A country that ranks among the world’s highest standard of living,
among the most fertile and productive farmland,
and most abundant food supply . . .
here in this very land, we have forgotten how to feast.
And Mennonites are some of the most feast-impaired Americans.

As Mennonites living in an affluent western society,
we have two strikes against us
when it comes to learning how to feast well—
the values of the culture we live in,
and the values of our own Mennonite community.

But before I say what those values are,
and how they make us feast-impaired,
let me tell you what I mean by feast.

I’m speaking of feasting in its historical and biblical sense.
I’m speaking of feasting as a communal ritual,
as a shared practice of celebration.

Biblical examples of feasting are many, and various.
Time and again the people of God gathered to feast,
either spontaneously, after some great move of God among them,
or as a carefully planned and ritualized observance,
to obey God’s explicit and detailed instructions to feast.

The patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—
often spontaneously ordered a feast
after some significant encounter,
with messengers of God, with kings, even with strangers.
They made a feast for weddings, for birthdays,
for other milestone events.
They always prepared a large quantity of good food,
and called together a great number of people,
so their joy could be shared with as many as possible,
and everyone would be made merry.

And when God established a covenant with the people,
God explicitly ordered the people to feast.
Told them how and when and with whom they should celebrate.
And those established feasts had two primary purposes.
They were to build a stronger sense of community—
of belonging together as God’s particular people.
And they were to praise the work of God among them,
to remember, to celebrate,
to rehearse the stories of the past
so they might never forget
the wonders of what God did among them.

The prime example of such a feast,
was the one God ordered in Deuteronomy 26, today’s text.
After the people settled in their new land,
and harvested their first crop,
they were each to bring to the place of worship
a basket, full of the first and finest of their harvest,
they were to set it down before the priest,
and then give praise and glory to God by retelling the story
of how God was with their wandering father Abraham,
how God led and delivered them over generations,
until they came to this place.
And then the priest would put these baskets together,
and the food would be prepared,
and all the people of Israel would come together and feast.
Their community would be strengthened by this feast,
as all were welcomed,
including the widows, orphans, and foreigners.

Over time, three major annual feasts were celebrated.
There was the Feast of Passover, the greatest feast of them all,
when the people recalled the day of their miraculous deliverance
from slavery in the land of Egypt.
And there was the Feast of Booths
that celebrated the general harvest,
but also marked the beginning of the 40 years in the wilderness
and God’s provisions for them there.
And there was the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost,
that celebrated God’s faithfulness in the wheat harvest,
and later, came to also celebrate God’s gift of the law at Mt. Sinai.

And there were numerous other lesser feasts,
in between the major ones.

Each feast underscored how dependent they were
on the God who called and provided for them,
and how dependent they were on each other
as a people in community.
These feasts were a communal practice
of celebrating the good work of God . . .
a practice that strengthened their peoplehood,
and strengthened their worship of God.

Yes, there was lots of food, and usually lots of rich food—
wine and bread and meat and vegetables.
More than enough for all.
Some of the feasts, like the tithe of the harvest,
had a missional component.
They were not just for the inner circle of the Israelites.
They were commanded to invite the widows, orphans, and aliens
to join them in the celebration,
so no poor person would go hungry.

That’s the kind of feast I’m talking about—
a feast with plenty of good rich food and drink,
by which to make merry,
but a feast with the explicit purpose and goal
of building up the community,
and celebrating our complete dependence on God.
_____________________

Now perhaps you can begin to get a sense of why I say
we tend to be feast-impaired.
As I said, we have two strikes against us.
We’re Americans and we’re Mennonites.

As Americans, we live in a culture that teaches its citizens,
and teaches them well,
to squeeze all the personal pleasure you possibly can out of life.
It shapes people for the relentless pursuit of happiness.
It values abundance to the point of excess.
Americans know how to splurge, and binge,
and put on big parties with lots of food and drink and pleasure.
But they are not careful to connect those pleasures
to any experience of deep community,
or deep dependence on God,
or anyone beyond ourselves.

Just serving up piles of rich food,
does not constitute a feast.
The American notion of feasting can sort of be summed up
in the typical all-you-can-eat buffet.
We are blessed with at least four or five major ones
right here in Harrisonburg.
The queen of all buffets that I’ve been to
is the Mennonite-run Shady Maple in Lancaster County, PA.
The massive size of the dining hall,
and the endless variety and quantity of food
is nothing short of overwhelming.
I am not slamming restaurants with buffets.
They have their place in the larger scheme of things, I’m sure.
On occasion, I will eat at a buffet,
and make a valiant attempt to do so in moderation.

But an all-you-can-eat buffet is not at all the same thing as a feast.
Reveling in good food in large amounts may indeed be enjoyable.
But piling your individual plate full to overflowing,
with those select items that you desire most personally
seems more akin to the American value
of the individual pursuit of pleasure,
than the biblical and divine mandate to feast
in a way that deepens our experience of community,
and memorializes our experience
of complete dependence on God.
_____________________

Well, as I said, the second strike against us is we’re Mennonites.
And if we’re good Mennonites,
we probably have deeply imbedded in us
our community values of frugality, simplicity, and sobriety.
Some of us may have consciously rebelled against those values
at some time in our lives,
because we found them restricting,
and we found the larger cultural values
of luxury, pleasure, and merriment more to our liking.

But overall,
there is a strong stream—and an admirable stream—
within Mennonite faith and culture
that values living simply, so that others may simply live,
that values not consuming more than we really need,
that values a sober and quiet posture toward life.
After all, there are millions of people around the world
who are suffering deeply . . .
who are starving, who are living in abject poverty,
who are without a home,
without clothing,
and without enough food to keep them alive.

So some of us strive all the harder to get by with less,
to not get too much enjoyment out of the luxuries we have,
to move through life with a compassionate and sober realism,
and to do as little wining and dining and dancing as possible.
Naturally this has a tendency to make us a bit feast-impaired.
I’m quite sure, in modern American history, no one has ever said
to someone organizing a big festive community ball,
“Be sure to put some Mennonites on the guest list.
They always liven things up.”

We are not party-ers. We are a sober, realistic, and grounded people.
And that is good in most situations.
That is a worthy posture in a land of affluence and excess.
But I wonder whether it hasn’t also dampened our enthusiasm
for the kind of feasting God called his people to do in scripture.

And that’s a shame,
because the worship of God is a feast.
It is all-out celebration.

If we fail to regularly gather as a community of faith,
and serve up the best of the food and drink we have to offer,
and truly revel in that good abundance that comes from God’s hands,
we are missing out on an important opportunity.

Communal eating is a spiritual act, and I don’t say that glibly.
It is spiritual in the deepest sense.

As people of God
we don’t eat simply for its utilitarian benefits.
God created us to eat.
God said to the first humans,
“See all these plants and seeds and fruit?
I give them all to you for food!”
We eat so we can live into God’s created design for our lives.
Eating food is a tangible physical reminder
of our dependence on the earth itself,
and on God who created the earth and its living things
for our food.
It is also a reminder of our dependence on our fellow human beings.
Eating brings our fractured selves
back into relationship with God,
with others,
with ourselves,
and with the earth.
Eating is restorative in every sense of the word.
So, why wouldn’t we see eating and worship
as closely related activities that at the core
are profoundly spiritual.

I think we need to rediscover
the deeply satisfying and deeply spiritual discipline
of feasting . . . of the biblical variety.

Shannon Jung, a Presbyterian teaching at St. Paul School of Theology—
under a fascinating academic title:
“Professor of Town and Country Ministries”—
wrote a thoughtful book titled,
“Sharing Food: Christian Practices for Enjoyment.”
I wonder if a Mennonite prof
could get away with writing a book by that title.

Anyway, in his chapter on the practice of feasting,
he says there are four central features of feasting.
First, feasting is joy-full. It puts a premium on celebration.
Second, feasting is doxological. It’s about God. It’s not about us.
Third, feasting grows out of an awareness
of God’s abundance and generosity.
It’s a response to God.
Fourth, feasting is a communal celebration that transforms us.

And in this light, he says for Christians,
the “master practice” of feasting is the Lord’s Supper.
Celebrating the Lord’s Supper
is a joy-filled encounter with the Incarnate God.
It is community building.
It is formative and transformative. It changes us!
It a powerful symbol—food—
that connects our physical and spiritual beings.
And it is missional.
It brings us face to face with God’s love for us
and for the world.
_____________________

I don’t know how you personally are being called by God
to revitalize your experience of feasting.
It might include a new commitment
to share as many of your meals as possible with other people,
eating in a way that builds community.
And it might include a new commitment
to make prayer before meals more than just a few rote words,
to which you never give a second thought.
It might mean pausing long enough to identify
in the collective experience of those at the table,
some way that God is at work,
and make that meal a celebration of that work of God.

But I also think there are things we might do as a church,
to renew our experience of communal feasting.
Potlucks are more, much more,
than an opportunity to showcase our best recipes,
and eat as much as our plates will hold.
They are opportunities to build community
and celebrate the work of God among us.
If we are intentional about it.

And certainly, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper,
we should be intentional about making this the feast
it was intended to be.
The Communion Table is a feast table.
It is a communal practice of celebration.
Communion can take many different forms, of course.
Sometimes it seems big and joyous and collective,
sometimes it seems quiet and contemplative and internal.
But it must always meet the requirements of feasting,
or it’s not really communion.
It must build up the community,
and lift up the mighty works of God.

[transition to communion introduction and instructions]

—Phil Kniss, June 28, 2009



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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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