Dear Friends,
Is not life more than food? Jesus asks this in the Sermon on
the Mount. (Matthew 6.25)
Of course it is, we would say, but we also have to admit
that food is a great human preoccupation and a primary source of comfort as
well as nourishment. Our mother’s milk was, after all, the first of our human
comforts. Hot soup during this recent spate of rainy weather has also been a
comfort.
Food is intimately bound up with our biblical origins and
history as a people of faith
- Adam and Eve got into trouble because they chose to eat food that was forbidden.
- When the Israelites were in the desert, God gave them daily substantial food called manna.
- The remembered stories of and about Jesus often brought people together around food – parties, and dinners and ritual meals and pick up meals on the road. Then of course, there is the multiplication of the loaves and fishes – a story told by each of the evangelists, so profound was this experience for the followers of Jesus.
Jesus knew how important it was to share food and drink with
people and He went beyond that to link food with His relationship with His
Father. “I have food to eat that you do not know about,” Jesus told his followers
(John 4.32) “My food is to do the will of the One who sent me (John 4.34).” “Do
not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal
life – the kind of food I was offering you (John 6.27). In the mystical
transformation of food’s nurture of mind and body, Christ comes in Eucharist as
bread and wine to nourish our daily
lives.
Halloween marks the beginning of a long holiday season,
where the centerpiece of our hospitality will be food that is shared. Looking
ahead, how about making space in our lifestyles to find and savor spiritual
food in times that could easily distract us from God’s presence and care? How
about reexamining our own use of food as a humanizing agent for ourselves and
our communities?
Generations of health experts have warned us that we are
what we eat. The irrepressible Zorba the Greek in Nikos Kazantzakis’s great
novel points us to the truth of being what we eat. “Tell me what you do with
the food you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat
and manure, some into work and good humor, and some, I’m told, into God.”
Like Jesus, we, too, have food to eat which we do not know.
Food for bodily and spiritual strength.
Food for vision.
Food for re-valuing food, and sharing it at life’s many
tables.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
