Living in God’s Abundance

As a pastor, I have moved a lot from church to church – from community to community. And I have found one of the most common characteristics of the churches is that they like to eat! What they eat and there styles of getting together may vary quite a bit, but they all like to eat. In Oak Park the people much preferred a catered meal than a pot luck. And when I was in Waukegan, they loved a pot luck, and certain people had specialties that they would bring, and everyone pretty much knew who would bring what.

Of course, nothing compares to the Eskimo feasts in Alaska. I won’t even attempt to explain how the church smelled for several weeks after the Thanksgiving and Christmas whale feasts, that took over every square inch of the church building. (And you thought rummage sales were bad!) Or how can I describe what a Sunday School picnic was like on the Arctic Ocean beach with the sand blowing around and the temperature in the 40's or 50's. Every church community eats.

I will become familiar with the foods that this church loves, too. What kind of Wednesday evening fare you prefer. How you like your coffee hours. What you think about “doing lunch” or “breakfast.” Or getting together for coffee. Almost everyone loves to eat.

I imagine that this is pretty much the way the church has always been. It might not seem central to Christian theology – this church eating. Perhaps it may seem a bit off center. Does it seem extraneous to you? Not a real part of the church – an extra-curricular activity?

It might feel that way. But I think, if you go back and look at the life of Jesus, you will find that Jesus was always eating. He ate with people considered sinners or even unclean by the religious elite of his community. And he and his disciples were criticized for not always being ritually correct in their eating. Some of the neighbors accused Jesus of gluttony and drunkenness – so familiar was he at the feasts and parties.

Don’t forget about the barrels of wine credited to Jesus at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee in the first recorded miracle of the Gospel of John. Would such a story ever have been told about a somber and overly-proper prophet? Feasting was important to Jesus.

Eucharist

It surely is not a random fact the most central and probably the most characteristic Christian symbol is a meal – the Eucharist – the symbolic enactment of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples – the communion. The bread and wine we share with Jesus Christ and with Jesus’ followers, down through the ages, is central. It has become so symbolic and so stylized, that it might be hard for us to remember that communion is really a meal. But that is its origin, even though it really is not a nutritious meal for us.

What value this symbol holds for Christians: Roman Catholics (in particular, and others as well) administer communion to the dying. Greek Orthodox administer communion by spoon to the infant when she is baptized. Communion is a part of confirmation in most Protestant churches, and historically in many traditions young people could not take communion until they were confirmed – so some churches called Confirmation classes Communicant’s Classes . In some traditions ‘first communion’ is celebrated at an age earlier than confirmation. Communion is central to the life of almost all Christians, and it has been since the beginning.

Of course questions arise: Who can receive communion? Who can administer it? Who can serve it to the people? Who can authorize it? The questions have divided many Christian groups over the years. And even now, we know that various Christian groups take the communion so seriously that they exclude other believers – people who don’t match the rigor of their beliefs, or people who don’t belong to just the right group. I do not believe in closed communion. Perhaps you don’t either. But there are still a number of people who do.

When communion is restricted, it feels like the symbol of unity and fellowship that Jesus proposed with his words ‘eat of this everyone’ (or ‘eat ye all of it’) has been lost. And it doesn’t feel like we understand what Paul says about us all being of one bread . How can we promote unity?

It is clear that some of the earliest Christians were an eating group. In the second chapter of Acts, right after the Pentecost story it says that the church was “growing [as they were] attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, partak[ing] of food with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2:46).”

And the responsibility of the very first selected church officers was food. Shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus a group of seven deacons – men with Greek names – were appointed to make sure that the distribution of food to the Greek-speaking Christian widows was done properly. You see, there was a complaint, a controversy, in the early Jerusalem church and the deacons were appointed to oversee the food. It’s not just our church or our time that is interested in the just distribution of food to the needy.

Celebrating Communion Early

The church began to celebrate communion very early. The earliest written account of the Lord’s Supper is found in Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians. If you grew up in the church, you might have memorized these words from hearing them so often:

23 ...I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (I Corinthians 11:23-26)

This is Paul at his clearest and best. It appears that he has written something just for the liturgical use in the churches. But I would guess that most of the time we do not remember the context in which this gem of Paul’s is couched. Paul is criticizing the Corinthian Christians – at least some of them – for their eating practices. The Church at Corinth was made up of both wealthy people who did not have to work, or who worked short hours, and poor people– even slaves – who worked long hours. The wealthy people who probably provided the good food and the good wine, came early. They ate and drank well – perhaps even too well. So when the poor folks got off work and came, there was nothing left for them to eat. The practice was breaking the unity of the church at Corinth– this fragile unity that spanned the social classes. The unity in Christ that had to be expressed around shared food – in the style of Jesus. So Paul urges the church to be united around their food. These very important traditions link food and faith.

Feeding the 5000

This passage from John 6 which we read this morning is one of 5 different tellings of this story. Besides this story in John, there are two versions in Mark, one in Luke and one in Matthew. This is the only miracle story that is told in all four of the gospels. It is important.

Jesus is confronted by hungry people – not middle class people who forgot their lunch that day – but most likely malnourished people who were continually hungry and about ready to take up arms. So it was serious business for Jesus to feed them. And the story of the feeding – in all 5 places – has a remarkable unanimity I the use of certain words: Jesus ‘takes,’ ‘blesses’ or ‘gives thanks,’ ‘breaks,’ and ‘gives’ or ‘distributes’ the food.

Take, bless, break and give. Those are also the words that are found in the three stories about Jesus’ last supper with the disciples. The same words that show up when Jesus has the meal with the disciples in Emmaus on Easter evening , and when Jesus eats the fish by the lake a little later.

There is no question that the oft-told biblical story about Jesus feeding the hungry people, the central stories about the last supper, the resurrection eating stories, and Paul’s words about the holy meal in Corinth are all tied intricately to one another.

John Dominic Crossan, after a very thorough discussion of the types of shared meals that were common in the days of the early church and an equally thorough discussion of the various early traditions around the Eucharist writes: “It is in food and drink offered equally to everyone that the presence of God and Jesus is found.(The Birth of Christianity, 1998, p. 144)” The food and drink were not being equally shared in Corinth, and Paul had to speak to it. But where the food and drink were equally shared – Christ was present.

The story of Jesus confronted on a rural hillside by people on the verge of starvation is told again and again in the developing liturgy of the early church. It was no accident. They understood the connection between the holy meal with its apocalyptic overtones and the feeding of the hungry in the desert. It was obvious.

But, we could miss it. Our communion and our fellowship meals are separate. Our feeding of the hungry and the homeless is even more remote. How do we begin to think of these things together – the way Jesus surely did? Holy eating (communion), family eating (the fellowship of the church), and caring for those who are truly in need (our benevolence). Earlier this year, some of you discussed hospitality at the retreat in Wisconsin, and perhaps you considered how sharing food is one of the important themes of hospitality. This sort of hospitality is surely difficult for us today.

How can we remind ourselves and others that taking care of the homeless and the hungry is not secondary to communion – that fellowship around the supper tables is not secondary either. These various opportunities to share food are bound up with one another from the beginning. That is what Jesus is about and what we are invited to as well.

Just Eating

Deb Shamlin and I have been considering offering an adult Bible Study on the theme of a locally written nationally published Curriculum called “Just Eating?” And we have inquired into becoming a part of the development of a children’s version of this curriculum as well. But whether you are able to be a part of one of these curriculums or not, I invite you to be thinking and be in prayer about our eating.

We, the church, have been called into being by the one who gives us everything – the God in Jesus Christ who feeds the hungry, and who cares for the needy – even needy us! The one who feeds the hungry is also at the same time the Bread of Life for all who come to him. Amen.

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