Word of Unburdening - Food

During Lent, we are looking at some of the things that "burden" us and obscure the promise of Christ from our lives. We are looking at food, spending, waste, media, and possessions. Our worships during Lent will have a greater focus on silence and reflection, with a short meditation inviting you into contemplation. The worship center invites you to explore what it is in your life that “clutters out Christ.”

Matthew 4:1-11

I know that our time of confession is later in the service, but I’m just going to start with one now. Part of this reflection on food was written while perched high on a stool at Kenyan Café, as I nursed a steaming mug of chai and noshed on a beef samosa. I don’t know if it was inappropriate, or highly appropriate.

Either way, it tasted really good. As you know, I really love food. I love it love it. In a book I read on the French way of eating and appreciating food, a book I read early on in my new found love of food and cooking, , Dr. Will Clower said something like “Americans say they love food. But that’s not true. Americans are addicted to consuming food. We neither appreciate nor really enjoy what food is and what it can do for us.” And that started me on a new food revolution for myself about seven years ago.

I have rehearsed that statement as I’ve watched people scan Cheetoes and Pepsi at the grocery checkout, feeling superior with my organic cabbage and tofu. I’ve scoffed at “typical Americans” when I’ve passed by the McDonalds on my way to eat out at our neighborhood Japanese restaurant. As I’ve sat down to pray with my family at dinner, I admit to feeling self-rightous pity for families who have made the decision to overschedule their lives so much that they never sit down together. Really, I have thought, I have the food thing figured out. I eat mindfully, appreciatively, locally, seasonally, organically…(except for the occasional scarfing down of Ramen noodles at midnight, or the sudden urge for a macaroni and cheese from KFC).

But really, those “Americans” Doctor Clower mentions, whiles still probably a large part of our society, have seen a dramatic shift since I first read that book seven years ago. In fact in the last decade, the middle class (and I should admit that this is the perspective I and many of us in this congregation live in and see the world through), the middle class has had an explosion of “foodies”. [Eating out is a national pastime. Culinary schools proliferate. Cookbooks take up more and more shelf space in bookstores and homes. Films and books have brought to the mainstream the unethical and environmental devastating ways Americans obtain their meats, grains, vegetables, and fruits. A TV network devoted to food allows us to spend all 24 hours watching people prepare or consume food—such programming has even been labeled… “gastroporn.”]

Which is an interesting comparison. Linking food with desire, cooking with sex. Now we’re getting into some real sinful Lenten stuff! In the journal Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt wrote an article asking “Is Food the New Sex?” [She says that a generation ago it was generally assumed that food was a matter of taste, whereas sex was governed by universal moral law. These days, she asserts, the assumptions are almost exactly the reverse. In many quarters there is more of a laissez-faire attitude towards other people’s sex lives, or at least a reluctance to appear judgmental about them. But people are quick to judge the eating habits of others with great indignation once reserved for other moral violations.]

And probably this goes beyond just food—just look at the list of things we are “unburdening” ourselves from this Lenten season. It’s not sex, alcohol, familial abuse, gambling, stealing, cheating. It’s food, spending, media, possessions, and waste. These are the things we like to judge these days.

So when I thought about food, I had to read the congregation, like we do as pastors. I didn’t feel I needed to say “give up the Twinkies. Twinkies are junk food.” or “Think about were your food comes from.” In our midst we have farmers, vegetarians, raw foodists, locavores, gardeners, fair trade activists, international cuisine aficionados, bakers, etc. etc. And putting myself in the middle of you, I thought, maybe the message I needed to hear, and by extension the message you might relate to, is, still, about gluttony. My favorite deadly sin…second only to sloth because sloth was sleeping and not paying attention as it was being usurped.

It would certainly seem like mindful, aware foodies such as ourselves should not need to worry about gluttony. But, I was reminded in an article by Martin Copenhaver, an article I was reading as I licked the samosa residue off my very happy fingers, that “Gluttony takes many forms.” Copenhaver reminds us that “Gluttony, properly understood, is the sin of being fixated on food to an inordinate degree. It is exhibited not just in the person who mindlessly wolfs down a lot food. [It is also] the dieter carefully meting our quarter cups of no-fat cottage cheese[… It is also] the person who drives across town to get organic lettuce.”

In my life, I went so far as to admit the sin of being unaware of food, of not focusing on food and where it came from and what it does for us, that I probably have gone a little too far of focusing too much on it, and not in a healthy way. More a fixation on judgment than the desire to appreciate it that I originally hoped for, the divine gift it is to be able to take and eat and see how very very good it is.

For sure, food doesn’t seem simple anymore. If the devil was only tempting us to turn stones into bread it would be so much easier, we might think. Foodie guru Michal Pollan spells out 64 rules for healthy, socially responsible eating: Sixty-four. But it’s with his last one that he sounds a lot like Jesus, the last one being “Break the rules every once in a while.” Because while there is a lot of rules about food in scripture, Jesus was more of one who broke the rules, rather than followed them.

People didn’t like the way he ate, the fact that his disciples picked grain and ate it on the Sabbath, the fact that some of his disciples did not fast, the fact that he kept inappropriate company at his table, the fact that some thought him a glutton because he enjoyed his food and drink.

So what’s your food hangup? For some of us, food is that sin that we fixate on to an inordinate degree. Maybe if you don’t have something to nibble on every two hours, you start feeling panic. Maybe you anxiously count every calorie that passes by your lips and just know that looking at that bowl of ice cream means an extra pound. Maybe you are so confident about your food choices that you are convinced that everyone who doesn’t eat like you is misguided. Maybe your desire to eat and cook is covering something else up, wrapping up a dark burden with a more colorful, and socially-appropriate, distraction.


As I sat with that Kenyan samosa digesting, wondering what sort of sin I was committing, I finished that article by Martin Copenhaver, in which he grants a small word of grace, "Perhaps all of us are guilty of one sin or another when we sit down for a meal. That is one reason why I am particularly comforted by the reminder that Jesus welcomed sinners…and that he ate with them, too.”

[silence]

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. As we prepare for a time of confession, I invite you to turn to #86 in Sing the Journey songbook. To begin our time of prayer we will sing through this song once and at the end of the prayer we will sing it again. Taste and see, the goodness of the Lord.
hymn: "taste and see"

God of wind and sun, grain and vine
We confess that we have not looked at
food as a source of nourishment and connection.
Forgive us for worrying about convenience rather
than celebrating goodness
Help us taste and see
(pause)
God of the poor and oppressed
We confess that we have delighted in food
at the cost of the earth
and to the exploitation of others.
While we become more aware of this, help us
not fall into fatalism and cynicism.
But help us taste and see that the Lord is good
(pause)
God of the field and the table
We confess that we have stood in judgment
of others for their food choices.
We know this does nothing to bring us together
but pushes us further apart by our ideologies
Humble us, make us aware of our shortsightedness
so we can join you at the table
So we can taste and see all you have for us.
AMEN
hymnTaste and See

[silence]

Just as Christ invited sinners to his table, so we are invited. Because on that night, Jesus took simple things: bread and wine.

He took bread: at its essence flour, yeast, water, and salt. And he broke it saying everytime you do this, every time you eat with your sisters and brothers, remember me.

And he took the juice of the vine: grapes, pressed and aged. And as he poured it he said every time you lift a cup with another, I am there. Remember me.

And in that he blessed us, he blessed simplicity, he blessed the gathering. Let us pray: God, you are present in the food. We focus on you, not on what we consume. We take your goodness, not simply bread and cup. Bless these things, and bless us as we draw closer to you. Amen.”

You are welcome to the table: no matter your doubt or your faith, no matter your religious affiliation, no matter the sins you have done or will do. All who repent of wrongdoing and wish to enter the path of rightness and justice and oneness with God may come forward, take a piece of bread, dip it and eat it.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.