Food Matters
Acts 10, selections
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
March 22, 2015
Food matters. Food mattered to Peter. For three years he had followed Jesus from place to place, watching what Jesus did with food—multiplying loaves and fishes, inviting outcasts to the table, breaking bread at a very somber Passover meal. For his whole life, as a faithful Jew, Peter had observed complex rules about food—what could be eaten, how it should be prepared, with whom it could be shared.
Some of those rules probably reflected health concerns—avoiding foods that might make someone sick. Some may have reflected ancient understandings of what belongs to God and what belongs to humans. All the rules helped shape a sense of identity: these, Peter knew, are the foods my people eat. Sharing these particular foods together helped define and strengthen a sense of community. The food Peter was accustomed to eating offered him clarity, comfort, and a sense of belonging.
Food mattered deeply to Peter. The last thing he expected when he climbed up on the roof that day to pray was a vision of a forbidden picnic and a voice commanding him to eat. In his prayer-induced, or maybe hunger-induced, trance, Peter saw the heavens open up. A large sheet—a picnic blanket—was lowered to the roof. On this blanket were all kinds of creatures, including creatures the rules forbade him from eating. When a voice from heaven told him to eat, Peter resisted. He reminded God of the rules he understood to come from God. The voice persisted, repeating the command three times. Peter was perplexed.
A few minutes later, as he was pondering this puzzling vision, the pieces began to fall into place. Messengers came from Caesarea to tell him that, while he was in his trance, Cornelius, an Italian soldier, was having his own vision. Cornelius, though known as a God-fearing man and a friend to the Jews, was a Gentile. He was also a soldier, part of the hated Roman army. Peter suddenly got it. His picnic vision was about more than what food he could eat; it was about who was to be included in this Jesus movement. He recognized in the command to eat the foods Gentiles eat a call to preach the good news to the Gentiles, to share food together and become one community.
It was a pivotal moment for the early church. Around the same time Peter was having his rooftop vision in Palestine, the apostle Paul was writing to a young house church in the Greek city of Corinth. In his letters, he responded to their questions about whether they could eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. He tried to help them figure out how rich and poor, Jew and Greek, slave and free could share a meal together.
On a roof in Palestine and inside a house in urban Greece, the early followers of the risen Christ were engaged in lively, sacred conversation about food. These conversations took the shape of visions and voices, epistles, messengers, testimonies, and even baptisms. It took a lot of sacred conversation–a lot of listening for God’s voice, a lot of listening to each other, a lot of debate and compromise and inspiration, before the first followers of the risen Christ could figure out how to eat together.
Food mattered then, and food matters now. It is striking to read these ancient stories and recognize similar struggles and challenges in our own lives and our own communities. We understand hospitality as central to our faith, and we know sharing food is a primary expression of hospitality. And yet our different needs, choices and commitments about the food we eat make that very complicated. What are the sacred conversations we have about food? How is God speaking to us in those conversations?
The food we serve and eat matters at so many levels. Food gives us sustenance. For some, who live with severe allergies, the food they are served is a matter of life and death. For everyone, the foods we choose affect our well-being–cholesterol, bone density, energy.
The food we eat reflects our sense of identity. When we share a meal at an Open Spirit gathering, seeking to build interfaith community, we face the challenge of addressing diverse faith identities reflected in food requirements–keeping kosher, eating halal, Buddhist vegetarian precepts. Beyond our religious commitments, each of us brings our cultural and family heritage to the table. Dal and rice. Pot roast with carrots and potatoes. Ugali and sukumawiki. Beaks and feet in the chicken soup. Food that feels strange to one person evokes for another fond memories of childhood meals with grandma. Spices, flavors, textures, smells–we each have our own comfort foods.
Increasingly, we recognize that the food we eat is an expression of our values. We ask questions about who grew the food and how they were paid. We pay attention to how far the pineapple has had to travel to get to us–aware of the large carbon footprint of our favorite fresh fruits. We are concerned about the impact of factory farming–the conditions in which the animals live, the environmental fallout of their methane, the global economic effect of how much corn and soy they consume. Overshadowing all these concerns is our awareness that for many people on our planet and in our town the primary food concern is simply having enough to survive.
Each of us negotiates these very real ethical issues in a different way. Some people limit their consumption of meat; some assiduously avoid any animal products at all. Some buy fair trade products and locally grown produce even when they cost more; others struggle to have enough money to buy any kind of food for their families. Some purchase extra food each week for the food pantry; others advocate for changes in the minimum wage.
In comparison to the complexity of our food matters, Peter and Paul and Cornelius and the Corinthians had it easy. With all our different needs, identities and ethical dilemmas, it seems it would require divine intervention to get us all sitting at a table sharing a meal. Maybe we need a vision of a forbidden picnic on a roof—or perhaps divine intervention comes in the form of many, many sacred conversations.
Over the last nineteen years, I have witnessed and participated in numerous sacred conversations about food here. We’ve talked in Christian Education meetings about how to ensure children with allergies are safe. At lunch bunch, at coffee hour, we have shared recipes and tips about how to eat more healthfully. At potlucks, we have told stories about our favorite family dishes. We’ve read books, watched movies, talked and sometimes even argued about the complex ethical issues—economic, environmental, humanitarian. We’ve cooked together.
Through all these conversations, we hear the voice of God. God doesn’t give us clear instructions about exactly what we should eat. Instead, God speaks to us more subtly, but just as powerfully, challenging us to listen carefully to each other, inspiring us to seek creative solutions, urging us to keep coming together.
And so we have made the Sunday School rooms a nut-free zone. We try to remember to label the ingredients in our food. We make an effort to ensure we have a tasty and appealing variety—some vegan, some gluten free, some without sugar. We recognize that we don’t all have to eat the same things. When we have Interfaith gatherings, we have discovered that vegetarian meals satisfy many of the religious dietary restrictions. We also realize that on some occasions—like the upcoming Passover meal—we need to call a caterer. We collect food for A Place to Turn and we serve dinner at Pearl Street.
At our best, we are willing to go out of our way to help someone else feel welcome and comfortable. At our best, we each take risks to try new things. At our best, we appreciate and learn from different perspectives. Of course, we aren’t always at our best, and we don’t have it all figured out. Sometimes we leave people out or offend them unintentionally; sometimes we don’t listen carefully enough.
The conversations continue. God’s voice keeps challenging us to listen ever more deeply to each other. God’s voice keeps urging us toward creative ways to come together.
Food matters. Our need to eat, what we eat, how we can eat together—they are fundamental to our lives. The conversations we have about food matter in and of themselves—and they matter for the way they point us to larger truths about what it means to be sacred community.
Beyond the food we eat, we each come to this community with different needs, different backgrounds and identities, different ways we live out our values. To be community does not mean we all fall into line. Neither does it mean we just sit side by side each doing our own thing. Being sacred community means having sacred conversations about all these different needs and identities, all these different expressions of our values. It means listening deeply to each other’s stories, tasting each other’s food, valuing each other’s ideas. It means being willing to have our own hearts and minds changed. It means honoring that sometimes each of us will make compromises, and that sometimes, with mutual respect and compassion, we will agree to disagree. It means reaching out beyond these walls, celebrating the gifts of other traditions, singing in harmony with other voices, working together with other communities to feed our hungry world.
God spoke to Peter and Cornelius through an angel and a vision, messengers and testimonies–sacred conversations. God speaks to us through sacred conversations–drawing us together, urging us to listen, inspiring us to creative cooking, shared food and abundant life. Let us listen and rejoice. Amen.