Believing Is Seeing

I have been thinking about food a lot lately.  

Actually, I have been thinking about food every single day for 40 years.  Eating is one of my main hobbies and after extensive practice, I must say I am getting pretty good at it.

Lately however, in addition to mulling over the delightful variety and volume of food available to me, I have been contemplating the metaphysical implications of eating.  

Stay with me!  It's actually fun!

You see, food is much more than the means to a biological end.  It has spiritual and moral elements.  It has the power to divide people, or be a source of intimate communion. 

Depending on the context in which it is shared, it can bring about either ecstasy or shame.  

It can be used as a visible sign of wealth or a symbol of oppression, a vehicle of beauty or of cruelty, an expression of power or an offering of obeisance.

In the hands of an enemy, it can cause death.  From the hands of a friend it is a tangible message of love.  

 Recently I have been a part of a number of discussions surrounding what constitutes a biblical diet.  The book "What Would Jesus Eat?" and the Daniel Diet offer two opinions.  I've also come across mentions of the Hallelujah Diet, the Genesis Diet, the Bible Diet, and the Maker's Diet, among others.  

All of them are variations on the theme of healthful, holy eating, which I suppose is a good thing.  

I can agree that as a rule people should consider the quality and quantity of what they intend to shove down their gullets, but even so, I can't escape the idea that the reason for so many mentions of food in Scripture goes way beyond cookbook templates and diet plans.  

It is bigger than the question of which ingredients belong in your bread.

Food is utterly essential to life.  It is designed to be consumed and enjoyed every day, multiple times a day.  Humans arrange their activities around the getting of it.  They rejoice and grow strong in its abundant presence, and mourn and wither away in its absence.  Eating is a singular joy that is multiplied in the company of others.  It is comforting.  Satisfying.  Pleasurable.

Hmmm.  Does this earthly experience have a spiritual counterpart?  Is there a divine parallel hidden somewhere? 

I think God shouts his presence to us in everything--in nature, in human relationships, in math and logic, in art, in biology, in music, in chemical reactions, in language, in physics--and in food.  

Do you really think the main point of mentioning wine and figs and olives and fish and bread in the gospels is so we could figure out and follow the precise composition of Jesus' earthly diet, or is it possible that God wanted to hammer home the message that we need a steady diet of HIM?  

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life," Jesus says to the woman at the well. (John 4:13-14)

"Rabbi, eat something!" Jesus' disciples urged him.  

"My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work," Christ replies, pointing their eyes again to the preeminence of the kingdom of God over all other things.  (John 4:31-38)

  

 "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Saducees," Jesus warns his disciples in Matthew 16:6-12, using the mundane to illuminate the essential.  

"Do not let their false teaching infiltrate the truth!" Jesus all but shouts.  

But all the disciples could think about was bread.  (verse 7)

And isn't this so like us?  Aren't we prone to build a theology around the nutrition of figs when He is actually pleading for the fruit of repentance in our lives?  Parable of the Fig Tree  

The hunger of the physical body and the food which satisfies it are just reminders of the spiritual hunger within us and the heavenly food which is the cure.  

Eating is not the thing.  It is the arrow that points to and lights up THE THING and draws our gaze up from the dark well (John 4) and the dusty road (Luke 24).  

This is why I think there is such power in a simple story like the loaves and fishes.

When the crowd of 5,000 came to hear Jesus, he used food to gently teach Philip to see the riches that lay beyond his sight.  

"Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"  Jesus asked his disciple.  (John 6:6-13)

Good question.  There were five thousand hungry men and 12 empty pockets.  To the eye it was need beyond means.  You can almost hear the incredulity in Philip's response.  "Eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

Philip was only thinking about bread. Jesus wanted him to see the kingdom.

He took five small loaves, five small fishes.  Blessed them and multiplied them until every person there had--not just a bite--but total satisfaction.  

This was not a minimal meal to take the edge off, but rather "as much as they wanted." (John 6:11) 

And then Jesus adds the exclamation mark.  "Gather the pieces that are left over," he tells his disciples. "Let nothing be wasted."

What would they have thought as they gathered and gathered and gathered to fill the twelve baskets?

Maybe they thought of 12 men who came to the Teacher with nothing much to offer--12 empty human baskets being divinely filled with the life-giving good news of the gospel.  

Maybe they thought of small lives of little consequence which would be blessed and broken and used to accomplish the impossible.   

Maybe they thought of the fields "white unto harvest"--of the men who would come to them hungry and leave filled by no earthly means.

Maybe they began to realize the necessity of a faith that can see beyond circumstances.

The amazing thing about this story is that it spoke even more than the disciples could understand in that moment.  The full picture would be revealed later when Jesus died on the cross, the just for the unjust, with power to take away the sins of the world--past, present, and future.  The Good News 

 The hunger, the bread, the fish, our sin, the sacrifice, the impossible reach of God's love--it wasn't "need beyond means" anymore, it was means beyond need.  And it still is.

Isn't that just like God?  The older I get, the more amazed I am to see Him revealing aspects of Himself to me in everyday life.  

It isn't special revelation, it is special affirmation of what He has already told me in His word--love letters to remind me of Him while we are "apart", so to speak.  

He is so magnificent that the bold, beautiful truth about Him splashes over into the smallest aspects of my earthly existence.  Including food.  

Especially food!

 He didn't just stand up and teach people from his throne on high.  He had every right to do so!  But instead He came down to share in the indignities of hunger and thirst and poverty and human frailty.   And when He left, the Comforter stayed, along with a million, million evidences of love and grace scattered like diamonds among our common hours.

I want to look for Him in everything, beyond the bread crumbs, past the water in my cup.  He is with me at the well, on the road, in the waves, speaking through pain and gladness, triumph and defeat, in sickness and in health, illuminating the mundane, transforming the ordinary, filling my empty basket with extravagant grace. 

He is the bread of life.  My hunger is there to remind me of my longing for Him.  My feasts bring to mind the riches of His grace. 

Our God reclined at the table with tax collectors and prostitutes to show us that no one is beyond grace and to waken us to compassion.  

He fed His followers from His own hand during the intimacy of shared meals to show us his desire and ability to meet our gnawing need.   

He gifted an ill-prepared wedding celebration with the best of wine to show us that His power can cover our shame.

He bore with the frailty and faithlessness of his closest friends to show His great patience.

He pictured His own sacrifice in the elements of the His final Passover meal, revealing to us a grace that is infinitely wide and deep, merciful and tender.  

 And this brings me back to food.  

I am struck by the fact that many of the most loving exchanges between Jesus and his followers occur around the table--Jesus washing the feet of his disciples (John 13), the woman washing Jesus feet with her hair (Luke 7), the joyful changing of Zaccheus' heart (Luke 19), Christ's gentle revealing of Himself at the home of men he met on Emmaus Road (Luke 24), the intimate breakfast he shared with his disciples on the beach after his resurrection (John 21), the anticipated wedding feast between Christ and His bride (us!) (Revelation 19).   

In each of these exchanges, the food is not the point.  It was there, but it does not speak.  There is no super-secret recipe for the elixer of life embedded in the text.  He wouldn't play games with us.  

The truth is, no matter what we eat, we will eventually die.  The beauty of a meal lies less in the what than in the with whom and the why.  

So yes, eat your food with wisdom and discernment and moderation and gratitude.

But more importantly, eat to remind yourself of the sacrifice it took to bring you salvation.  Eat to rejoice in the Bread of Life who took away your sin.  Drink to remember the Living Water which flows in and through you.  Share in the fellowship of food to celebrate the communion of saints, and fast to remind your heart to hunger after the only One who can satisfy your deepest needs.

That way, no matter the meal, be it grubs on a leaf in Papua New Guinea, caviar on a silver spoon at the Ritz, or Twinkies and Red Pop on a dorm room floor, you can always be sure you are eating like Jesus;)