Faith and Food

The temperature is 5 degrees above zero, my stomach says it’s nearly lunch time and all I can think about are those tomatoes. Those little red jewels seem far, far away in a world blanketed with snow.

I grew them on my deck last summer: cherry tomatoes exploding with sweetness, unlike their pale cousins that line grocery shelves. I had to sit down the first time I ate one. It was just that good.

Thank God for sweet summer tomatoes, fresh heads of lettuce and tender green peas! God has long spoke to people through earth’s bounty. Food is nearly a sacrament: God demonstrates love through ordinary things. Consider Biblical history. God created a garden of delicious food for Adam and Eve, the widow at Zarephath fed Elijah with the tiniest portion of flour and oil, Moses and the children of Israel lived on manna and quail from God’s hand. When Jesus came among us, he started an entire meal to demonstrate his great love: bread and wine are taken, God’s grace fills us.

So if God can speak through manna and quail, bread and wine, I think God comes through cherry tomatoes. What is it for you? A family meal at the table? The summer’s first red salmon? Lettuce from your garden? Savor it! That’s what God intended.

Except that sometimes we don’t. We’ve been doing a 5-week series at our 9:45 service entitled “Simpler Living, Compassionate Life.” The premise is simple: we enhance our ability for compassion when we slow down, simplify. Recently, we discussed simplicity as it pertains to food. In an ideal world, the answer is this: “Find the shortest, simplest way between the earth, the hands, and the mouth.” (Lanza del Vasto).

Poet and farmer Wendell Barry says our culture produces “industrial eaters,” where we mindlessly shovel in fuel and move on to the next thing. Thus, we participate in an economic system in which agri-businesses mass produce food in ways that harm the environment and pollute our bodies. And think of the fossil fuel it took to get that apple here from New Zealand or those grapes from Chile!

We ask: is this what God intended? How can we simplify our eating habits to become more compassionate to others and creation? Then we hold that in tension with the realities of limited time and budgets. You might say, “This is all very sad but I am unable to cook all my own meals and I can’t afford to shop exclusively at Natural Pantry.”

Our Biblical witness demonstrates God’s interest in reconciliation, in relationships restored. The first step is realizing disconnect. We can begin here. Some simple steps for simpler living around food:

Think about where your food comes from. Ask questions. Research.
Buy local whenever possible, or from the Pacific Northwest/California.
Take your kids to a farm or the petting zoo. Teach where milk comes from.
Bring your own grocery bag; choose minimally packaged food.
Grow something, anything, in your house that’s edible.
Cook at least one meal a week and eat it with family or a friend.
Garden, hunt and fish responsibly.
Thank God when you sit down for a meal.
Consider shopping at the Anchorage Farmers’ Market this summer, which will be held in Central’s upper parking lot.

May you be nourished by God’s love!