Making Peace with the Land by Bahnson Fred;Wirzba Norman;McKibben Bill;

Author:Bahnson, Fred;Wirzba, Norman;McKibben, Bill; [Bahnson, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2012-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

5

Reconciliation Through Eating

Norman Wirzba

In what are surely some of the most succinct expressions of God’s transforming presence, the Gospels tell us that Jesus was known (and despised by religious leaders) as the fellow who “welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2). Although John the Baptist ate no bread and drank no wine, Jesus was the Son of Man who came eating and drinking, prompting people to say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Lk 7:34; Mt 11:19). The kingdom of God is a place where people come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and eat (see Lk 13:29). In the New Jerusalem, the place where we will live eternally with the God who has chosen to dwell with us, people from all the nations will gather around the tree of life to be healed and fed by its fruit (see Rev 22:1-2).

That eating mattered to Jesus should not surprise us if we understand that eating is the daily enactment of our dependence on other people, the land and ultimately God. Every time we take a bite, we bear witness to a bewildering array of relationships that connect us to earthworms, raspberry shoots, water, sunshine, farmers, cooks and friends. When we eat well, these relationships are honored and nurtured. When we eat poorly, we demean and degrade the sources of nourishment that make living a possible feast. Jesus cares about eating because it is in the growing, preparing and sharing of food that we bear witness to God’s desire that all creatures taste life fully.

It is easy for many people, especially when walking through a well-stocked grocery store with its attractive displays, to take eating for granted and to assume that food is of little significance for Christian faith and life. We might recall Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus says, “[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Mt 6:25). God knows that we need to eat. Our task is not to worry but to trust that God will provide.

Although we should certainly care about the fact that well over a billion people still do not have enough to eat, it is tempting to assume that this distinctly Christian concern about eating ends when food has been adequately distributed and shared. This is a serious mistake. Jesus’ admonition is directed to the ways in which worry dominates and distorts our relationships with the world and each other. Clearly life is more than food. We can, if we are not careful, turn eating into an idolatrous affair by making food our obsessive focus. But there is no life without food. God created a world in which every creature lives by eating. God daily sustains creatures by providing them with gifts of decomposition, photosynthesis and digestion, which are essential for the eating we enjoy.

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