Faith in Food

The following was offered as a meditation at Grace Church, Salem’s Celtic Service on Sunday, June 26.

Those of you who know me well, might find it surprising to hear that as a child I was an extremely picky eater.

This is not to say I had allergies, or dietary restrictions or even that I was uncomfortable with extreme textures or flavors.

No, my issues, in hindsight weren’t gustatory at all. They were spiritual. I was afraid and proud.

In all honesty, there were more things I wouldn’t eat than I would. Every sandwich had to be deconstructed into its constituent parts for individual inspection, every menu parsed for offending ingredients. It was virtually impossible to eat at someone else’s home.

We all deal with food everyday. Whether we’re rich or poor, strong or struggling, good or bad, or more likely negotiating the spaces in between, we’re all making choices about what and how we feed ourselves.

And I believe these choices reflect our values, our aspirations, the communities we identify with and by omission the communities we do not.

All our hopes and fears are right there on our dinner tables, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

I don’t want to draw too broad or literal a stroke on this point, but as the circumstances of my life broadened. As I crossed borders – both literal and figurative – made myself vulnerable to the hospitality of strangers, and found myself in the position of offering hospitality to proverbial friends not yet made, my personal preferences ceased to be relevant.

If this thing has been called good by another, and is being offered to me as the same, who am I to reject it and call it unacceptable?

There are any number of extreme meals I could draw upon at this point to illustrate my meaning – goat’s head in Mongolia, elaborate feasts in France, simple suppers in Salem, a sip of water on the way to Santiago.

The meal, instead, I want to talk about is a fairly common one. In fact, it’s the one we’re all about to share together: the great thanksgiving, holy communion, the Lord’s Supper.

For a long time this was a meal I was not comfortable with. I did not understand its appeal. I did not view it as my own. I worried about the propriety of its execution. I feared its effectiveness even as I doubted its authority.

From my seat as disengaged voyeur, these were easy judgments to make. I hardly needed knowledge or experience, only preference and argument.

Once I removed myself from that self-imposed place of isolation and scarcity, though and finally accepted the invitation to come to the table itself and taste and see, my judgments, differentiations, “pickiness” ceased to be relevant.

And what I’ve found is true in this sacred space is also true out there in the “real world.”

When we accept the invitation to get up and go, to try something new, to make a stranger, a neighbor, a friend. Transformation is inevitable. In ourselves, in the world, in the elements that brings us together and sustain us.

Indeed, transformation is fundamentally what food does and how we relate to it; we change it and it changes us.

Through claiming and sometimes simply renaming the fruits of the earth as “food”, we make ourselves vulnerable to creation’s transforming power: chemically, relationally, spiritually.

To close I’d like to read a poem by the 17th century Anglican priest and poet, George Herbert, whose work was influential in my own journey away from pickiness. Officially, the poem’s called “Love III,” but I like to think of it as the reluctant dinner guest.

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.

‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.