By now, you, the reader, have come to understand that I enjoy eating meals with people. At this point in my life, it is the only way I can spend time with people without having to pick up a new hobby. It’s a great chance to meet people in an intimate way and become vulnerable with your fellow human beings. Sharing a meal with someone allows you to break down your walls and offer the person in front of you all of yourself. Even if you have nothing in common, whether that be interest, language, or appearance, you have an advocate and interpreter sitting on top of the table, offering itself on the plate for you to know one another. I find that when I eat with someone, I’m more merciful. I have never had a bad meal, and if I have, our Holy God has erased it from my mind. And to each meal, I bring the best thing I can, which is thanksgiving. I give thanks for this delicious meal in front of me, because I have been made equal with my common creature. I am loved by their generosity. But where does this love come from? My love for food and sharing food with those around me comes from my Creator.
In Genesis, it’s the first command that God gives to humans: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden.”[1] Continuing in the first book, God receives gifts from His creation: “and Abel, for his part, brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering.”[2] It’s clear that food plays an important role with God, as Ellen Davis, an Old Testament scholar tells us: “YHWH smelled the savoury scent [of Noah’s sacrifice], and YHWH spoke to His heart: ‘I shall not again curse the fertile-soil on account of the human being, for the impulse of the human heart is evil from youth onward. And I shall not again strike every living thing, as I have done.”[3] Davis continues,
“So now, when YHWH speaks to ‘His’ own heart, it is as though the Divine is trying to appease that aggrieved organ, to convince it to show mercy to this admittedly disappointing creature. This is hardly the response to Noah’s sacrifice that we might have expected. Smelling the delicious odour offered by one of the few humans who have proved obedient, YHWH might have said, ‘I shall not again curse the fertile-soil on account of the human being…That first lot was rotten, but now we have some good stock. Everything will go well from now on.’ but instead of romantic optimism, God’s statement is one of utter realism: ‘this is how humans are.’ The same ‘evil impulse’ that pained God enough to destroy the world is now the very thing that moves God to forswear total destruction.”[4] I often wonder, “how similar are we with God?” When we read the actions of God in the Scriptures, how similarly do we respond? I think Genesis 8, in which God makes a promise to Noah, sounds similar to us — we smell the good food and respond with grace. We lead with our hearts as God does and find calm clarity in the midst of warm aromas.
My final Old Testament nerd-out is Psalm 23. This Psalm has been with me for a while. I first heard it when I was nine at the small Baptist church my family attended. I heard it in a song before I heard it read aloud from the pulpit. Jon Foreman wrote a song called “The House of God, Forever,” which is almost identical to the psalm attributed to David. The line, “You are my feast in the presence of enemies,” is much different than the translation that we may know in the Anglican church, that being, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”[5] Foreman ties the Eucharist into David’s words in that God does not just prepare the table and host both us and our foes or neighbours, but that God is the meal that we are eating. Enemies become family, and God becomes the offering that calls us to calm our hearts and look with grace and mercy toward the eyes of those with “the impulse of the human heart.”[6] In the Eucharist, we are united under Christ, like a married couple, “giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”[7] Intimately, we kneel or stand next to each other, unaware of the week that one may have had, but fully aware of the very real presence of God amongst the community. As we kneel, we meet shoulder to shoulder with those in different places and stages of life, but equal in the eyes of our Creato,r being made aware of Christ, as His body breaks our fast for the new week ahead.
When these words are spoken over us, “He chose to bear our griefs and sorrows, and to give up His life on the cross, that He might shatter the chains of evil and death, and banish the darkness of sin and despair,”[8] it “bring[s] us into the light of [God’s very real] presence.”[9] At this table, we give “thanks that [God has] made us worthy to stand in [His] presence and serve [Him].”[10] In these words, the Spirit of God comes through the congregation and whispers love into our hearts. Reminding us of the One who loved us first, relieving the burdens of our sorrows, griefs and sins, and filling our hearts with love to “all who share in these sacred mysteries.”[11] I’m reminded of Mary Oliver’s words:
“Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
And the felt ferocity of that love
And the felt necessity of that love,
The fish explode into many.
Imagine Him, speaking,
And don’t worry about what is reality,
Or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracles.
Accept, too, each spoken word
Spoken with love.”[12]
So, my friends, let us go to the table, Christ’s table, with awe and wonder, not worrying about the reality of it, but going with hands full of thanksgiving as an offering to the Creator of all that is good. Take time to be present in this, to look around at the people who go beside you and see them as they are, in the light, feeling the ferocity of the love of God, who has become the sacrificial offering that causes hunger to cease and our cups to overflow. As the bread enters your palms, “take and eat: for this is [His] body which is broken for you.”[13] This body has made you whole. And as the cup touches your lips and the wine splashes on your tongues, “This is [His] blood which has been shed for you,”[14] which has caused violence in your heart to stop, causing you to love your enemies and kneel with them at this table. Let us go and be a blessing to the world, for we have received the ultimate blessing, being fed at the table of Christ, our beloved.
[1] Genesis 2:16b
[2] Genesis 4:4
[3] Ellen F. Davis, //Opening Israel’s Scriptures// (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 23.
[4] Ellen F. Davis, //Opening Israel’s Scriptures// (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 24.
[5] Psalm 23:5a
[6] Genesis 8:21
[7] Ephesians 5:20-21
[8] Book of Alternate Services, 196.
[9] Book of Alternate Services, 196.
[10] Book of Alternate Services, 197.
[11] With the communal breaking of cookies and drinking of coffee after the service.
[12] Mary Oliver, “Logos,” //Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver// (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2017), 179.
[13] Book of Alternate Services, 197.
[14] Book of Alternate Services, 197.
