Eating for England by Trevor Jamison

31/08/2010 by idavidsonblog.

I seem to have spent this week eating for England (or should that be ‘eating for Ireland’?).  In Brentwood the URC and Methodist Churches have joined forces to provide “Brentwood Break”, a series of activities for older folks who have not got away on holiday.  Not surprisingly for a Church event, food has featured prominently and all look to the Minister to provide strong Christian leadership in consuming what is on offer.  This is but the hors d’oevre for what lies ahead, for we are now moving into harvest season and at the fourth attempt since I came here the three Churches in the pastorate have coordinated harvest service and harvest meals so that I am able to attend (and consume) all three.  It’s not quite The Vicar of Dibley, where the unfortunate priest accepts invitations to several Christmas dinners on the one day but there’s more than a slight echo as far as I am concerned. 

Food eaten together seems to be such an important part of the life of our Churches.  Was Methodism, for example, really “born in song” as the hymn writer puts it or, as a sceptic suggested “floated on tea”?  Whatever the history of our Churches, recent architectural changes tell their story.  In many Church halls up and down the length of country (including at Ingatestone URC and the Belfast Church in which I grew up) stages have been torn out, to be replaced by enlarged kitchens.  In others, kitchens have been refurbished (as at Billericay recently) or even brought up to professional catering standard (as at Brentwood).  Is it that our Churches are just mirroring the greater interest our wealthier society has exhibited in culinary matters in the past few decades?  Perhaps there is something in that but I am sure it does not tell the whole story. Food, whether eaten together at times of celebration, at times of sadness, or just as part of a regular get-together carries a lot of significance beyond just taking aboard the necessary calories to keep body (and soul?) together.  Food eaten in the context of Church is inescapably about sharing with each other.  I recently heard one Church member who declined to rush forward to be first at the food table comment that they were not worried as in several decades they had never yet attended a Church event where too little food was provided for those who turned up.  Meals, eaten in Churches that have emphasised the word, spoken and heard, and the use of the intellect in the service of God, are a welcome opportunity to exercise those other senses of taste, smell and touch that might otherwise be a bit neglected in our tradition.  Food, available to us in plenty in the context of a world where this is not always the case, can function as a reminder of God’s generosity to us and of our wider responsibility to share with others. 

Food shared together should be important to us Christians.  After all, it plays a significant role in the life of Jesus.  In the Gospels Jesus is often at the table, in the houses of friends like Martha and Mary, of sceptics or inquirers such as a Pharisee called Simon, or invited to a celebratory banquet thrown by a repentant Zacchaeus.  He feeds the hungry by the thousand and, of course, shares that meal with his closest disciples just prior to his arrest and crucifixion.  Quakers, so I understand it, do not have the Lord’s Supper as part of their worship because they understand the life itself as sacrament – a gift from God that demonstrates the grace of God to us – so every meal can be a sacramental event.  I would not wish to drop Holy Communion from our worship but neither would it hurt to recognise every meal as reminders of what God gives us through creation and the salvation that God offers to us through Jesus.  Bon Appetit! Trevor

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