Baptism of Christ/Epiphany 1 Food 2 BFC 2016
Exodus 16:2-4a, 11-15; 17:1b-6; Luke 3:1-14
January 10, 2016
Last
week I spoke of God’s intention for abundance and diversity through the
creation of seeds upon seeds, seeds sprouting upon seeds, and seeds of all
kinds for every plant and tree under heaven.
I imagine this dream of God to be like Mark Shepard’s New Forest Farm,
nestled in Wisconsin’s Kickapoo Valley, eighty miles west of Madison—a farm
that thrives on values of regeneration, restoration, resiliency, connected to
its community, and approaches farming as a knowledge-intensive practice. At some point during the late summer you
might be able to walk over a crest of New Forest farm to see Siberian peas,
apricots, kiwis, autumn olives, rose hips, asparagus, hickory nuts as well as
oak, apple, and towering chestnut trees, thriving grapevines, lush berry
patches full of bush cherries, blueberries and, of course, mulberries. In one section of the New Forest Farm can be
found 137 species of edible plants.[1] And
God dreams of seeds and seeds, and seeds sprouting seeds, and seeds of all
kinds.
While
Genesis may convey God’s will for abundance and diversity, many people look at
the flight of the Children of Israel from Egypt, before they arrive in the
Promised Land, as its opposite. Today we
read two Scripture verses that share the wilderness or the desert story. One
may look at that story on its face and suggest that the wilderness is a barren,
fierce, and empty place—devoid of life.
But only devoid of life for those who are not seeking the knowledge and
abundance of God in that place. I
would argue that the wilderness is the place of intention and mindfulness that
prepares us and shapes us to live as responsible people in the Promised
Land. Rabbi Sharon Brous explains it
this way when she shares that there are two tests in the wilderness.
The first one is the test of hunger. How will you hold yourself in the world when
you have nothing? Will you still have
your perfect faith? Will you still act
with kindness? Will you lead with
love—when you and your children are hungry?
And the test of manna—this magical, material that was given to our
ancestors in the desert day after day.
This magical substance that when we put it in our mouths we tasted whatever
we most desired in the world. The test
of abundance. How will we hold our
privilege? The Talmud tells us that one
who has bread in their basket is not like one who does not have bread in their
basket. Someone who has everything is
not at all like someone who has nothing.
Because someone who has everything is tempted to forget what it’s like
to have nothing. So the test is to see
if we can still love, if we can still find faith, if we can still act with
goodness when we have exactly what we want.
When we have found love fulfilled, when we are surrounded by song and
music and privilege and peace. Will our
privilege diminish our humanity? Does it
make the space to forget exactly who we are?[2]
I think those tests reflect the
intentionality and mindfulness the wilderness requires of us. We are reminded that we never leave slavery
to walk immediately into the Promised Land.
We must first be formed by the required intentionality and mindfulness
of the wilderness or the desert.
By their very definition, deserts or
wildernesses would appear to be places where food security is at issue. By locating himself in the wilderness or the
desert, however, John the Baptist understands it differently. John the Baptist shows he will not be a slave
to the diversionary bread and circuses of the Roman meal.[3] Rather, he will eat local. John the Baptist eats the abundant locusts
and wild honey found in the wilderness.
By walking in the wilderness or the
desert, the Children of Israel will not eat the dependable slave food served in
Egyptian pots and pans. Rather, in a new
place they will have to learn quail migration patterns, how to strike rock to
release the water it holds, and how to gather manna, the bread from heaven,
many people now think was insect larvae—how to gather it in a way that provided
for the rhythms of their daily sustenance and provided for the needs of their
whole community.
In today’s language, amidst a world
food crisis, food deserts are those places where people struggle to have access
to foods which provide a healthy diet.[4] Food security is built on three pillars: (1) having a sufficient amount of food on a
long term basis; (2) having access to resources to get one that food; and (3)
having the knowledge to use the food in a way that provides for the nutrition.[5]
The Children of Israel walk into a
new place and assume it is desolate because it is not like Egypt. God, through Moses, teaches the Children of
Israel how to see the abundance and diversity found in the wilderness. Teachers and companions are always needed to
share with people where the goodness of God is to be found—even in places like
Billings, Montana. You may know that, according
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, much of the south side of Billings is
considered a food desert.[6] People, generally, do not have access to food
which provides for a healthy diet. In my
last settled pastorate, almost nobody was surprised that the whole west side of
Rockford, Illinois, was considered a food desert. And it was growing.
One
of the teachers on the west side of Rockford is Rev. Kenneth Copeland, pastor
of the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church, an African-American congregation. In response
to this reality, the good Rev. Copeland regularly has his congregation do
“Daniel fasts”[7]
two or three times a year. Rev. Copeland
believes this is a necessary spiritual exercise to make his people aware of
their spiritual power, practice intentionality and mindfulness in the midst of
wilderness or desert, and connect them in solidarity to one another. While practicing the Daniel Fast, the
congregation is to only eat vegetables and fruits. In a food desert, they are practicing their
faith by bringing intentionality and mindfulness to food. I also enjoyed the daily Facebook videos he
would post. Every day he would show up
relating how difficult the fast was for him—great leadership. I
remember, in particular, when he was away from home, in another city, staying
at hotel that was just across the street from his favorite pancake place. You could see the pain on his face.
It
was a powerful thing to think about—a whole congregation engaged in a fast to
provide support and accountability for one another. Imagine doing something like that in a
congregation like ours! Or imagine a
whole nation bringing intentionality and mindfulness to their food practice.
You
may ask me, “Mike, is there a time, a time in our history, when we pulled together
as a people to fast and live with alternative values, wilderness values?” And I would respond by saying, “Why yes, yes there
is.” During World War I and World War
II, our country made a concerted effort to observe food and diet as important
to our wilderness experience. Just to
jog our memory, I’ve secured some of those war time posters from the
Smithsonian to show you. Look for the
intentionality and mindfulness in these posters, the tests of hunger and
abundance.
The slides for this sermon can be found here
Slide
1 This is a poster from World
War I and suggests that canning food, of all things, is a patriotic gift.
Slide
2
What if we bought, served, and ate
food with these values today? This is a
poster from World War II. Do you hear
the call for freedom within those values?
Slide
3 Victory
gardens call for even more freedom.
Slide
4
Slide
5 Grow your own vegetables and
plant a victory garden.
Slide
6 A Canadian poster from World
War II. Come into the garden with Dad!
Slide
7 Are you a victory
canner? Love the wardrobe. All to suggest that planting your own garden,
growing your own vegetables, and canning your own food are patriotic—from the
National War Garden Commission.
Slide
8
Slide
9 Canning and preserving as
patriotic in another WW II poster
Slide
10 A British WW II poster
encouraging potlucks.
Slide
11 Eating more fish as part of a sustainable
diet.
Slide
12 School gardens encouraged on
this WW II poster
Slide
13 A pretty harsh WW II poster
suggesting that wasting food is the great crime in Christendom. I’m not sure about that, but I hope it
conveys a different kind of value. Think
of it as manna in the wilderness—where nothing is to go to waste.
Slide
14 A British war time poster
suggesting that wasting food was akin to helping Hitler.
Slide
15 I included this one just
because I liked the humor. A young lad
vowing to fast on sweets to support the war cause.
Slide
16 Buy wisely, cook carefully,
eat it all.
I think those posters are amazing. Many of them read like a modern-day foodie
had transported themselves back to 1917 or 1942. I show you all those war posters, a time when
we believed ourselves to be in the desert or wilderness as a nation, to help us
remember that it is very possible to build a community effort that is
intentional and mindful around food. It
is very possible. Not only possible but
necessary.
We
need to exercise our spiritual muscles lest we become like the spiritual
weakling I was in college. When I was in
college in Blooming, Illinois, every year the hunger relief organization,
Oxfam, would encourage us to fast for just one meal. In doing so, our fine university would donate
the money for our meal to hunger relief somewhere around the world. The fast was intended to do more than just
donate money to a good cause. It was a
remembrance that food is one of the ways we connect. Food is one of the ways we show
solidarity. In fasting for just one
meal, we might know the test of hunger and thereby become more intentional and
mindful so that we might also pass the everyday test of abundance.
I
stunk at it. One day! One meal!
I was so famished by the loss of food that I would regularly break down
and break my fast by running to McDonald’s to get a strawberry shake and
fries.
Slide 17
With a lack of
intentionality and mindfulness, I disconnected myself from a food practice that
was meant to deepen my understanding, make me aware of my power over my body,
and connect me with my community and the wider world.
Earlier
in the sermon, I talked about how John the Baptist ate local. I hope we can think about what that value
means in modern terms. Today buying
local is about knowing the farm and the farmer where your food comes from,
promoting a food system that does not spend billions of dollars on fossil fuels
to get your food to you, perhaps having a conversation with a farmer at a
farmer’s market where two sociologists found that people have ten times more
conversations than in supermarkets[8],
or talking more about your food as a gift from God--which really can’t be done
with a ho-ho or a Twinkie.
I
hope this is just to get the conversation started. Even as a Type 2 diabetic, I eat way too much
chocolate and far too much late night snack food to ever call myself a food
saint. But, in my love for all of you,
we have to begin talking about what wilderness values or food rules we might
want for our families and communities. I
fear if we do not, the world food crisis may very well consume us.
The
Jewish people began to define who they were and what had power over their lives
(not the Egyptian empire or Pharaoh) as they developed their food practice in
the wilderness. How do we develop a food
practice that recognizes an alternative Trinity to the one pictured—one that
values the bodies God has given us, the neighbors God has given us, and the
food God has given us--as a holy gift?
How do we begin? Amen.
[1]
Anna Lappé,
Diet for a Hot Planet (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), pp. 129, 132, 139
[2] Rabbi Sharon Brous, “Like Sunshine and Rain.” August 7, 2015. https://www.ikar-la.org/podcast20150807/.
[3] Rome used arbitrary grants of free
wheat as well as costly circus games, as a form of entertainment, to divert the
populace and gain political power. The
Roman satirist and poet, Juvenal, coined the phrase “bread and circuses” to
refer to the deterioration of the citizenry of the Roman Empire. He writes,
“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no [person],the People
have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out
military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself
and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” J.P. Toner, Leisure and Ancient Rome (Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 1995), p. 69. In other words, the people sold their freedom
and rights for the diversion of bread and circuses.
[4] The Center for Disease Control and Prevention
defines a food desert as “areas that lack access to affordable fruits,
vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full
range of a healthy diet.” http://www.cdc.gov/features/fooddeserts/.
[5] The World Health Organization lists these as (1)
availability; (2) access, and (3) use. http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/
[7] A reference to the Biblical character who would not
eat the food of the Babylonian Empire and maintained his kosher observance.
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