The Real Meal Deal

The Rev. Joseph Winston

November 18, 2007

Sermon

Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.1
The delicious and appetizing smells of food wafting through the air tell us
that today is our monthly potluck meal. The air has the slightest hint of turkey,
dressing, and potatoes. These wonderful smells along with the date on the calendar
allows us to add a bit more information about this specific meal that we soon will
share. Today is our annual Thanksgiving dinner here at Trinity Lutheran. If past
experience is any indication of what we can expect to eat, we will have a feast with
plenty of food for everyone. There will be more than enough turkey and cornbread
dressing, we will have an overabundance of scalloped potatoes and green beans,
and everyone will be able to have at least one slice or pumpkin and pecan pies.
After enjoying plates of meats, vegetables, and desserts, it will be time to
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3

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straighten up. Everyone will pitch in and the place will be clean in no time. When
everything is in its rightful place, we will say our goodbyes, go home, and prepare
for our own Thanksgivings on Thursday.
This ritual of eating and then eating again is one of life’s constants. From our
birth until our death, we will consume one meal and then move onto our next
meal. Whether it is a child nursing at their mother’s breast or an adult eating a
simple meal of homemade soup and dry bread, we all need to eat.
The motivations to eat food come deep inside of us. The most basic biological
response happens when our blood sugars drop below a preset level. This action
triggers a complex set of reactions that start the brain on planning where our next
meal will come from. In infants, this instinct will cause them to fuss and cry.
Teenagers will begin rummaging around in the refrigerator for something to eat
and adults will start preparing food.
The complex chemical process is not the only way that our body tells us that
we are hungry. Delicious smells of food remind us about meals that we have en-
joyed in the past. This could be the fragrance of warm chocolate chip cookies that
your mother used to make or it might be the scent of homemade bread wafting
from the oven. Grocery stores know this and use it to their advantage. In-store
bakeries help the bottom line because the smells of bread and cookies cause peo-
ple to purchase more food.
Colors even influence our stomachs. Blue food is naturally unappetizing be-
cause so little food in nature is this shade. Warm earthy colors for cooked meats
naturally informs us that it is safe to eat while the same shades for green vegeta-

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bles tell us something different. The manufactures of food use these cues to help
sell their products. Except for a few items made from blue corn, you will almost
never see any food in a supermarket that is blue. Likewise, all photographs of
green vegetables will show healthy plants rather than something which appears
brown.
For the last two thousand years, Christians have been pondering the same ques-
tion, “Why do we eat and then go off and eat again?” At one level, this is a very
trite question. Everyone knows that food is necessary for life. Everything from
single celled organism all the way up to the most complex living thing requires
energy to exist and this power comes from consuming food of one type or another.
This need to ingest nourishment is so fundamental for life that it is wired into our
very existence. At another level, the question of our need for food is very complex
and at its heart lays two answers about the way we live.
The first solution to the question of our need to eat focuses in on our similarity
with the rest of the animals. The very first believers in both the Jewish and the
Christian traditions soon noticed that very little separated the human race from
the rest of the animal kingdom. We both are born, we both eat, we both live,
and we both die. Given all of these obvious similarities, are there any differences
between the animals and us? The Jews, because they are our younger brothers,
answered the question first. Humans, while acting like animals, are not animals
because we have been called to live in relationship with God. Our walk with God
started at creation. There in the Garden of Eden, not only did God give out the
command that all humans needed to take care of creation but God also spent time

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with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening.
This single sentence captures the tension in the affair between God and us.
When God told us how we are to live, God established an order to this world. Here
on earth, humans are the crowning glory of all of creation and with this position
comes rights and responsibilities. We must be good stewards of everything that
God created because that is what is expected of us. We give God honor and glory
since God is the One who brought us out of the dirt of the earth. In this part of the
relationship, we are clearly subservient to God. The last portion of the sentence
reminds us of our equality with God. God did not spend time with the rest of
creation. Rather God came daily to meet with our first parents.
Christians continued this same line of reasoning first started by the Jews. We
are not animals because we are responsible for our actions. All of us have been
given a set of rules to live by. We have all failed. But God’s love for us continues
and out of that deep sense of relationship, Jesus comes to save us.
The sequencing of genes of animals and humans has once again shown us how
similar we are to the rest of the animal kingdom. Some people who are not either
Jewish or Christian will use this type of information to say that we humans are no
different from the other animals and because of this undeniable fact humans can
do whatever animals do. It does not take much imagination to see where this type
of argument could lead us. For example, the weak and the old are left to die in
nature. Why should we be any different? As followers of Jesus, we must disagree.
We are human and with that humanity comes both rights and responsibilities.
The second answer to our insatiable appetite examines what we are looking

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for. Just think about the absurd nature of what will happen today. Even though
everyone of us will eat our fill at the table, it will not be enough to satisfy us. In a
few hours, we will be hungry again and will be looking for something else to eat.
The early Christian authors commented on this reality that we eat but we never
get full.
In order to understand the early church’s reasoning on the matter of our crav-
ings for food, we must return once again to the creation account and remember
one key part of the narrative found in Genesis. Adam and Eve had everything nec-
essary for their existence. They lacked for nothing because God provided them
with a garden that fulfilled their every need. Rather than being satisfied with the
abundant blessings given to them by God, they hungered for more. They wanted
everything. This desire drove them to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Our obsession with food points out a major flaw that we all share. Instead of
taking care of our neighbor, we are more concerned with feeding our own hunger.
Statistics prove how true this viewpoint is. UNICEF reports that one in four chil-
dren in the world is underweight. If that number is not frightening enough, the
UN’s World Food Programme tells us that a child dies every five seconds because
of hunger. That is seven hundred and twenty children per hour that die because
they do not have enough to eat. The Heifer Project, a US based group that gives
farm animals along with instructions on their care, reports that the majority of
their work does not happen in the developing nations but rather is located here in
the United States because of the amount of poverty in America’s heartland. These
three examples show how our passion for food blinds us to the needs of those all

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around us.
Jesus came into the world to show us where our hunger is driving us.2 The
problem that we all face is not that we like to eat and to drink nor is it that we have
celebrations such as Thanksgiving where we can indulge ourselves. The difficulty
with the way that we live is that our eating disorder pushes everyone else away
from the table.
Christ’s ministry here on earth proves this point. Jesus ate with His friends,
He dined with those people who wanted to meet with Him, and He even went to
the wedding at Cana and provided wine for everyone to drink. Every time that He
shared bread and wine with others, Jesus brought people together to eat with God.
These examples where Jesus enjoyed food and drink with others, bring us back
to the insights found by looking at the creation accounts. We humans are created
to be in relationship with God.
The fact that we are flesh and bone means that we need to eat. God knows this.
He has given us the bounty of the earth and the sea. We thank God for these gifts.
God could have decided that our daily bread be bland. Instead, God has provided
us with a rich diversity of tastes: we have sweet dishes such as cookies, pies, and
ice cream, we enjoy salty foods like potato or corn chips, we like the spices found
in our regional specialties, we even have sour tastes like dill pickles. In addition
to all of these different flavors, God has provided us with foods that have different
textures. We have soft, hard, and crunchy foods.
2
Alexander Schmemann, For The Life Of The World, (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000),
p. 19.

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 Many people find it difficult to accept that God want to be with us because they
have the idea that God is far away from us, that God is too busy to be here with us,
or that God cannot stand the type of life that we leave. These three objections pale
in significance when we Christians add the message that Jesus want to sit down
and eat with you. This immediately brings up the objection that gods do not need
to eat. We disagree. Jesus desires that you join Him in a never-ending banquet that
starts today.
This is the amazing second part of our relationship with God. Jesus is present
for you and He wants to share a meal with you. This is why we all have been given
the Lord’s Meal. Christ comes for you today and He personally invites you to join
Him at His Table. There we will dine with Him and with all the other believers
that have every existed and will ever exist. This food that we share at His Table
strengthens us for our life in the world and it keeps us mindful of the God who
loves us so much that He personally feeds us.
In a few more minutes, we will be finished with this worship service and we
will then sit down to eat our annual Thanksgiving meal. No longer will we have
to be satisfied with the smells of turkey and dressing, of breads and vegetables,
of cakes and pies. We will be able to experience them first hand since we will be
eating all these wonderful items.
In a few more hours, we will have digested all of this good food prepared by
excellent cooks and we will be hungry once again. The question of “What are we
eating?” will soon be raised by everyone. The only way of satisfying this desire is
to eat and to drink.

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 All around us are people that eat and drink but do not know why they perform
these actions every day. We have been given the answer to this question in the
Meal that we share at this Table. Share with others the real reason for their hunger.
Bring them to the Table so that their desires will be satisfied.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”3

References

Schmemann, Alexander, For The Life Of The World, (St. Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 2000).

3
Philippians 4:7.