Food, Fellowship, and Faith – Without Friction
My daughters and I love to read together – curled up on the
couch by the fire, or propped on pillows in bed. We really enjoy novels set in the nineteenth
century, novels about simple families in simple times, when ladies churned
butter by hand, horses pulled buggies to church, and everyone pitched in to do
the hard work of living off the land.
One of the common threads of “olden day” stories is the way food and
fellowship are woven into the patterns of work and daily life. Men worked hard to provide their families
sustenance, and the women labored equally hard to turn that provision into
nourishment. Historically, people ate
the food that was available to them, the food that the land in their area would
give. Ma and Pa Ingalls butchered hogs
in the Big Woods, served wild rabbit on the prairie, and lived off potatoes
during the relentless Long Winter. In Mountain
Born, Peter and his sheepherding family enjoyed frequent mutton. Caddie Woodlawn’s family marked the calendar
by the nuts and berries they gathered, and the produce their garden produced.
Today, our food choices are not limited either by our
geography or by the season. Most of us
do not live off the fruit our own land produces. Instead, we wander grocery
aisles heavy-laden with every variety of food imaginable. We can purchase fresh fish even if we live
inland. We can eat strawberries in
February, and buy olive oil imported from Italy. We live in a time and place of great
abundance. And of many options.
Out of the luxury of abundance, our Western culture has seen
new problems and new ideas emerge.
Over-abundance has led to obesity, with its myriad of connected health
issues. It has also given rise to a
culture of food that is vastly different than the simple provision and
life-sharing that marked Laura Ingalls’ life.
People now have choices about what they will eat. We can choose organic food. We can find all
manner of convenience, ready-made foods.
We can opt for gluten-free. There are vegetarians, and vegans. Some people prefer low-fat diets, while
others think high-protein is best.
Instead of relying on the family cow for our daily milk, we face a
refrigerator section filled with low-fat, non-fat, whole-fat, lactose-free,
soy, almond, rice, and coconut milk, and weigh the nutrition benefits of each
against the varying costs.
As I flip the rustling pages of Little House on the Prairie with my daughters, I think about how we
may have gained much in terms of knowledge about nutrition and availability of
food, but we have also lost much. A
realm of beautiful simplicity has become complicated and sometimes argumentative. I think about families and neighbors
gathering, giving thanks together, breaking bread – and I think about how the
differing opinions clash and the breaking of bread sometimes breaks
relationships instead. And I think about
Jesus, and the bread He broke, the fellowship He shared, and I wonder how the
Bible might speak into the friction that arises over food.
Old Testament laws designated categories of clean and
unclean foods, and gave detailed dietary guidelines. However, in the
dispensation of grace – the time after Christ’s sacrificial death and
resurrection and the indwelling of believers with the Holy Spirit – those laws
have been fulfilled. Grace and freedom in Christ have overtaken the rules and
regulations that made up Old Testament life.
Several Scriptures speak directly about the freedom we have
in Christ to eat and drink according to our own consciences. 1 Corinthians 10 talks about believers eating
meat that has been sacrificed to idols and gives freedom to buy and eat any
food in the market, because “the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains.” Paul says, “If I partake with thankfulness,
then why am I slandered concerning that which I give thanks?” And, most
importantly, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory
of God.” In Romans 14, he contrasts a
weak believer who eats a ceremonial diet of vegetables with a strong believer
whose conscience is clear to eat “all things.” Verse 6 says, “He who eats, does
so for the Lord, and he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord
he does not eat, and gives thanks to God.” Further down in verse 13, it says,
“Therefore, let us not judge one another anymore…”
It is clear from these verses that we have Biblical freedom
to eat all foods. The issues of our times may be different than those faced by
Corinthian believers, but the solutions are the same. It does not matter what we choose to eat or
not to eat. What matters is that we
choose to eat with hearts of thanksgiving to the Lord, and that we eat without
passing judgment, without placing a stumbling block before a fellow believer,
and without breaking relationship over issues of Christian freedom. We are to eat – just as we live and breathe
and pray – with a posture of grace.
Remember what Jesus called Himself? One of the names He gave
to His followers was “the bread of life.” He said, in John 6:35, “I am the
bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me
will never thirst.” The choices we make about our physical “daily
bread” are truly insignificant. Believing in the eternal bread of life is of
far greater importance. Physical bread – whether whole grain, gluten-free, or
even plain, unfortified white – sustains us in a physical sense. But Christ
offers us eternity with Him when we “partake” of His sacrificial bread.
The Bible also speaks of the breaking of physical bread as
an essential aspect of fellowship and communion with others. Jesus broke bread
with His disciples. He shared the
Passover feast with them. He cooked them a breakfast of fish at the Sea of
Tiberius after His resurrection. In
Acts, the Christians were “…continually with one mind in the temple, and
breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with
gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the
people.” (Chapter 2, verses 46 and 47) They were of one mind, taking their
meals together with gladness! Whatever differences they had were laid aside,
and they broke bread together as a symbol of unity and fellowship. Isn’t that a
beautiful model? My husband and I have,
for the last five years, opened our home one night a week for a small group
Bible Study. Somewhere along the line,
we decided to follow the pattern of the early church, and take our meals
together. With gladness and sincerity of
heart, we share a potluck meal with a group of one-hearted believers. Giving thanks and partaking of a shared meal
has changed our group’s dynamics. When
each one brings what they have to share, and we fill our plates with nourishing
food prepared sacrificially by the busy and loving hands of our Christian
brothers and sisters… unity happens.
How do we experience unity when we still all have
preferences and beliefs about food? We bend. We give. We offer grace and we lay
down our rights. We lovingly prefer others instead of only looking after our
own interests. We continually thank God for His provision. We learn to see food – all food – as a gift
from His hand, and we rejoice in fellowshipping with others as we, together,
thank Him for it.
Personally, I prefer to eat whole, natural foods. I cook very, very simply, from scratch, most
of the time. No fancy recipes, just basic whole-food ingredients. I avoid
commercially prepared foods as much as I can (with exceptions for crackers,
canned tomato soup and granola bars). We don’t eat cereal; instead I cook
oatmeal , or flip pancakes, or scramble eggs with a little cheese, or make
smoothies. I like incorporating
different grains into my cooking and baking, and we eat vegetarian meals several
times a week. I am pretty lenient with
sweets, as long as they are the home-baked kind. I will feed my kids a homemade cookie almost any
time they want one; I just don’t like them to eat potato chips or candy. Funny
thing is, my sweet mother-in-law absolutely delights in feeding my little ones
potato chips and candy. She loves giving
small gifts, and takes uncanny enjoyment in giving them non-Mama approved
treats. I am learning (slowly) to love
my mother-in-law by just quietly letting her do this. If I argued and made a
fuss every time she offered my girls candy or chips, I would be robbing her of
grandmotherly joy (and believe me, I have done this in the past!). I would be
squelching her generous spirit. So, I am learning to step back, to realize a
potato chip offered in love will not harm my children, and to choose nurturing
a relationship over maintaining a standard.
My mother recently shared a story with me that exemplified
taking the “higher road” of grace.
During a busy shift at the flower shop she works in, a co-worker brought
in a homemade meal for everyone who was on-duty that day. One of the women is a vegetarian, and the
meal was authentic chicken mole.
Thanking her co-worker, the vegetarian employee simply ate the
chicken. Later on, my mom expressed her
surprise at this. She said, “That was so gracious of you to eat the chicken.”
The woman’s response was short and emphatic. “Of course I ate it. If someone is
going to go to the trouble of preparing a meal for me, you’d better believe I
am going to eat it.” For her it was that
simple.
Please don’t think I am saying that one should always lay
down his or her beliefs and eat something their conscience is uncomfortable
with. A hard and fast vegetarian does
not necessarily need to eat meat because it was prepared for her. However, this
story portrays one woman’s grateful heart, and her willingness to set aside
personal preferences in order to gracefully receive the blessing that was being
offered her. She lovingly chose to honor her coworker rather than uphold her
own standard. And I think we can all learn from her.
If we are hard-hearted and unwilling to bend or bow – it
could be that food has become an idol in our hearts. When we are willing to “give a little,” we
demonstrate with our actions that relationships are more important than being
right. Whether it is a vegan nibbling a
butter-rich cookie or a meat-lover enjoying a hearty lentil soup, each of us
can bend towards one another in grace. We can bow our heads and give thanks
together to the One who provides nourishment of all kinds for our bodies. We
can enter into communion together as we break bread and fellowship over
sustenance. We can partake with thankful
hearts and clear consciences towards one another, and receive in faith the dual
blessings of food and friendship.
