Sunday, August 3, 2008   Pentecost 12A   Isaiah 55:1-5   Matthew 14:13-21

 

WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

 

Beloved people of God, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

AMEN.

 

Someone has said that we are what we eat.  If that is true, then, people of St. Andrew, we need to go on a diet.  For Americans that is easier said than done.  We are notorious for overeating.

 

Someone else has said, “We live off half we eat, and the doctors live off the other half.”  Numerous fad diets have been proposed to reduce our weight.  We tend to appreciate those diets that allow us to consume as much as we want   of our favorite foods.  But the only sure way to relieve our overworked digestive systems is to reduce our food intake.  In other words, we need to engage in some form of fasting.

 

The practice of fasting has deep biblical roots.  Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights in the wilderness before he began his ministry.  Jesus cautioned his disciples not to make a show of their fasting, but he did not discourage them from fasting.  In fact, Jesus appears to assume that his disciples will engage in fasting.

 

Lutherans have not traditionally been known for their dedication to dieting or fasting.  What fun is a potluck if you are on a diet?  And fasting smacks too much of works righteousness.  Thus, telling a bunch of Lutherans to go on a diet or to fast is most likely a losing proposition.

 

In the 20^th century the best known proponent of fasting was Mohandas Gandhi, who led the non-violent protest movement in India that eventually resulted in the independence of that nation from the British Empire.  He engaged in numerous experiments in dietetics.  He experimented with various forms of vegetarianism.  At different times he tried giving up particular foods.  Over the years he discovered that restricting what we eat has positive effects not only on the body but also on the mind and the soul.  Although Gandhi cautioned against staking too much on fasting and dietary restrictions, he maintained that “There is an intimate connection between the mind and the body, and the carnal mind always lusts for delicacies and luxuries.  The carnal mind, instead of controlling the senses, becomes their slave, and therefore the body always needs clean, non-stimulating foods and periodical fasting.”[1]

 

Although Americans could surely benefit from adopting some of Gandhi’s eating habits, it is not my purpose this morning to advocate that the people of St. Andrew take up experimenting where Gandhi left off or to engage in a debate over the merits of fasting or of various forms of a vegetarian diet.  However, I still strongly encourage the people of St. Andrew to go on a diet.  It is not a new diet.  I do not recommend that we attach the “St. Andrew” name to it and market it.  But this diet has profound consequences for our well-being.  Rather than fast, we would do well to feast on this diet.  Overconsumption is not a problem.  If we were going to attach a name to this diet, we might call it the biblical diet.

 

In Isaiah 55 the people of Israel are invited to come and feast on God’s life-giving word:

 

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.  Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.  I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

 

Normally for health reasons we are strongly encouraged to avoid rich food.  We may delight in it.  But it is a recipe for health disasters such as heart attacks and strokes.

 

When it comes to the word of God, however, we cannot get enough of it.  The word of God nurtures our hearts and our minds.  There is no finer food of which we can partake.

 

In worship we are invited to feast on this word each Sunday.  It is offered to us in the proclamation of the word and in the reading of scripture.  It is offered to us in visible tangible form in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

 

At times we turn going to church into a burden or an obligation.  That is not God’s intention.  In worship God invites to a feast— God wants us to feast on God’s word.

 

God’s motivation in preparing this feast for us is compassion.  This is made clear in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.  In Matthew 14:14 we read: “When Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them.”  His feeding of them anticipates the Last Supper.  The parallels between Matthew’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 and his account of the Last Supper are strong.  In the feeding of the 5,000 he takes the loaves, blesses them, breaks them, gives them to the disciples to distribute, and they eat.  In the Last Supper he takes a loaf of bread, blesses it, breaks it, gives it to the disciples, and they eat.  This meal is freely given.  We do not have to earn it.  It is truly a gift of compassion to the children of God in their time of need.

 

One wonders why we would not gorge ourselves constantly on food so rich and delightful, so lovingly given, so vital to our well-being.  We make time each day to eat food so that our bodies will be nourished and sustained.  One would think we would eagerly make time each day to nourish ourselves with spiritual food.

 

Certainly it is good to gather regularly for worship on Sunday morning.  But this spiritual food is available to us each day in the reading of scripture and in prayer.  If we are too busy to partake of this food on a daily basis, we are too busy.

 

Martin Luther once said that he was so busy he had to pray 3 hours each day.  He recognized how vital God was to him in addressing the concerns of the day.  In Isaiah 55:2 the Lord asks the people of Israel: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”  That question is as timely in contemporary America as it was in the time of Isaiah.  We can understand why people who have not been raised in the Christian tradition would spend their time and money on a consumptive lifestyle rather than feast on the word of God.  It is harder to understand why people of faith would ever be too busy to feast on God’s word.

 

In 2007, our Evangelical Lutheran Churchwide Assembly voted to engage in a five-year initiative called the “Book of Faith”.  The vision informing this Book of Faith initiative is: “That the whole church become more fluent in the first language of faith, the language of Scripture, in order that we might live into our calling as a people renewed, enlivened, empowered and sent by the Word.”[2]  This Book of Faith initiative is, in effect, an effort to encourage us to feast on the Word of God.  In line with this initiative the Adult Education Team is including a “Book of Faith” class each Sunday morning in 2008-09.  The people of St. Andrew, of course, have many opportunities to feast on God’s Word in worship, Bible studies, other small group settings, and personal devotions.  The point of the Book of Faith initiative is not to lay another burden or obligation on us.  Rather the point is to lift up God’s gracious invitation to partake of the abundant life that is ours as we feast on the word of God.  Again, the motivation for this invitation is compassion.  It is so easy in our society for Christian and non-Christian alike to do too many activities and to buy too many things that do not truly nurture us or others.  We can get caught up in working so hard to provide ourselves with that which does not satisfy.  God wants more for us.  God wants us to feast on that which is truly rich and delightful.

 

“Listen carefully to me,” says the Lord in Isaiah 55:2.  In other words, the Lord is saying to us loudly and clearly, “Slow down and feast on my word.”  This is not easy to do.  Old habits die hard.  But the more one feasts on good food it is hard not to want more.  The good news about this food is that you can never eat too much of it.  It is so good for the heart and the soul.  What better diet could we possibly go on?

In Jesus’ name, AMEN.