Gathering around the meal table to share food and good company is something we all like to do – with family, friends and colleagues. Eating is a fundamental activity for living organisms. Failure to eat means a failure to thrive, and an organism will quickly die. Our children are utterly dependent on us to provide food and nourishment. It is little wonder then that when we reflect on our relationship with the Divine, that we talk about food.
Our ancestors, both Hebrew and non-Hebrew used sacrifice to express their relationship with their God/gods. While these relationships might be terribly complex, in essence, the gods were placated or swayed by sacrifices of crops and stock. They may have sought rain, fertility, safety from their enemies or victory, long life, or a successful harvest. The First (or Old) Testament is rich in its recollection of stories of sacrifice, most memorably Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac. In return God will provide, just as he provided manna in the desert to Moses.
This food relationship is embedded in our Christian story too. Jesus’ feeding of the 3000 is about God’s bounty, he feeds those who listen to his Word. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ – by this, meaning our spiritual nourishment through the Eucharist, yes, but also by providing the faithful with real food through bountiful harvests, flocks, and herds. It is in the Last Supper that Jesus declares that the bread and wine he offers to his disciples are indeed his own body and blood. In John’s Gospel (6:51f) Jesus provocatively advises: ‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.’
In much the same way that sacrificed food might be consumed as part of a covenant with God, so it is in John’s view that God is himself present in and through the consumption of this living bread. God provides both the physical and spiritual elements.
Mr Peter Douglas
Director of Faith and Mission