Our Psalm for today has a great mealtime prayer: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.”
Eat what is good, we hear in Isaiah.
Eat what’s good for you, that is the advice of doctors and parents. There are lots of reports of how to eat more healthily, how to lose weight, what to avoid, what is good to eat.
Current author on food, UC Berkeley professor Michael Pollan’s famous seven-word key to healthy eating: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” He says that much of what we call food isn’t real food, but processed food-like substances. Pollan wants Americans to change the way we eat, because many of the things that are killing us are attributed to the way we are eating.
Eat what is good, we hear in Isaiah. Delight yourselves in rich food. And then the invitation. Come and eat for free! Why spend your money on that which is not bread, on things that do not satisfy?
Eating what is good is as spiritual as how we pray and serve and live our lives, but it’s something we all struggle with in one way or another.
Eat what is good. Whether literally or spiritually, we all have a complicated relationship to food.
We have more than enough. Most of us live lives of material abundance and privilege. Compared to most of the world’s population, Americans are rich. Our grocery store shelves are overwhelming, our refrigerators are stocked, our plates are always more than one meal. For some eating too much is harming our health. Others have pressure for a perfect body and don’t get food with diseases of anorexia and bulimia.
Gustavo Gutiérrez, Peruvian liberation theologian, teaches that God does not desire hunger. God wants to feed us with what is good. And hunger often arises when the right to life is trampled on. Yet Jesus shares bread with the hungry poor, and makes them his companions. We too are invited to share our bread, and to make the poor—indeed every person—our companions (literally more in Spanish – companion is one who you share pan or bread with) . . . as we join with our generous God in the project of building a more humane, a more just, and a more loving society.
They may not be starving, but there are five thousand hungry people in today’s gospel. The disciples want to send everyone to buy their own food.
There were only five loaves and two fish. Surely not enough. But seven is a sacred number, a sign that food is God’s gift. The Gospel story encourages us that God will give us the power to work for good in the world. When Jesus told the disciples, “You give them something to eat”, the disciples thought it was impossible.The needs were so great, the resources so few. However, when the disciples worked together with Jesus, they had more than enough.
Professor Cody Sanders of Luther Seminary calls Jesus words “you give them something to eat” the most subversive words to living in the empire. Rome considered itself the world’s bread basket. The whole context of the feeding of the five thousand men, besides women and children, is the brutal world of Herod Antipas, who wanted John put to death. Instead of relying on their money, which had the emperor Nero’s image on one side and the goddess of the harvest Ceres on the other with the words “the harvest of the emperor” to buy something in the economy, instead of relying on the empire to provide, instead of looking out there for some help, Jesus insists that they have enough and more than enough among themselves. Jesus urges the disciples to look beyond themselves at the need and among themselves for the answer.
Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to be shared. Sounds like what we will soon do at this table. They–and we–eat what is good for our body and soul.
As the people share the gifts of God, there are twelve baskets of leftovers. Twelve, another holy number. So often we look at what we lack. Yet gratitude teaches us that there is more than enough. This food satisfies our hunger. It is the wholeness that we seek.
If we are all starving, if we all live with fear of what is happening to our country and to our world, if we all carry hurt and pain, what kind of food—what kind of spiritual sustenance—will satisfy our longings?
Martin Luther linked the physical act of sharing food and the eucharist with serving others in a sacrament of love. We respond to the needs of others, not to earn God’s love, but because God is generous, always turning in mercy toward the hungry poor—our neighbors who are starving for justice, for acceptance, for love, for bread. When we stock food for the local food pantry shelves — including next Sunday, which is the second Sunday of the month – our Cross Out Hunger Sunday – to bring in non-perishable food items. Sharing food is more than just about being good neighbors; it is core to our faith.
Extraordinary living begins with ordinary gifts. What gifts and graces do you have that you have not fully activated? What table is the Lord calling you to serve?
While visiting Berlin, Col Gail Halvorsen met a group of children standing behind a fence watching aircraft land. Though he had only a few sticks of gum in his pocket, he shared them. The children were grateful not because of the gum itself, but because someone cared. Moved by their gratitude, Col Halvorsen promised to return and drop candy from his aircraft. To help the children identify his plane, he said he would “wiggle the wings” as he approached. Soon, he was parachuting candy attached to handkerchiefs to children below. What began as one Airman’s simple act of kindness grew into Operation Little Vittles, delivering tons of candy and hope to the people of Berlin. The inspiration grew, and soon stores and organizations were donating candy and sewing little parachutes for the treats, and what started as just a few pieces of gum ended up totaling 23 tons of candy dropped on little parachutes in Berlin. This later became known as Operation Little Vittles, and Col Halvorsen picked up several nicknames such as “The Candy Bomber” and “Uncle Wiggly Wings.”
If you set out to lose weight or heal from an illness or improve your blood sugar or cholesterol, there is rarely, if ever, an overnight miracle or one simple pill, but lots of very small habits of a tiny pill, a diet change, a walk. Yet those small acts multiplied have gigantic effect. We can be overwhelmed by one recycled can in the huge climate crisis or one can of green beans when so many are living on the streets, one letter sent to a senator asking for a vote on one piece of legislation, yet God can and will keep using our small actions.
Labor and money have great value, but bread is not all that satisfies. Isaiah asks, “What will truly satisfy you? It is a difficult question for those living in hunger and poverty. Food and money are practical answers, but deep hunger comes from something more. God’s prophet Isaiah comforts with a deeper hunger in a community, call, and covenant of relationship with God.
We come with the starving multitude to this hungry feast. All who are hungry, come and eat what is good.
