More Than Meets The Mouth

                                                                             “More Than Meets The Mouth”

                                                                                      Amos 5:18-2 

                                                                                      11-6-11  Mission 1

           

Today we will receive communion.  A small piece of bread and tiny cup of wine or juice.  But, no one would say that the communion we receive is only bread and wine.  While there may be a wide range of what we individually understand to be present in the bread and cup, we agree and affirm that these elements are more than meet the mouth.  In this cup we celebrate the gift of God’s grace.  We affirm our commitment to Christ, through whom we who hear and see the message of God’s grace.  We renew and restore our fellowship with God and with one another as a community of faith.  This bread and this cup become more than meet the mouth.

Think quickly about the institution of this sacrament.  Jesus, in the night that he was betrayed, together with his disciples, after the Passover Feast…the Passover Feast.  Again, food, but food that was for Jesus and his disciples more than met the mouth.  Food that was for generations of Jews before and after Jesus’ meal much more than met the mouth.  The food at that feast was and is filled with meaning.  It was a living symbol of God’s deliverance and presence with the Israelites in the Exodus.  It was and is a memorial and a source of connection for the people Israel. 

In both the Passover Feast and Communion, food becomes more than meets the mouth.  It becomes a mystical and spiritual experience which unites us as community and with our God.

Could this also be the case not just for the bread and cup we will share today but also for all other food as well?  Could food be more than meets the mouth?

Norman Wirzba in Food and Faith:  A Theology of Eating, writes that, “Eating joins people to each other, to other creatures, to the world, and to God through forms of ‘natural communion’ too complex to fathom.”  He wants us to understand that every mundane act of eating is a daily invitation to commune with God, one another and God’s creation.  It’s all about communion, community and membership.

Wirzba writes about eating in “exile.” He offers many ways in which we may eat that do not enhance our connection to creation, the God of creation or one another.  For our purposes today let us consider those who are in Exile from the very substance of food; those who live in “food insecurity,” or who have uncertainty regarding the availability of affordable, healthy food. 

According to statistics, that is 15% of American families.  Feeding America, a hunger relief agency, tells us what we have already realized in our community pantries, that food from pantries is no longer being used to meet temporary acute food emergencies. A majority of pantry clients now visit food pantries as a “normal” part of their survival strategy.  Many stories are circulating about those who used to go to neighborhood pantries to donate food but are now forced to go there as recipients.  Families are routinely faced with a dilemma of whether to pay for food or utilities, food or transportation, food or medicine.  And with the climate of the economy, more of those facing these decisions are employed, sometimes at multiple jobs and remain without resources for the basic needs of life for themselves and their families.  Child poverty rates reached 22 percent in 2010, up from 16.2 percent in 2000.  In our neighborhood the number of children living in poverty increased by 200 percent in those ten years.  Combined with this issue is the problem of Childhood Obesity.  A problem aggravated by the simple fact that calories are cheap but nutrition is costly.  In turn, poor health and related cost of health problems find those who struggle buried even more deeply and often without resources with which to address the problem.

These issues cannot be ignored.  Mission 1 is an initiative to call for not only our attention but for our response as a people of faith.  Mission 1 is a good name for the initiative for a couple of reasons.  One is, I think food and feeding people is God’s first mission.  In the story of creation, Adam and Eve are placed in a Garden and given the plants of the earth for food.  God sent Joseph ahead to Egypt to lay up food for the people in preparation for a coming famine.  The Children of Israel were fed in the wilderness by bread from heaven.  God provided for the widow of Zeraphath through the presence of Elijah.  Jesus fed the hungry multitude.  God has always been about providing food.  And when God provided food, it was always meant for sharing.  Feeding people has always been God’s Mission 1.  Why?  Because food is more than meets the mouth.  Remember the analogy made by Wirzba, “every mundane act of eating is a daily invitation to commune with God, one another and God’s creation.  It’s all about communion, community and membership.”  All food becomes holy elements of communion.  It is our source of connection to God, to creation and to one another.  In and through food, in some way that is too powerful to comprehend, we do become one.  This prayer of Jesus, the UCC motto, “that they may all be one,” is to be best realized WHEN FOOD IS RECEIVED FROM GOD AND SHARED BY ALL.  Maybe we could say that when it comes to calories food is cheep; when it comes to nutrition food is expensive; but when it comes to communion, community, and connection to God… that food is priceless.

Mission 1 calls for a response.  A bold response.  The goals are lofty and challenging.  As a denomination, the members of UCC congregations will collect more than 1 million items of healthy food for local food banks; gather contributions of more than $111,111 for Neighbors in Need offerings; and offer more than 11,111 letters to congress asking for reform that more effectively benefits hungry people worldwide.

In this initiative we hear the cry of Amos for Justice to roll like a might river; for Fairness to be like a vast ocean.  But Amos was wrong.  In spite of how Amos and we would like God to act and listen to our cries, Justice and Fairness do not seem to come like that.  Instead, justice and fairness seem to enter our world in small, seemingly insignificant acts.  Not as rolling, raging rivers but in the gentleness of small, single seeds planted, tended and nurtured in hope.  It may not be noticeable.  It may not be clear how these tiny seeds of righteousness will take root but when they do they will most certainly carry with them the prospect of bearing good fruit, of bearing a hundred-fold harvest.

It is not about boldness as much as it is about faithfulness.  It is not about largeness as much it is about the least of these.  It is not about the far-reaching as much as it is about the up-close and personal.  I find the paraphrase of Amos from the Message to be an ultimate warning for us in the wake of a bold campaign to address hunger and human need.  The Message has God saying this:  “I can’t stand your religious meetings.  I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.  I want nothing to do with your pretentious slogans and goals.  I’m sick of your fundraising schemes, your public relations and image making.  I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music…Do you know what I want?  I want justice-oceans of it.  I want fairness-rivers of it.  That’s what I want.  That’s all I want.” 

I am under the persuasion that the rivers of justice and righteousness flow one small drop at a time, one small seed at a time, one small bite of food at a time. Let the small piece of bread and the tiny cup we receive today be the source of a river of justice that will not cease to flow until all the gifts of God are shared by all of God’s children. Remember in receiving this bread and this cup that it and all other food is more than meets the mouth.  Realize that food is a holy gift of God.  Realize that food, like all the gifts of God, is to be shared with all.  In sharing food—the gift of God for the people of God—we share communion.  Communion with God, with creation and with one another.  We are called to share food that we may all be one.