hunger

Today was world communion Sunday in the mainline Protestant churches, and our pastor delivered yet another wonderful sermon. He began with a quotation, I don't remember from whom: Ethics begins at 1,200 calories a day.

We simply cannot expect human beings to make rational, ethical choices when they do not have the sustenance to live. And when we think about the many places in this world - and in this country - where 1,200 calories is not common, we cannot expect middle class morality.

But the larger point of the sermon was about the meaning of food beyond nutrition and sustenance. Who Jesus ate with is a big deal. And he ate with everyone and anyone. He told the parable of the rich man throwing a party, and he invited all the hotshots and bigwigs and they sent back excuses. And so he went out and brought in the poor and the lame and the lepers, and the table still wasn't full, and so he sent out his servants to bring in anyone they could find, and they shared a meal. On the road to Emmaeus, it was in the sharing of a meal that Jesus was recognized.

One of the things I thought a lot about during the sermon is how many meals I eat alone these days. I almost always have lunch alone with my book. On the days Katie and I eat at home, usually we are eating different things, and so I usually wait until she goes to sleep to eat alone. And now I wonder about that. I have always enjoyed eating lunch alone - I think that I have so rarely enjoyed my co-workers in general that I needed some solitude. I need alone time to my day, and yet now I am inundated with it.

Not to mention that I eat less and better when I eat with others. I notice this in particular with my favorite little Chinese restaurant. When I go with friends or even just with Katie, I always have enough leftovers for another meal, but when I go by myself I eat the whole thing. (Partly that is because the dinner portions - when I am most likely to be with someone - are larger, but still, the lunch should be enough for a meal and a half anyway.) Since I have to talk too, I eat more slowly, and it does me much better.

Anyway, it was a beautiful service today. Just amazing, with an altar overflowing with a cornacopia of food. And it was all real, apples, oranges, bananas and loaves and loaves of bread. And communion was spent not just with the bread and the wine, but also by taking grapes from the altar and passing them around. By congregating around the altar after church tearing chunks off of the loaves, and inhaling a banana in Katie's case. Though John - one of our pastors - made sure she found a brownie, too. She and John are good pals, and now you can begin to see why.

Anyway, I have done a lot of thinking about the service today, and it really was awesome. Later I will post the prayer that Karen - our other pastor - wrote for the service. Katie is going to sleep in here right now, so I have to keep the lights off, making it hard to copy stuff.