Something to Eat

Reading today's gospel made me think about how often feeding miracles shows up in the gospels. All four contain one, and Matthew and Mark have two.  Six miraculous feedings.  No missing that Jesus provides food for the hungry.

So many occurrences suggests this was a very well known story. No matter what sources a gospel writer had, there it was.  And Mark had two different accounts (apparently replicated in Matthew). Perhaps they were the same event via different sources, or perhaps they were stories of different feeding miracles.  Either way, Jesus feeding the crowds features very prominently in the story the early Church told.

Our course meals figure prominently in other ways. Huge portions of the synoptic gospels are devoted to Jesus' last meal with  his followers. A banquet was a well worn metaphor for the coming of God's reign. And the early Church came together around a meal.  (The typical dry cubes and thimbles of juice in the Lord's Supper I grew up with bore scant resemblance to such meals, much less to a banquet.)

Eating a meal with someone is a significant act. Most of us are pretty picky about who we invite over for dinner.  In our day of fast and easy food, we may not spend much time reflecting on the act of eating, but we still have favorite foods and restaurants. And while going to the movies is a safe first date, dining together at a nice establishment is a much more intimate event.

Church suffers a huge loss when the experience of worship is more like the movies or a concert than like joining others for dinner.  Not that movies or concerts cannot be deeply moving, but they lack the intimacy of a meal.  They lack the sense of receiving something one cannot live without, nourishment and companionship, community if you will.

I suspect one reason so many young people find traditional worship unappealing is that it feels more like going to something than it feels like receiving something you deeply need.  The pendulum swing in my tradition back toward more frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper perhaps senses this lack. But I am not sure that simply doing communion more often, especially in services with lots of people, changes things very much.

I once new a church member who I liked a great deal. When he would leave Sunday worship, he often commented on my sermons.  If he had really liked one he would make a point of saying, "I really enjoyed the lecture today." I never objected.  I knew he meant it in the kindest possible way, but it always unnerved me a bit.

Jesus taught, he told stories, he healed, and he fed people and ate with them, and the early Church and the gospel writers seem quite captivated by the food part.  Jesus offers food for those who are hungry, and he gives it to his followers to distribute and share.

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