For Food in a World Where Many Walk in Hunger Exodus 16:16-21 Luke 12:22-34 “I tell you not to worry about everyday life – whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear.” Wouldn’t that be great? To wander through life without a care in the world, to not worry about what were going to eat for supper, or whether or not weve got clothes suitable to wear to church on Sunday morning. Everything would just be provided for us and we could focus solely on our relationship with God, on being good spiritual people, and on just enjoying and getting the most out of life. Wouldnt that be great? Jesus says these words, indicating to us that we shouldnt be concerned about our food or are clothes; that everything we need in life would just be provided for us. Just like the birds of the air or the lilies of the field. But then Jesus also taught his disciples to pray to God, saying, Give us this day our daily bread. Now if this is what we’re supposed to pray for each day, does it make sense for Jesus to then turn around and tell us that we shouldnt worry about these things? Isnt it the things that we worry about that we most often pray about? If you get the Observer and you look through your October issue, youll see that food is indeed something that we spend a great deal of time fixated on. There are 12 pages of articles in this months Observer focused on food; from ways to get fresh nutritional food into the hands of people who may dont have access to it in this country, to ways in which the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and The United Church of Canada focus on promoting sustainable agriculture in other parts of the world, to foraging our front lawns and fence rows for edible plants that most of us would call weeds and do our best to eradicate. It talks about the quest by the corporate world to control our seed supply. But it also talks about our abundance and what we could perhaps even consider snobbery or arrogance about our own food. Indeed, it seems that many of us are absolutely obsessed with food and not just getting enough, but with having it the most fashionable and stylish and over-the-top extravagant when so many people in the world struggle to simply have enough to eat-simply struggle to find their daily bread. And if that isn’t enough, theres a half page article in here about how much food we throw out and waste. Think about your Thanksgiving feasts last weekend. Those of you who hosted family gatherings were, in all likelihood, fearful of running short of anything and so you deliberately prepared far more food than was required. And I would bet that the vast majority of you ate close to double the amount of food that you needed for that day. No doubt, by the time the leftover turkey and mashed potatoes were finally consumed and cleaned up, you werent thoroughly tired of it. Some of it perhaps even went into the garbage or was fed to the family pet. We live in the land of abundance, and yet still we worry about having enough. In fact, it isnt enough for us to have enough. We want more than enough. And if we havent got it, were embarrassed by our apparent shortfall. Most of us would consider it a terrible thing if a meal came to an end and there wasn’t still nearly enough food on the table to feed everyone again. When we consider the Israelites wandering in the desert and Gods great gift of a daily portion of manna for each of them, we perhaps ought to acquire a different attitude towards our food. They were told to gather only what they needed for that day and leave the rest for others. And yet, even in those meager circumstances, there were those among them who would try to gather up more, to hoard, to store, to put away that little bit extra out of fear that they might run short tomorrow. But whatever they gathered beyond their daily needs, spoiled. In fact not only did it spoil, but it became wormy and smelly - it needed to be cleaned up and thrown out and created more work and bother then if they had just gone out and gathered what they needed in the first place, as they had been instructed to do. The abundance-the extra-that they strove for and felt they must have became a curse rather than a blessing. I wonder sometimes if the same doesnt hold true for us here in North America, and in particular here in Huron County; we have so much that most of the world can really only dream of. Im sure most of you know what this is. Just in case you dont, this is an oxen yoke. In fact it was my great grandfather’s oxen yoke. When he and his family moved here from Waterloo County, this yoke was used to pull the stone boat that was used to clear the land and to pull the plow that was used to turn it over and prepare it for planting. We would consider it an artifact now. I could scarcely imagine even getting this over the necks of a couple of steers, let alone heading to the field to work for the day in an effort to produce my daily bread. Yet most of the farmers in the world today cannot afford even this level of technology. The vast majority of farmers in the world today could not afford the two oxen it would take to use this yoke let alone the implement it could pull. And so crude shovels and hoes, sticks and baskets are the farm implements employed by most of the farmers in our world today. Do you think a subsistence farmer in sub-Saharan Africa could even imagine spending close to half a million dollars on a single piece of farm equipment? When Jesus tells us not to worry about food or clothes, I dont believe hes talking to us individually. I dont think he means this message for a widow in sub-Saharan Africa trying to raise enough food to feed her children with nothing but a hoe and a watering can to work with. As is pointed out in the Observer article about food waste, the earth produces far more than enough food to provide every single person with their daily bread and then some - yet people starve. We dont need to worry about food. God has provided more than enough to feed us all. The problem is human greed for money, power, and control, creates an imbalance in the world where very few have far more than they need and so many dont have enough. Why do we have so little faith that we need to store up earthly treasures even at the expense of our souls? During the Exodus, God provided everybody with what they needed and those who took more than their fair share had to deal with the spoiled waste it produced. In the gospel reading Jesus tells the faithful to sell the extra they have and share it with those who havent enough. The message is the same. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Our obsession with having more than we need steals from those who desire only their daily bread, and ultimately steals from us as well. During this season of Thanksgiving, may we give thanks for our abundance, and in gratitude, share it with those in need, for this is the way of our Lord. Amen. Colin Snyder October 19,2014
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:46:47 +0000
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