"We Are What We Eat"

Sermon Text – Acts 11: 1-18

I love food. Anyone who talks to me for more than about ten minutes knows this because I’ve estimated that ten minutes is about as long as I can go before bringing up the subject. I love to cook. Always have. When I was a little kid, my mom bought me a special single-sandwich-sized griddle so I could cook my favorite meal: grilled cheese. My poor parents and sister were subject to many, many of my kitchen experiments over the years, God bless them and their taste buds.

As an adult I’ve continued my obsession. I read cookbooks from cover to cover for fun. I understand not all of you share my passion. I have come to discover that some people do not devote 38% of their brain power at any given moment to thinking about what’s in season, when they can next get thirty minutes of uninterrupted time in the kitchen, and whether or not they should attempt to tweak the already-perfect pancake recipe. Some people simply eat because they have to. They don’t spend much time considering their options. They eat to live instead of live to eat.

I don’t know where you fall on this continuum. I may have lost some of you back when I said perfect pancake recipe because you’re already recreating your favorite pancakes in your head and wondering if you have everything on hand to whip some up for dinner tonight. Some of you have never seen a homemade pancake and are wondering why the heck your preacher is talking about this from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

Well, I will tell you why I’m talking about it. And you, pancake fantasy wanderers, come back and join us. It’s not often you get a sermon on food and you can think about those pancakes later.

I’m talking about food because our passage from Acts compels me to do so. In this passage, we get to go behind the scenes and observe as some of our faith ancestors – followers of The Way – tried to sort through the changes in their movement. At this period in time, the hot-button issue was whether and how to include Gentiles in this new Jewish movement. Remember, Jesus was Jewish, as were all of his original followers. Despite what The History Channel may try to tell you, Jesus was not the first convert to Christianity. Neither was Paul. These folks were all Jewish and trying to sort out how to retain their Jewishness in the midst of this life-altering experience of the Resurrected Christ.

Add into the mix the God-fearers and totally-unaffiliated-Gentiles who were becoming interested in the Jesus Movement. God-fearers were non-Jews who were interested in Judaism and prayed to the God of Abraham. Some of these folks, hanging about on the margins, heard about Jesus and were interested in learning more. And then there were Gentiles who knew virtually nothing about Judaism but found themselves compelled by the life and witness of Jesus. All of these folks were interested in joining with the devout Jews to live more fully into the teachings of Jesus.

Of course, there were a few problems here. One of the biggest ones was the simple matter of table fellowship. It was nearly impossible for the Jews in the Movement and these Gentiles who wanted into the Movement to even sit down and eat a meal together. First-century Jews, like so many religious and cultural groups then and now, had a specific set of rules they followed about what they put into their bodies. They were not able to sit down and eat with folks who weren’t following those rules. And if you can’t sit down to share a meal, it’s awfully hard to live in community and share a faith system.

Enter Cornelius and Peter. This is such a great story the author of Acts had to tell it twice. No, really, it’s in the book twice. Just go back to chapter 10 and you’ll see what I mean. Cornelius is a part of the Roman army (boo…hiss). He is also a God-fearer, meaning his is a Gentile but very interested in the God of Abraham. We are told that he prayed all the time and did his best to help others in need. One day he was praying and had a vision of an angel telling him he needed to find a man named Simon Peter in Joppa. Cornelius, good God-fearer that he was, did as he was told and sent some men to Joppa to look for Peter.

In the meantime, Peter is, indeed, in Joppa and has a vision of his own. He was praying on the roof and was hungry. He fell into a trance and this is what he saw: a big sheet coming down from the sky with all kinds of animals on it. A voice told him, “Kill and eat.” But Peter saw that the animals on the sheet were not clean, meaning they were not kosher for him to eat. He refused to give in to his hunger, but the voice urged him on saying, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” When Peter woke up from his vision, Cornelius’s men were standing there, looking for him. Peter invited them in and the next day he went with them to see Cornelius and many of his friends and family who have gathered to hear what Peter has to say. Peter, emboldened by his vision of the unclean animals, does something astounding. He says that God shows no partiality and that God wants him to share the message of Good News in Christ Jesus to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

This is major, folks. MAJOR. Thanks to the courageous work of folks like Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Silas and others whose names have been lost, the Way expanded from a tiny group of committed Jews to a worldwide religion open to people from every walk of life. Hear me loud and clear: there was absolutely nothing wrong with those Law-abiding Jews who first experience Christ in the context of their Jewish faith. We are all working to find our own ways to experience and live more fully into the Holy and for our Jewish ancestors, as for Jesus, Judaism was the path they used. Thanks be to God for the richness of that faith, yesterday and today. And at the same time, we can affirm how wonderful it was that Peter and others like him argued that the message of Christ could be expanded beyond Judaism. And that’s just what they did.

Sometimes preachers get up and dismiss the unclean animals in Peter’s dream as a silly little diversion. “Oh, isn’t it silly that those Jews thought they had to follow these pesky little dietary laws in order to follow God? We know better. We know that Jesus is all you need and laws don’t matter at all.”

Hoo boy, that is some dangerous theology. Let’s be clear, those of us who claim to be Christians follow a lot of rules, too. In our other lectionary passage today we see a big one, “This is my commandment that you love one another.” That’s a law. It’s a pretty good one, too. Plus, last time I checked many of the folks who say Jewish dietary laws don’t matter and you just need to believe in Jesus also have a checklist of fundamental beliefs on their website telling you exactly what you need to believe in order to be saved. Hmmm.

There is nothing wrong with having or following rules. There are certain ways of being that may bring us closer to God, help us focus on what matters, give us clarity of vision and heart. These are all good things. What happens in this particular passage is that Peter is encouraged to step outside of one box and place himself inside another box. He is invited to imagine himself as a companion – one who breaks bread – to people previously unknown to him. His willingness to accept this invitation is a big part of the reason many of us are even sitting in this room today.

Peter’s vision affirms that what we eat has power to change our lives, our relationships, and the world. What we eat matters. How it is prepared matters. Where it comes from matters. Who we eat it with and where we eat it – these things matter. The message of this passage is not that food laws should be abolished, instead it is an affirmation of the good news that good eating can change the world.

So here I am back at food. I am about to get into some pretty testy territory here and I just want to say something before I get started on this topic. First, talking about the food we eat is not easy business. For most of us, our food choices are akin to another religion. Our eating choices were shaped by our families. Food is all mixed up with love, nostalgia, longing, pleasure, shame, and more. It’s not easy to talk about. It is not my intention to make anyone feel judged for their choices and habits. I do not want any of us to walk away from this place feeling ashamed. So, let’s make a deal. No shame, okay? If you start to feel ashamed, make the choice to focus instead of something you do well and how you can do more of it. Additionally, I recognize that some people in the room may be struggling with disordered eating. If this is the case for you, I encourage you to work with your counselor and program to care for yourself as you nurture a healthier relationship with eating. Some of what I’m saying here may not make sense for you at all and if it doesn’t, please just ignore it.

But many of us need to think more carefully about what we eat. What we eat matters. It affects our health. If you haven’t seen Jamie Oliver’s 2010 TED Prize Talk about the work he is doing to help our children access and learn about better food, I commend you to spend 15 minutes of your time watching it. In the talk, he shows a video clip of a conversation with elementary school kids – maybe 7 or 8 years old – who are unable to identify a potato or a tomato. They don’t know French fries come from potatoes. He also explains that schoolchildren get two cartons of milk at lunch each day. Many of those children choose chocolate milk, which has about as much sugar in it as a can of soda. Mr. Oliver brings out a giant pile of sugar cubes and pours an entire wheelbarrow of sugar onto the stage, showing how much sugar a child will consume in five years of having chocolate milk at lunch each day. An entire wheelbarrow full, just from the milk. Astounding.

But what we eat affects more than just our bodies. It affects the very essence of who we are. Sitting down to a home cooked meal in the presence of family, friends, or the company of a delicious book you’ve been looking forward to all day is a completely different experience than going through the drive through and hurriedly shoving a bag of fast food into your mouth while driving to your next destination. It’s qualitatively different. It just is. And if you consistently choose one of those methods of eating over the other day after day it will affect more than just your physical body.

And what we eat affects more than just us. This is where it gets really tricky, right? Because we live in a society that is highly individualistic and it’s pretty easy to say, “I know, I know, what I eat affects me. But I can choose to live however I want. It’s a free country.” Every single time we eat something we are making choices that affect people and places most of us will never see with our own eyes. We live in an age of Industrial Food. Much of what we eat is shipped here from across the globe, brought to us on trucks and airplanes that guzzle up fossil fuels. But before our food even makes it onto those planes and trucks, it has already left a huge impact on the planet and other human beings. Food in our industrialized system is manufactured in ways that harm the planet and people.

I am likely not telling you anything new. I know this. And I know that it gets very overwhelming when you start to think about making changes. The problem is so multi-faceted. It’s difficult to know what food is okay to buy. It’s challenging to figure out how these changes will affect your bank account and your family. You may have to learn how to cook, which is a daunting task if no one taught you. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. We are all in different places on our food journey. All I want to ask of you today is this: could you try caring more?

The next time you go to the farmer’s market or the store or a restaurant, would you be willing to take a few moments and really think about where the food is coming from? Ask yourself how this food will affect your own body and soul. Ask yourself how it will affect the planet we call home and the other people who live here with us. Care about what you put into your mouth.

And then from that place of caring, make a step, any step. Maybe you stop buying bottled water. Maybe you commit yourself to cooking one meal from scratch each week. Maybe you give up eating meat one day a week. Maybe you decide to buy all of your food from the Farmer’s Market and Bloomingfoods. Maybe you decide to pack your child’s lunch, or, better yet, teach her to pack it with you. Maybe you give up eating grapes because you’re tired of having them shipped here from Chile. Maybe you read a Michael Pollan book.[1] Maybe you educate yourself on the Farm Bill and learn more about how our government supports a system that makes it incredibly difficult to make good choices. Maybe you plant a garden and harvest your own tomatoes. Maybe you give time or money to Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard so other people can eat better food. Maybe you sit down wit Janice Lilly and have a conversation because she knows a whole lot more about this stuff than I do. Maybe you do something else entirely.

Focus on the good choices you can make. Don’t beat yourself up over the mistakes because we all make them and if we continue to do our best to make more and more good choices, the bad choices will eventually be crowded out.

Remember Peter’s vision: What we eat matters. What we eat has the power to change our lives, our relationships, and the world. It’s God’s gift to us, ripe for the tasting.

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[1] This book will probably take you 30 minutes to read and may completely change your life: Food Rules by Michael Pollan.