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Faith and Food
Illustration by Melanie Reim
In preparation for our In Good Faith webcast with Jeff Young, the Catholic Foodie, this Thursday at 7 p.m. CST (your time zone), I’ve been pondering the age-old connection between faith and food. I’ve also been surfing the Internet to see what others are saying about faith and food, and I happened upon a fascinating article called “Faith and Food: Biblical Perspectives” by Elliott Wright in New World Outlook, a publication of the United Methodist Church. Here are some interesting tidbits:
- “Faith and food are inextricably linked in human experience and belief. This includes the act of eating as well as the natural cycles of planting and harvest. One reason is the obvious importance of nourishment to life.”
- “Food is so essential that the activities involved in obtaining, preparing, and enjoying it are closely related to basic human concerns: happiness and sadness, want and plenty, life and death — even God. It is not surprising that food has deep symbolic as well as physical meanings and that food rituals and food taboos appear in many religions.”
- “Life equals food in the Genesis story of Joseph (47:13-26), in which the Egyptians were so hungry, and so fearful of hunger, that they sold their land and bound themselves in slavery to Pharaoh in exchange for seeds. Starvation was a very real possibility in biblical days in the Middle East, as it is in many parts of the world today. Those who had the food (as Pharaoh did) also had the power, as is still the case today.”
- “But eating and drinking in biblical faith is more than the intake of calories and fluids required by the body itself. More importantly, food and drink sustain the life force breathed into humanity by God in creation and so are acts of reverence and piety.”
- “Sustenance and grace combine powerfully in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, instituted by Jesus in the context of a Passover meal (Mt. 26:1-29). The bread and the wine become the means of conveying and accepting God’s love embodied in Jesus Christ. God provides, and believers accept in the most personal and corporal way—by eating. Taking and eating signifies faith. This is high symbolism created by God from lowly grain and grapes.”
- “Community is created and grows in the sharing of food and drink.”
Read the whole article: “Faith and Food: Biblical Perspectives“.
And grab more info on Thursday’s webcast with the Catholic Foodie: In Good Faith.
What’s the connection between faith and food for you? What parts of the article struck you?
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