Food and Faith

Again, I'm passing on something pre-written for a service with our church here in Hackney. We've had three wonderful Sundays of looking at the intersections of food and faith, talking and eating together around tables. As our housemate, Rod, pointed out, it's worship involving all the senses... We touch one another when "passing the peace", we listen to one another's stories and the melodies of our songs, we smell and taste foods and drinks, and, of course, we're doing it all together, so we see one another's emotions and reactions.

Today was Remembrance Sunday, which is traditionally the (wider) Church's day to commemorate British lives lost in wars. You may have seen the red poppies around the Tower of London -- this is all part of remembering Armistice Day on 11 November.

This is our third Sunday of talking about Food and Faith together. At the first Sunday in July, we heard three stories in the Bible where food played a very important role – the Creation story, the story of David and King Nebuchadnezzar, and Jesus telling the parable about the sower. In September, we used a passage from Romans and talked with one another about how we can use and eat food to the Glory of God. This is our last Sunday in the series (unless there is popular demand for it to return), and it is also Remembrance Sunday.

It’s not without some fear and trembling that I’m up here this morning. All around the UK, churches are pulling out all the stops for Remembrance Sunday with red poppies and old hymns and “God Save the Queen” … And here I am, a pacifist by upbringing and by choice, leading worship on Remembrance Sunday.

When we were in the States, visiting friends and speaking at churches, we often heard, “You haven’t picked up the accent!” To which we normally replied, “I’m not sure which one I would have picked up…having lived and worked with people with a very wide range of accents.”

And I think this reality of being a part of a multi-cultural church (not to mention, a multi-cultural community house) gives me just the right amount of confidence to stand up here this morning, leading a Remembrance service that involves people of all accents, all ages, and all sorts of stories.

From my perspective as an outsider among outsiders, the diversity here changes the conversation, from one charged with patriotism and Queen and Country, to sharing a day of truly recalling, remembering with our senses how war and violence can leave marks for generations.

Rather than focusing on our shared and varying degrees of “British-ness”, when we talk about who we are and what defines us, I hope that we start by saying we’re trying to follow Christ. In following Christ, it doesn’t matter what country we live in, what language we speak, the tones of our skin – those things might define us outwardly, but not inwardly.

There’s a poster that we grew up with a statement coined by a Mennonite guy, saying, “Let the
Christians of the world agree to not kill one another.” The idea was to start with what seems like a basic idea: Let the Christians of the world agree to remember one another’s humanity. If we can do this, given that a third of the world is Christian, we’ve got a good start.

Inspired by this basic idea, for our Remembrance Sunday, we will remember areas in the world where there is violence and conflict today. And we will remember Christians in these areas, with whom we share a common memory: Communion. We share the meal which is done in remembrance of Jesus. In essence, we will remember the body of Christ through eating little bites together, and we are remembering the body of Christ that is our brothers and sisters around the world. It is in a moment sacrament and solidarity. We remember Christ, and we remember Christians around the world.

We then heard the following short reflections, and ate little bites of food together. Following each reflection, there was time for discussion around tables of 5-8 persons, including children.

1. We remember immigrants who are crossing borders, seeking secure futures, and who sometimes experience xenophobia and violence along the way: from the thousands who journey through Central America to the border at Mexico and the U.S., to the thousands who venture from many areas around the world into the UK. In particular, we remember the Christians who are on a journey, looking for a new start in new places.

Take these corn chips and hot chocolate, and remember the wayfarers that Jesus travels beside. Eat and drink in remembrance of immigrants.

2. We remember the children around the world who are trapped in the middle of armed conflict. We remember their innocence and their vulnerability. They did not choose to whom they would be born, which side of the wall they would grow up on, or whether there would be access to medicine they need when war has taken away the hospitals. We remember the children who will be dreamers, peace makers, artists, politicians and doctors, even when their childhood environment didn’t supply their most basic needs for safety and security.

Take these crackers and these grapes, and remember the children Jesus called to him. Eat in remembrance of them.

3. We remember Christians who are minorities in their contexts, who struggle to practice their faith. We remember the hundreds of thousands of Christians who have fled from their homes in Iraq, where in Nineveh, one priest reported in September that because of recent persecution, Christians were unable to gather and celebrate Communion together…though it’s been celebrated there continuously for the last 2000 years.


Take this khubz and these dates, and remember the Christian refugees and martyrs with whom Jesus shares a story. Eat in remembrance of them. 

Revisiting Hospitality

The following is something I wrote for part of our contribution to Akron Mennonite's (PA) Mission Festival Weekend last month.  It was preceded by a time of discussing hospitality (core components of, fears of, experiences of receiving) in small groups, of which you'll see some mention.  What I said then was just a brief stab at exploring communal Christian worship as both training and application for hospitality.

Hospitality has become a corporate word, fueling the profits of an entire industry.   Tonight, as we look at what hospitality might mean in our context, I would suggest a new approach.  The word Hospitality doesn’t need a re-inventing, but could be stripped-down and humbled; disrobed of its elite status.  And it seems to me that our Sunday morning worship services are a great place to start to look at the foundations of Christian hospitality.  Our worship and communing together can become a spiritual classroom where we continually develop our capacity for hospitality that we hope to integrate in all parts of our life.

I often lead worship at our church, and a book I’ve been reading recently has given me a bit more of a foothold on first of all, understanding my role as worship leader.  The book is called "The Art of Curating Worship" and the title gives you a good idea the basic premise the author is writing about.  Worship leaders and the teams that plan worship, if they’re doing their job, are facilitating a space for the congregation to experience the Holy Spirit…through music, liturgy, prayer, silence.  We use different mediums, because basically, you’re allowing a bunch of people who all have different experiences/expectations to engage as they feel led.  (like hosting a dinner party where all the guests had different dietary needs…and you’re cooking.)

Part of why we brought up the question of remembering times you were hosted is that, while Sunday  mornings might seem fairly inactive or mundane, all quiet and subdued, the congregation actually has a huge role during communal worship.  The role of the people showing up is to, hopefully, come expecting to meet God/Spirit – like a host would anticipate a guest showing up -- and what a worship leader/team should do is essentially invite the congregation to extend that invitation to the Spirit.  In this sense, there’s a lot of hospitality swirling during the worship service.

Then there’s the Spirit, who can be a very unnerving guest indeed…The spirit can bring refreshment and peace; healing and fulfillment; and sometimes the Spirit brings a challenge that stirs us up and makes us a bit crazy.

Worshipping as a community, I think, should be the source of inspiration for humble, grace-driven hospitality that we take out of the pews into the halls and out to the streets, in both our attitudes on hosting and being hosted.

Hospitality is not something we achieve or perfect, but something that we hope for; something that we have faith that we are practicing with our whole selves as individuals and a community.

To close, we’re going to sing a song that you know well, and that acts as an invitation to the Holy Spirit.  If we think again about the story of the Good Samaritan, putting ourselves in the shoes of the man by the road, I see this song showing us that the Holy Spirit acts as our host, taking care of us when we least expect it and when we most need it, and the song uses language that implies we’re the ones inviting the Holy Spirit to the party.   It’s also a bit confusing as to who is host and who is being hosted, but that’s the beauty of hospitality, and Spirit-based hospitality is often a beautiful mess.  Thank God, because we are beautiful messes to begin with.

image source: http://www.textweek.com/images/widetable.jpg

Holy Spirit, come with power,
breathe into our aching night.
We expect you this glad hour,
waiting for your strength and light.
We are fearful, we are ailing,
we are weak and selfish too.   

Break upon your congregation,
give us vigor, life anew.