Food and Fatih

Gastronomy class

Chloe Evans 

5/23/19

Food is about the relationships that join us to the earth, fellow creatures, loved ones, and guests; and ultimately to God.

Food and Faith

Wirzba wrote in his book Food and Faith that eating brings people together. He talks about the gift of food given to us by God. "Food is about the relationships that join us to the earth, fellow creatures, loved ones, and guests, and ultimately God." We learn things about each other as we feast together.  Wine also opens us up to one another. Fast eating is only a thing of our current culture. Fast food restaurants are a contemporary thing that encourages us to be always on the go and never set down and get to know someone over a meal. The gift of food was given to us so that we might be able to enjoy God to His fullest. Through eating, we are able to experience every feature of Him; His hands, feet, head, eyes, ears, and tongue. 

We also are part of God's garden. He cultivates and makes us grow. It is the same process as an earthly gardener. Every gardener knows that the soil is a major part of the healthy growth of the plants. If you have poor soil, you end up with defective plants. If you have great soil, you end up with excellent plants. We need good soil and a gardener to cultivate in us good, beautiful, and true things. It doesn't matter about the size of ourselves, but what good we produce. We are cultivated for a good reason by our great God. We are created for His glory, not for our own worldly, selfishness. 

"Eating is the daily reminder of creaturely mortality. We eat to live, knowing that without food we will starve and die. But to eat we must also kill, realizing that without the deaths of others- microbes, insects, plants, animals- we can have no food." Food is an awesome gift. Unfortunately, there are some people, like vegetarians, who dismiss a part of God's gift. Vegetarians claim that they live longer than those who eat animal meat. "If Jesus believed a vegetarian diet to be the ideal, should we not expect clearer evidence that he taught and practiced it, especially when we consider the radical character of Chris's teaching in other areas?" Bad claims on your part, vegetarians. 

Eating, like intimacy, is a close way to get to know someone. "Eating is about hospitality and intimacy." We know and eat Christ's body and drink His blood in the Lord's supper. "Heaven is the place of communion and genuine intimacy."  We grow under the influence when Christ eats us and when we eat Him at the Lord's table.