It seems to make sense that God cares about our
dietary choices, but can eating be a place of spiritual discipline? Well, I
know not to be a glutton. I know Paul released people of his day from
strict Jewish dietary laws, but is eating a spiritual discipline?
If there was only one reason for eating to be a
spiritual discipline, the reason is in its metaphorical reflection of the great
struggle in distinguishing need from want. Some people may experience that
struggle in consumerism of other products, but for most, we experience it in
how we eat because everyone of us have eaten when we were not hungry or have
eaten (a lot) to satiate some emotional need, essentially going to something
else instead of God for our needs. To consider eating as a spiritual
discipline in this case is to consider why we are eating. Why this bite?
Why this food? Why do I want to eat? What am I hungry for? What do I
delight in? Do any of our answers cause us to turn towards or away from
God?
Jewish dietary rules give us insight into the
significance of the way we eat. Most of the Jewish dietary laws serve two
purposes. One is that they were actual safety rules. Some foods were unfit for
human consumption. The strictest rules, though, revolve around foods
which were too closely identified with idolatry practices. Is it
possible for us to examine if our eating is related to idolatrous
practices?
Gluttony is when a person eats more than they need.
The words used in the Old Testament and in the New for gluttony indicate
someone who is out of control. In the Old Testament, gluttony is translated
from a word that means to shake or tremble, like a person "who must have
it."
In America, in modern times, food availability makes
gluttony an every day opportunity. It takes a prayerful consideration to
participate with God in food selection, especially the amount. We cannot
use the culture's standards on how much is enough. Maybe, though, the New
Testament standard can help us.
Paul tells Timothy, "Godliness with contentment
is great gain...and if we have clothing and food, we will be content
with that." The word to concentrate on here is the one translated
"have." In Greek, it is "echo," which means, in part, to
have something on, which speaks to clothing. It sort of means "the
clothes on our back" is enough. "Echo" can also mean to
hold oneself to a thing, to cling to it, or to keep it in its appropriate
significance, with food as the object. Food is to be sustenance - enough
to sustain a person bodily. Maybe it means to understand food's place in God's
design: to appreciate it, to see it as a vehicle to approach God. For food
can be a vehicle for gratefulness, especially in light of the rest of verse,
and to be content with what God has provided.
When it comes to food, have we vacillated between holding food in too high regard or allowed eating to become meaningless? We wolf it down, not only missing gratefulness, but also the appropriate volume of what to eat.
How could we get more meaning out of eating?
Some of the significance of Jewish dietary laws was to
create a sense of eating attentively - to think about what a person was eating;
to think about how a person was eating. Some of those dietary law's
purpose was that a food's source was to be known and that it was to be prepared
attentively and consumed with awareness of that attention. As my husband says,
"made with love" makes a difference in the quality of the food.
This creates an awareness of the quality of the preparation of a meal as
part of spiritual discipline, building gratitude and contentment.
Another part of the spiritual discipline
of eating could also be in its communal nature and its connectedness to
fellowship, as seen in traditions of the banquet, the Lord's supper, the feasts
in heaven. To keep an awareness of the company with whom you eat, the
etiquette of the meal, and the shared joy of the meal can keep us in
awareness of God, too! A joyful, shared meal lifts the community
fellowship and moves us to see God!
Have hands lovingly prepared it and contributed
to its presentation and quality? Have you savored your bites lately? Have
you relished the company which surrounds your meal? The burning
question, though, is how do I stay spiritually attentive to eating?
There have been movements in history to
slow how fast a person eats. One monk dictated that a bite of food should
be chewed over 500 times before it was swallowed. In some cultures, clearing
of the palate with water, ginger, wine or an allowance of time causes the taste
buds to recovery and enjoy the next "first" bite.
I remember a seven-course French meal that
took three hours to complete. The setting was elegant. The pace was slow. The room was quiet. Most dishes were small and followed with an
extended time period, water and wine allowed. I remember it as one of the
best meals I ever had! Add that it was done in fine company and the
memory of that meal is full of meaning. Maybe more of our meals could be filled
with the meaning of gratitude and contentment if we savored them, too.
Eating a meal with an awareness of good food
lovingly well-prepared, add an awareness of a taste-system that he invented and
the awareness of satiation, suddenly the meal can become hallowed ground.
Meditate on the meal. Why the fast? Why
the Lord's "supper"? Why heavenly banquets? They all hold
spiritual meaning. Even if each of those are symbolic, and especially if
they are symbolic, consider how we can participate with God in transforming all
eating from mere nutritional necessity or idolatrous gluttony into an act of
faithfulness. Eating can be an
unexpected spiritual discipline because it gives us a chance to draw closer to
God and to become conscious of God in the simplest of ways.
