On Food Safari with Jesus

A few months ago I took a call from one of the planners of ‘Food Safari’ on SBS, who wanted to do a program in Broome. She told me that she had heard that in Broome we celebrate big occasions by coming together and sharing our favourite dish: Everyone contributes and a feast is created. I acknowledged this and wondered why it was so radical, and why they wanted to come and film a feast.  The gospels over the next few weeks give us an insight.

In the East Kimberley, for several years Sr Nellie used to give a course on the meals of Jesus. It was like a culinary tour of the Holy Land, just like so many cooking shows take us around the world.  Jesus valued meals not for their nutritional value (although that is important) but for their fellowship, for the company and conversation that are engendered.

The major teachings and actions of Jesus occur in the context of a meal. Important things happen either before, after or during a meal. Last Sunday we heard about the feeding of the five thousand, and now we hear Jesus talking about what that meal meant.  It was not fast food where people get in, fill up and get out; instead it is an encounter with Jesus. As many meals are, it was ritualised, symbolic, and its significance was not understood immediately. For Jesus, meals were an occasion to have quality time with people in a relaxed and intimate way. He constantly reminded people of the spiritual symbolism of eating, as he does today. We need to eat, and being fed implies a relationship that Jesus intends.  We need to be fed by Jesus, and we need to be able to have the context to be fed. To be fed we need to stop, concentrate and then eat. For it to be appreciated, we need to eat slowly, savouring the tastes and allowing the food time to digest. In the process we form relationship with those around us, we listen and are ourselves heard. There are spiritual resonances to all of these actions.

When I look at ‘Food Safari’ and all those other cooking shows, I conclude that they are not primarily about the taste of food, but the community that gathers to cook, share and relax together.  The eating of food is just the vehicle to experience that community. That is why we celebrate big occasions in our parish with shared meals. But we have something more, and that is what Jesus is trying to tell his friends. Christ is always at the table, he is our bread of life, the answer to our inner hunger, to our inner questions, doubts and confusions.

The Eucharist, the prayer meal, is the central act of our communion with each other and with God. We are called together and nourished together. Like the disciples we ask “give us this bread which will last forever”, and Christ offers himself to us, on the altar, in the sacrifice of the Mass. We receive, and share, and live.

Homily of Fr Matt Digges 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 5th August 2012 OLQP Broome