After hearing from Cocomo Rock, Sunday, at the aborted Food Not Bombs meal, that his minister had preached on hunger during his sermon at Church that morning, I called John Hall, minister of First Church of Christ Congregational and asked him what he said.
"I talked about the social dimensions of eating," Hall told me today. "I did talk a little bit about the Food Not Bombs controversy."
Hall said the controversy was not without its share of human foibles.
"I think there's some sport going on. People like to have something to oppose. And I think the Department of Health is flexing their muscle. But I love the debate that this has generated. These kids have brought up the issue that we have all this food that is being wasted."
I asked Hall if he would mind allowing the Eye to reprint his sermon for those of us not fortunate enough to hear it.
Here then, is the sermon that John Hall delivered on Sunday:
A Table In the Presence of My Enemies
May 3, 2009
Text — Psalm 23, verse 5
“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”
Who we eat with, who we’d rather not eat with, and what we eat is all emotionally loaded. Jesus got in trouble because he ate with sinners. His disciples didn’t observe the customary food-related rituals, such as hand-washing. 50 years ago in the South, blacks and whites were kept from eating at the same lunch counter. In the church, people belonging to certain Christian denominations won’t share the Lord’s Supper with people from other Christian denominations. How pathetic is that?
I’ve been following the “Food Not Bombs” controversy in Middletown. It’s been covered in the local news blog, Middletowneye; I recommend you check it out. A group of students and others have been sharing food on Sundays at the corner of Liberty and Main Street.
I spoke with one of the Wesleyan students involved. The main idea is: there’s a lot of perfectly good food that gets thrown out. After caterers serve at a party, what can they do with the leftover food? They can’t sell it. They can’t save it until the next party. Restaurants have food in quantities too small to put it on the menu. Bakeries throw out perfectly good baked goods just because they’re not the freshest. Supermarkets have produce that’s slightly damaged.
A lot of food gets thrown out at the same time there are people who need food. Doesn’t it make sense to get this unwanted food to people who do want it?
This is “Food Not Bombs’” mission, and they’ve been doing it for about 10 years — until someone raised the question with the Health Department: Is this food safe? Is it being properly handled? Do the people eating the food know where it came from? These are appropriate questions. There have been meetings and proposed accommodations. Fred Carroll got a $100 ticket for his involvement.
The Health Department says they don’t want to shut down this activity. The people I’ve talked to believe that the Health Dep’t is sincere in that statement. And they’re willing to cut the group some slack in terms of certain regulations, as long as the group complies with other regulations, including filing reports.
Food Not Bombs says that the Health Department shouldn’t have jurisdiction over people sharing food. They say it’s like having a cookout. When you have friends over for a cookout, you don’t have to file paperwork.
This is all more complicated than I can describe here, but you get the basic picture. I find this interesting for two reasons. For one, it raises legitimate questions about wasted food, and hunger, and regulation, and our conventional meal-sharing practices. Jesus got in trouble over his meal-sharing practices, so this should get our attention. When it comes to eating food, it’s never just about food. Think about who you like to eat with. Are there times when you’d rather eat alone?
Now to Psalm 23. The psalmist is declaring trust in God, the Good Shepherd. That’s what the psalm is about in general. And then it says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Why does it say, “in the presence of my enemies”? Why not just “You prepare a table before me, so I can eat?” What does the presence of the enemies add in this case?
Part of us likes having enemies. Part of us also dislikes having enemies — probably the bigger part. But nothing — not even sharing food — unites people like sharing an enemy. Enemies energize us, and focus our attention, give us purpose, and bind us together. It’s human nature, when things are tough, or when we’re anxious, to find someone to blame or oppose. When I was in high school, just being bored made me look for something or someone to oppose. Opposing can be fun. Politicians and talk show hosts use this dynamic. Inflame fear, inflame outrage, and you can get a movement going. We’ve had class warfare debates about people on Main Street before.
Here’s the question that came to me: Does this argument about people eating food on Main Street have anything to do, on anyone’s part, with wanting someone to oppose? This could apply to either side, or both sides. Is this, in part, a kind of sport?
Going back to Psalm 23, what does it mean to say, “You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies?” It could mean, “You invite me to your table, O Lord, when others are against me.” It could mean, “You prepare a table for me because of my enemies, to help me oppose my enemies.” It could mean, “You prepare a table that puts me above my enemies, so I can look down at my enemies who aren’t at the table.”
It could also mean, “You prepare a table for me where I will eat with my enemies.” You bring enemies together at the same table. I don’t know what the original psalmist meant by this verse, but from a Christian perspective, this is obviously the preferred reading because this is what Jesus did. Jesus ate with the “wrong” people. And he ate with his enemies. Jesus had real enemies. He didn’t just create them for sport. And by the people he ate with, he inflamed certain oppositions. Some things need to be opposed.
On Palm Sunday, in connection with this Food Not Bombs movement, I posed the question, “Has Jesus come to Jerusalem?” Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem, turning over the tables, and getting crucified, was God’s way of disrupting a problematic status quo.
Something is being stirred up in Middletown by Food Not Bombs. If nothing else, it draws attention to the fact that a lot of food is getting thrown out when there are hungry people. Is that something Jesus would have us look into? Is God up to some disruptive creativity in our city? Is some dramatic sport taking place? Is it purely nutrition and health that are being served, or are turf and authority being guarded too?
Is a meal like the one being served at Main and Liberty today a kind of Eucharist meal, a transformative meal, where Jesus is covertly present?
John Hall's words were certainly worth reading - thank you for posting his sermon. Along with an unfortunate Middletown tradition of going in circles (see FNB v. Health Department), John's words reminded me of another, more noble Middletown tradition: that of our religious houses bearing witness to the way we treat our fellow man, even -- and especially -- when a resolution is not clear. When regulation, bombast, and sloganeering get plenty of ink on both sides, it is good to find an anchor of honest ambiguity. People are hungry. Food is wasted. Rules can have both good intentions and complex outcomes. The same could be said of people who are trying to do a good deed. It's a messy situation, and perhaps the most important thing we can do is to avoid oversimplifying it.
ReplyDeleteI've been following this controversy, and I'm not sure what to think. I think that both sides believe they are pursuing the highest good for people in need - the health department is trying to protect people from getting sick, the FNB is offering a meal to people who are happy to receive it. In spite of the fact that it's easy to toss out ideas for solutions - plenty have been listed here -- there is no resolution.
We should keep trying.
John Hall made some interesting points about Food Not Bombs as both a facilitator of the sharing of food and as a voice of opposition. Let me speak from my experience as a member of the Hartford FNB chapter and what I have learned about Christianity over many years of school and church.
ReplyDeleteFood Not Bombs on the one hand is simply sharing a meal. It's about creating fellowship and solidarity based on the understanding that 1) we all have to eat and 2) that there's enough to go around. Jesus shared food with everyone who came to him, and treated everyone as equals. Although I am not religious, this message has stayed with me from childhood, and I sincerely try to follow it.
And in the way that Jesus had the mission of sharing the gospel and teachings, Food Not Bombs has a bigger message. Food Not Bombs says through actions that food is a human right, that there is enough of everything to go around if everyone shared, and that everyone should be treated as equals.
This is why Food Not Bombs serves in a public place. It's out of convenience, so that people can find it, but it is also as a way to spread the message. Not to speak for Middletown FNB, but this is my understanding of why Middletown Food Not Bombs does not want to be absorbed into a soup kitchen.
It makes me think of when Jesus got in trouble with the authorities for curing people on the Sabbath. What did he do? He explained out how the rules were pointless.
Food Not Bombs getting a permit or being absorbed into another organization would be like Jesus saying to his critics, “Okay, if you say so I’ll wait and cure people tomorrow.”
As far as the point Hall made about opposition, yes – Food Not Bombs does have everything to do with opposition. It opposes the ridiculous system that differentiates between a charity group and a picnic or cookout. It opposes the system that exists where a few have much and many have little. It opposes the assumption that there must be scarcity, hunger, and poverty.
What the City of Middletown is saying is that there is something fundamentally different between a charity group or soup kitchen giving out food to homeless and hungry people versus a group of friends, colleagues, churchgoers, who congregate to share a meal.
Food Not Bombs says that there is no difference. That a community meal can indeed exist between people of different economic status, backgrounds, age, race, gender, etc.
So to sum up my thoughts, this community meal on Sundays needs to continue for two main reasons: Food Not Bombs fills hungry stomachs. But it builds fellowship, understanding, hope for a better world, and brings a voice of dissidence against systems of inequality that are responsible for things like, as Hall mentioned, the fact that 50 years ago in the South blacks and whites couldn't eat together.
Can I venture to say that when black and white people sat together in opposition at the lunch counters, they were fighting the same battle that Middletown Food Not Bombs is fighting today? Clearly those individuals decades ago were risking their lives and had a lot more on the line than volunteers in Middletown, CT in 2009. But I can’t help but see a common thread in the resistance against laws that are not in the common good, laws that divide people up by category and type. There is something fundamentally wrong with not recognizing a simple community meal for what it is, just because some of the people who help and eat happen to be poor. Are people so different from each other that sharing a meal has to be labeled as “charity” and therefore regulated?
One last thing - I don't think anyone at Food Not Bombs considers the individuals who confiscated the food to be enemies, and they certainly are invited to eat. Everyone is. That's Food Not Bombs.
This is a great reminder to always keep an eye on the part of ourselves that wants to get in a fight, and attend to our emotional motivations regardless of how noble or right a task is. Humility. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteyou said it meghan!
ReplyDeleteI am interested in volunteering with FNB. Can I have some more information. Do I just prepare something at home and bring it to share? What time should I be there?
ReplyDelete