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Food by Fr. Chrysostom MacDonnell In his work of comic science-fiction, The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, the late Douglas Adams outlines the three stages of civilization based around three questions that intelligent beings have progressively asked about food. Firstly, the desperate, primitive stage: What shall we eat? Secondly, the inquiring, philosophical stage: Why do we eat? Finally comes the affluent, decadent phase of our development with the question: Where shall we eat? Laying on one side the act of eating itself, I want to explore in this article the very stuff itself and consider food within the context of the Orthodox Christian life, its meaning and purpose. It is no surprise that the Orthodox understanding of what Christianity is, in essence, comes not, primarily, from formal instruction in matters of doctrine but from participation and experience; not so much instruction as incorporation. As the word incorporation itself implies, we become members of the corpus, the body. If therefore, one were to ask what is the aim of the Christian life, what is its goal, we should reply that it is eternal communion with God, the source of our being. This idea of communion [Koinwnia] is much more than mere fellowship, as is sometimes implied. Not only is it a free access to the divine (Jn.10:9), it is also an eternal participation in the life of the Trinity. In the end, this is what we understand salvation to be: the discovery and recovery of that life hidden in God, which is so much more than just its biological expression. We are talking here of a life not rooted in biological function but grafted into the real source of life. (See: St. John chapter 15). In this fallen world, mankind has forgotten this life and vests its whole interest in the sustaining of an existence here and now. With existential anxiety, what is valued is survival as a law of nature. The whole tenor of what the world values is made very clear in its response to those four horseman of the Apocalypse: disease, famine, war and death. Knowing its time is not long, mankind, like Satan in that last book of the Bible, paces up and down the seashore in anger, knowing the time is short, like Shakespeare’s actor, strutting his part upon the stage of life. It is ironic that one of the ideologies, born in the 19th Century, could sideline religion as an anodyne to ease the pain of life but had no answer to Death, the ultimate enemy of mankind. The truth is, so much of what most would consider the blessings of this life, are themselves those very opiates that dull the mind to reality. Yet, even religion itself can be appreciated by this world – when it considers it useful: when it comforts, enforces social cohesion, endorses politics or blesses the achievements of human endeavour. Woe betide religion, however, when it would ‘get in the way’ or dare distract the world from its pursuit of survival, pointing out with disturbing prophecy, the realities of our existence. (Matt.23:37-39; 24:9-14) Our life - the life in God which is eternal communion with the Trinity, comes from God himself. In the story of the Fall of mankind in the book of Genesis, death enters creation not through the will of God but by the choice of Adam and Eve. This story, looking at the human condition through God’s eyes, is a true diagnosis, describing with shaming accuracy, how each one of us is inclined to act in this world. Instead of casting ourselves upon God and his nurturing love to sustain his life within us, we take what is ‘forbidden’; what has not been granted for our peace and well-being, and, thus tasting, we die. This mystery is borne out, manifested - symbolised we might say - by our own craving and eating in this life now. How much of our life can be dominated by concupiscence - that pursuit of things; an unsatisfied search for something to comfort an inner emptiness? Even the very food we need requires that we kill to eat. We sustain our bodies, knowing they are subject to decay and eventual death themselves. There may be a certain comfort but it is only a temporal one, in knowing that even we are part of a food-chain – like Simba, in Disney’s The Lion King, who is told by his father that, although they eat the antelope, when the lion dies, they becomes the grass, which the Antelope eat in turn. But Disney-morality is strictly Universalist and therefore non-Christian. If, on the other hand, we inquire into salvation-history, God first chose a people for himself, the ancient Hebrews, through the covenant with Abraham, to re-establish in human hearts the desire for this real life. In the Mosaic Law (Torah) of the Old Testament, the 613 commandments form a particular path for this chosen people. The fundamental questions of the old dispensation are whether this people would fulfil their vocation (Hosea 11:1-6); whether they would seek life from this world or from God, (Deut.32:45-47) and of how the Law should be practiced (Hosea 6:6). It is no wonder that even food, our present subject, is of particular interest in the Torah. Whittled down to the very basics, the fundamental needs of mankind - merely to survive – are a benign environment and food. Given agreeable and safe surroundings, it is food that sustains us till organic breakdown leads us to the point of death. Food, in other words, sustains us till be die and, driven by that existential anxiety and the desire to survive, we eat, as it were, to put off the evil day as long as possible. It is intriguing that, in the Jewish food laws (Kashrut), we find that Meat foods (which are killed) are thought of as death-giving and that dairy foods as life-giving: the two are never mixed in Kosher recipes. So, even in The Law, the ambiguity of our survival through food is noted. But Law can only take us so far; the mere moral redirection of man cannot, of itself, bring eternal life and communion in God. This was the momentous revelation given to St. Paul as he considered who Christ was and the real significance of what he had done. (Rom.3:19-20; 6:20-23) So, what is required is not just the moral redirection of human beings but the utter transfiguration of mankind, his theosis or deification (II Pet.1:4). This is the revelation that man is made not just in the image of God (Gen.1:26) but in his likeness also. The Orthodox understanding and interpretation here, is that we cannot lose the image of God within us, for that is part of our human essence (nature) but that we have lost the likeness of God. This is why we are baptised: to begin the recovery of that likeness, which is the whole Christian endeavour. This understanding fundamentally challenges our whole outlook on life and what we mean by life. Everything we have been brought up to value; everything we think of as significant or important is revealed in a new light, perhaps in a quite disturbing way. (Matt.6:25-34) Even the food we eat must itself be changed from being the mere sustainer of a life that leads to death, into a symbol of blessings to come. [Remember that in Orthodox theology a symbol is not a representative or stand-in for something that is absent but rather, the manifestation of something really present.] No wonder that we bless the Creator and the food he gives us before we eat; no wonder that bread and wine - the very representations of human toil, struggle, work, joy, spirit and pleasure - are offered that they too may partake of God and become the very sacrament of God within us. With this understanding and attitude, how we behave in respect of food – as with anything in all creation – must be charged with a very specific reverence. For if the Holy Spirit in response to our prayer, changes wheaten bread into the body of the risen Christ and fermented grape juice into his holy blood, then all bread and all wine share, in potential, that same honour, even vocation, we might say. So, from this perspective, the sin of gluttony must be eschewed not merely in respect of some moral law; not just as an abuse of our own digestions or as an affront to social niceties. Gluttony is also, from our understanding, a kind of sacrilege; a lack of respect for holy things. We might, logically, expand this to the whole material world and see in any misuse or spoiling of creation, an affront to the milieu wherein takes place the divine ascent of man. For this creation, this mere dust, forms the living crucible wherein are forged the saints of God. Furthermore, how ironic it is, that whilst some consume to obesity in affluent economies, others starve. Daily, we are told, that our modern diet is either poisoning us or storing up illness to come. Once again, the very food we eat turns out to be an unmasked villain. What should sustain us, we thought, has become an enemy within; whether from the modern industrialisation of food processes in super-abundance, or from post-modern irrationality and the retreat into New-Age fads and diets: food has become a source of anxiety. From the modern phenomena of food as a life-style statement with its own masters of cuisine-fashion, to the dysfunctions of bulimia and anorexia, food is seen as a problem. One supermarket that I frequent even has a range of foods called Meal Solutions – I rest my case! How should Christians see food? Two fundamental points must be accepted. Firstly, food is essential and secondly, it is enjoyable. If these two points are not accepted, our theologising of food will go astray. Our Lord enjoyed food of all kinds, as is evident in the gospels. Yet, by his very presence, he transformed the dining table into an icon of the Kingdom of God. Traditionally, above the Holy Doors on an Iconostasis in an Orthodox church, we have an icon of the Mystical Supper - a far more appropriate name than ‘the last supper’, as used in the Western tradition. Here, food and the act of eating, reaches its apogee. How often he is shown eating with disciples, tax collects and low-lifes, even with Pharisees! We need, therefore, as St. Paul says, to be renewed in our minds [Eph.4:23]. We need, in other words, to rethink our attitude to food. Food is so many things. Yes, we need it as a biological necessity and we need to eat healthily and in moderation. We know also that it has such great historical and cultural significance. It is a source of enormous pleasure and social joy. It is likewise, however, a hook for the passion of gluttony and, like all good things, can be corrupted by the demonic: all sin is the corruption of what was created ‘good’ by God. And yet, within our spiritual understanding, it can be transformed into Agape [Agaph] - the love-feast - a foretaste, whether alone or with our families, with friends or colleagues, but especially with our brothers and sisters in Christ, of that marriage feast of the Lamb, the bridal supper of Christ, when he comes in his kingdom. Food, that once brought death in its wake, is now for us a symbol - a manifestation - of life in the Kingdom of God (which is one reason why we should always dedicate our food through a blessing before we eat). Two Great feasts during the month of August bring these ideas to mind: The Transfiguration on 6th August and the Dormition of the Theotokos on the15th. The Dormition is in fact, preceded by a fast from 1st August. This is a chance to step back once again and think more deeply and even reconsider our attitude to food and what sustains us in this life, not in some worthy collective thankfulness for nature’s bounty but rather, a by a fundamental shift in our attitude. Interestingly, both feasts have attached to them certain blessings: fruits on the 6th and flowers on the 15th. It is imperative, however, that we make very clear that in blessing, we are blessing the Creator; thanking the God who is the source of our real life, manifested in these fruits of the earth. These ‘harvest’ connections have their Old Testaments precedents, indeed, but it is easy for the older, pagan mind to lie just under the surface. How often, even in Christian societies, has the harvest-home been a celebration of the earth herself and a thanking of Nature – blessing the creation and creature rather than the Creator? There has been a considerable shift back to this way of thinking in the atavistic New-Age movements. Whereas the modern, industrialized and capitalist world might have flaunted its own achievements with unashamed hubris, the old earth goddess still lurks just beneath the surface in the post-modern subconscious with all her chthonic minions waiting in the wings. We, however, who have been baptized into Christ and claim to have put on Christ, have to acquire the mind of Christ. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus... Wherefore, my beloved...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil.2:5-12) Further study of this can be made in the New Testament. St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians is an extended meditation and exhortation on acquiring the mind of Christ and of how it is lived in practice. (See especially. Eph. 4:17-24). Finally, the same is true of the two epistles of St. Peter where II Pet.1:3-11 is of particular interest in its confirmation of what the Fathers taught, that God became man that man might become god; that we might share through adoption and grace in the very divine nature itself. This is communion with God and with one another; this is eternal life with the source of our Life! If we return to Mr. Adams’ three questions about eating and civilization, from the Orthodox Christian perspective we must reply to each: What shall we eat? – The Mystical Supper. Why do we eat? – It is a communion with the body and blood of Christ. Where shall we eat? – in the Church of the Living God. In other words, if our eating begins with the mystery of Holy Communion, all other eating will fit naturally into the Christian context. This is one reason why we fast before communion: to let our first food that day be Christ. From that point we launch out: We break the fast with Antidoron; we share the fellowship of our church community; we go home to share a meal with family and friends. By extension, like ripples in a pool extending outward in concentric circles, centered on Christ, all our eating is consecrated and, if we can but perceive a glimpse, we foretaste the marriage supper of the Lamb, yet to come (Apoc.19:7-9). |
