Feature Article: Summer 2009

Justice in the market

A Jesus-centered approach to food

by Ken Beidler

There is a deepening concern in the church and in our culture with the issues that surround the production and consumption of food. As farmer friends and food activists remind us, conventional food arrives at our tables with many hidden costs—unfair labor practices, damaging insecticides, copious packaging and a long and gasrich journey. Food in a global economy carries with it a complicated relationship with its eater.

Against a corporate culture that provides a surfeit of food 24/7 there is a growing ethical and moral movement to prize local food, to exercise discipline in our consumption and to return to a cycle of eating that more closely follows seasonal harvests. There is a burgeoning interest in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This model of small-scale farming allows participants to share in the economic risk of the farmer, building sustainable local relationships between producers and consumers of food.

Our family has been enjoying a farmers’ market which brings local fruits, vegetables, and baked goods to our urban neighborhood. Instead of the efficiency of an anonymous supermarket, we relish the engagement with farmers with whom we have a small yet significant relationship. In small derelict lots in Philadelphia, community gardens spring up out the resourcefulness of local citizens interested in converting eyesores into gardens. In addition to the harvests of tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, friendship and hope springs up. There is an elemental satisfaction that comes from harvesting food whose freshness can be seen and tasted at the table on the same day.

While these efforts are making a difference in the quality of food many of us eat, the reality of food for many in our world is a matter of life and death. The organization, Bread for the World, estimates that 923 million people across the world are hungry. Additionally, almost 16,000 children die every day from hunger-related causes.

Is food—the ways in which it is produced and consumed—a sign of God’s presence? How does Jesus’ understanding of food inform our food practices? What do we see in the gospels?

Jesus engages in the food practices of fasting and feasting.

Luke’s food for thought

The frequency with which food is at the center of Jesus’ ministry can be seen when we look at the Gospel of Luke. Jesus engages in the food practices of fasting and feasting. In the wilderness testing, he strikes a note of spiritual and physical detachment from food, “It is written, One does not live on bread alone” (Luke 4:4). Yet Jesus clearly enjoys food. He eats at the tables of the rich and the poor, sinners and the righteous, the clean and unclean. Unlike John’s disciples, Jesus’ disciples “eat and drink” (Luke 5:33-34). Yet when food, with its carefully articulated laws of clean and unclean, is used as a wedge issue between the righteous and the unrighteous, Jesus serves up a prophetic critique. He challenges the religious laws by eating on the Sabbath (Luke 6: 1-6) and is accused of being a glutton and a drunkard because of his practice of eating with sinners (Luke 7:33-35).

The challenge for us as we follow Jesus in our own culture is to steer a course of grace and determination in relationship with food, to forge an understanding of food and our relation to it that is a sign of God’s presence with us. Jesus’ feeding of the crowd in Luke’s gospel offers us some hints about a contemporary practice for faithful eaters. All four gospels record the miracle of Jesus feeding the crowd (Luke 9:10-17, Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44, John 6:1-15).

The crowds fulfill their deepest hungers at the feet of Jesus. Jesus’ hearers, like Mary, are unconcerned with the realities of food maintenance. They have set aside their human cravings for food to sit at the feet of Jesus and feast on his teachings and words. The crowd gathered around Jesus mirrors our deeper hunger for spiritual food that enlivens and nourishes our souls. Abstaining from food can be a sign of devotion and of self-sacrificing discipleship. Expressions of this practice of food abstinence in response to a higher calling can be seen in fasts for justice by people of conscience like Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, and Dorothy Day.

Jesus uses the needs of the people to inspire compassion among his disciples. In their haste to be at Jesus’ feet, the people grabbed only the smallest of provisions as they left their homes. Now they are hungry. The disciples, perhaps weary of the crowds, come to Jesus and encourage him to send the crowds away. Instead of dismissing the needs of the crowd, Jesus encourages the disciples to look at what resources are available. Jesus does not immediately leap into the moment of need, preferring the posture of the good community organizer who first marshals the inner and outer resources of those seeking help. The disciples find the local food that is on hand—five loaves and two fish—and use it satisfy the hunger of the crowds.

This miracle of food production from the grassroots efforts of a few suggests that in the new covenant Jesus brings there will be enough for everyone. The mustard seed of faith is found in the form of this available local food. Generosity grows this seed of faith. This act of sharing is a great challenge to our consumerist culture bent on competitive accumulation. The disciples act as a foil for our unbelieving selves. We may prefer to see the hungry return to their homes or the efficiency of the marketplace to have their needs satisfied. Just as God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness, Jesus suggests that in the new paradigm of the Kingdom, we are co-workers with God in providing alternative ways for people to be fed.

More and more Christians are enacting this “food justice” through buying fair trade, and local and ecologically-grown food.

The surprising multiplication of little resources is the foundation for the church’s economic practices. In the crowd that day is a foretaste of the post-resurrection and Pentecostal community of believers who met the needs of one another by sharing all things in common (Acts 2:37-47). Instead of the paternalism of the rich to the poor, a grassroots campaign of sharing resources with each other marks the community centered on Jesus. Churches enact this generous faith in many ways: sharing funds, tithing, socially responsible investing and acts of charity great and small. More and more Christians are enacting this “food justice” through buying fair trade, local and ecologically grown food.

The eating of food is an opportunity to acknowledge our dependence on God and to offer thanks in a world defined by disparities. There is a prayer we say at our dinner table that reminds us that the moment of blessing for food is also a moment of clarity about the world we live in. “God, bless this food we are about to receive. Give bread to those who hunger, and hunger for charity and justice to us who have bread. Amen.”

Before the fishes and loaves are handed from person to person, Jesus pauses to bless the meal. For those of us in positions of plenty, this reflective moment signals an acknowledgement of our dependence on God. The technological world we live in, with its comforts and its efficient delivery of goods and services, effectively disguises our human condition of frailty and conspires to eliminate the crowds of the hungry from our view. The blessing of the food and its miraculous multiplication reminds that we have an obligation to take what we have been given and multiply it for those in need.

Small miracles

In a Jesus-centered understanding of food our hungers, spiritual and physical, become an occasion for communion with the surprising God who promises to renew all of creation. Jesus practices holistic care for those he meets, feeding their body and souls. In similar ways, small “food miracles” happen today through urban gardens, farmers markets and CSA’s. In place of food bought from the anonymity and efficiency of the marketplace, new communities are being formed which enact biblical principles of compassion, justice and care for the earth. Like bread passed from hand to hand, this new understanding of food is slow and laborious. It calls for discernment between when to fast and when to feast. It values the practice of hospitality and special times of sharing food with others. While being concerned with sustainable local food production it strives to not forget the hungry beyond its neighborhood.

Ken Beidler is a freelance writer. He attends Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.