I remember as a child sitting in the living room on a Sunday and just sniffing the air. Of course, Sunday lunch was always cooking and we stayed away from the kitchen. My mother was old fashioned and insisted on cooking a full Sunday lunch every week – she did not seem to like doing it – which was why we all stayed away from the kitchen – offers of help were met with a furious bob of the curl of hair which hung down over her forehead. But when we were called to dinner it was always wonderful – simple but wonderful.
Food is a universal need for human beings – we all have to eat a certain number of calories and vitamins and minerals to stay fit and healthy. There are arguments, of course, over optimum diets but when we look at our television screens we all too easily see the results of not having enough of any sort of food.
But today we are starting a series on food with the celebration of God's provision – the economics and distribution of food are skewed hugely on our planet but the planet does produce, or can produce, enough food to feed its inhabitents – it is from this point of provision that we start.
The Wedding at Cana seems like an odd place to start a sermon about God's food provision for us. Yes, it is about the provision of food – or drink – in this case but in John's Gospel the actual miracle is not really the point of the story. John's structure is very carefully laid out and this story points not to literal provision but to the ultimate transformation which Jesus will bring to the people of the world.
But all of this is set against a background – and it is a background which starts with the first stories of creation in Genesis. As you may know the whole Old Testament was edited together quite late in the history of Israel – after they were exiled and then returned to the land – so the book we know as the Old Testament only came into being in a recognisable form a few hundred years before Jesus was born.
As such, there are various threads woven together throughout the early pages of the Bible. There are two creations stories – the piece we have today probably comes from a tradition which was centred in Jerusalem, around the Temple – a tradition which had become centered on place and took these ancient stories of human beginnings to frame Israels special place in God's favour and Jerusalem as the centre of that.
The second story – which if you read Genesis from the beginning may now jump out at you as a little strange – starts a couple of verses into chapter 2 – it does not have the seven days which end up giving Sabbath – it has God breathing life into a man who he pulls out of the dust. This more organic creation story – which is not surrounded by concepts of rules and regulations – is from an older tradition.
The Old Testament revolves around the idea of Covenant and the passage which we have read today is a precursor for the more formal Abrahamic and Mosaic callings later – God creates but then offers the stewardship of creation to humanity.
The idea that God has called God's people into covenant is accompanied by the idea that that covenant will lead to fruitfulness. Food was no small part of every day life for ancient peoples and the Old Testament, especially the books of the Law, take food very seriously indeed. There are laws about clean and unclean food, laws about food for sacrifice and who can eat what – but all of this proceeds from a sense that God is in all and of all – that God is creator and sustains God's people throughout their journey.
It is no accident that famine and pestilence are closely associated with punishment for sin – without right relationship with God there will be no food, either because it just will not grow for lack of rain or some other bug or problem or because the people will be under attack from enemies, destrying crops and making farming difficult or impossible.
The religion of the Old Testament is a place of relationship – the land which sustains the people, which God gives them, is part of this and here in Genesis the ideal is spelled out as the first people roam the earth – the earth is good and fruitful, a bounty for these people who God loves.
Later we see ideas of social justice and careful stewardship entering into the Biblical texts. The idea of years of jubilee, of leaving fields fallow and oof allowing the poor to harvest the gleanings from fields with no penalty are all ideas which come from a theology of abundant provision – God will give what the people need to eat and more and they must be willing to share that bounty.
These ideas are developed but not stated in the New Testament. There are many agricultural metaphors throughout – it was an agrarian and shepherding society. So when Jesus turns water into wine it is against this background of God promising provision in return for God's people keeping covenant – of that provision being bountiful and plentious and through that of the people sharing and caring for one another without exploitation and greed.
The wine that Jesus makes symbolizes a time of transformation from Old Covenent to New. The strict food laws are gone – those outworkings of law are vanishing, but the character of God in creation remains the same – that character of overwhelming and plentious provision and that longing for people to turn to God in love.
During this Creationtime we will be thinking about food – we will be remembering that all our food, ultimately, is a gift from God and trying to think through some issues which surround food, food production and food distribution. We will be launching a scheme to collect bags of food for those who find themselves in real and desperate need in our community as well as encouraging you to think a little about the economics of food by preparing a menu for a family of four for less than five pounds.
But today we begin with the idea of provision, that God does provide. Linked to that idea of abundant provision has to be the idea of celebration and it is wonderful that John begins his Gospel account of Jesus' ministry in the setting of a wedding – a celebration – a beginning of new life together in the community.
We also need a transformation in our world – a transformation which takes us back to a time when food was seen as sacred gift. When sustenance was a sign of holiness and blessing. As we move through this harvest season we must do so from this basic place of undertstanding that all good gifts and the essential gift of food, are just that, gifts from a bountiful creator. And that is our challenge for this week – to remind ourselves that food is a gift – to remind ourselves that God is the giver.
And we come together in the context of this service – and this service has many names – The Lord's Supper – remember where it came from and whose it is, communion – empahasising our joining with Christ and each other, mass – remembering that we are a missionary people, sent out from this table and the one I want us to latch on to just for today – Eucharist from the greek word for giving thanks – this whole service has many layers but one is an offering of thanks as we bring ourselves, in community, to the table of the Lord and share in this great feast. Food indeed.
I commend to all of us a week of thanks – as we move from the bread of heaven to the stuff of our ordinary humanity let us be thankful for God's abundance goodness and pray for a transformation of our own hearts and minds towards God's own amazing generosity.
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