“They all ate as much as they wanted” Luke 9:16
It was in 1976, a sixth former travelling through France with a friend, when I first saw a Pizza. It is an odd thing to relate, because I can’t remember the precise place or the circumstances, only that it was in the middle of a very sunny day, and we were hungry. My friend and I were with some other young people - again, who or why I don’t recall - and they suggested we go into a nearby shop and get a slice of Pizza. Now I’m pretty sure I had heard of pizza, but I had very little idea what it was, what it tasted like, nor indeed if I liked it. And the rest, as they say, is history.
How the world has changed. These were the days before MacDonalds, KFC and Dominoes pizza. There were Chinese takeaways, to be sure, but we never went to them. In those days I had never heard of onion bhajis and poppadoms. We occasionally had tinned spaghetti and home made macaroni cheese, but we didn’t know these were called “pasta”, and lasagna was yet to be discovered. On Sunday the house smelt of Lamb and Rice Pudding, and during the week we would sometimes have something my mum called an “Egg and Bacon” Pie, which very much later in life I learnt was also called a quiche, but in the main these were the Black and White days, the days of meat and two veg, fish and chips, and - on special occasions - something called “chicken in a basket”.
And while many people still prefer traditional foods, not least what we now call “carvery”, and the “Full English breakfast”, most us now eat a very wide range of foods, foods found all over the world, carefully adapted for the british palate. At one time we were apprehensive about the new and the unfamiliar - but now people yearn for foods which are different, colourful, hot, spicy and exotic.
The thing is, whatever our preferences, human beings eat and drink not just because we are hungry, but also for pleasure. It has its bad side of course - we eat and drink often not because we need to, but because we want to, and the richer our society becomes, the more we consume food for recreation, not just in order to survive.
It is worth thinking about this. It is something typically human, and which few animals share. If you are a dog owner, you will know that we are told not to change the feed of dogs suddenly: dogs prefer what they are used to.
Indeed, the diet of most animals is usually very boring, and often rather repulsive to us humans. Some animals eat meat, some only plants, but human beings can make a choice. No posh plates, garnishes of flavoured dressings for them. Food is fuel. Necessary, essential, but presentation is quite irrelevant.
But for us, food is savoured, relished and enjoyed. Special foods grace our celebrations - christening, Christmas and wedding cakes, easter eggs, simnel cakes, hot cross buns. When we get together for a welcome or a farewell, when we greet an honoured guest, when we celebrate a success or to share a sadness, we do all these things with food, as they apparently used to say in Yorkshire, they “buried him wi’ cowd ’am”.
The thing is, we could all easily live off tablets and dietary drinks which are full of nutrients which provide us all that we need to survive, yet which have little or no flavour, no aromas, no colour. Sometimes people have to live like this, but nobody wants to.
Food gives meaning to our lives, and our lives find meaning in food.
When people meet to worship, they often, frequently share food. Muslims gather in the dark in Ramadan to feast after the fast. Sikhs pride themselves in the hospitality and generosity of foods they provide for any visitor to the Gurdwara. Jewish inventiveness with food, and their intricate rules for its use are rightly renowned.
Foods are described in religious terms, as being heavenly or divine. And some even have religious sounding names, like angel cakes and passion fruit. We even have the curate’s egg and the parsons nose.
And in our Catholic faith, food assumes an even more exalted level. In the Gospels we often hear of Jesus meeting and teaching when food is being shared. His last supper prepares his followers for his death and resurrection. Heaven is frequently described as a banquet, a feast.
An food becomes essential to the faith itself, because it is Christ himself who is the Bread of Life. When we meet to worship we do not simply share food, as people so often do, but the One who we worship gives himself to us as food.
This act of eating and feeding, which every living creature needs to do simply to survive, is now lifted by His Creative power beyond the celebrations of our human lives, into an eternal life and the blessedness of heaven.
So when Jesus when Jesus feeds the five thousand, the food which they eat to their fill is not only for their earthly survival, but even more for their heavenly destiny. This is food beyond food: it is Jesus himself, the Bread of Life, the Manna from Heaven, the Lamb who was slain, the Shepherd of the lost, the consoler of the sorrowful, the hope of those in despair.
(To recall the words of the sequence),
He is the rich fare which makes us each his chosen guest,
and the living bread, our present food and future rest.
