You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When I was just out of college, my parents lived in Turkey. I spent two months there one summer. On one driving trip to the Black Sea coast, after lots of sight-seeing, I wanted to go to the beach. We checked out several before finding one that was secluded and beautiful. Yet no sooner had we settled on the sand and gone for a swim than a group of young men trooped down the hill and set up nearby. I was very self-conscious, and hoped they’d leave us alone. No such luck – soon one came over and began talking to my father in broken English. It turns out they were soldiers on a day off, and they were making lunch, and would we please join them. I shot my dad a look that said, “Please, no! I do not want to eat with a bunch of strange men we can’t even communicate with! In my bathing suit!” He did try a few times to decline, but Turks are known for their hospitality and are hard to say no to… next thing I knew we had gotten up and gone over to their little camp.
What a lot of activity there was: a couple of guys had a fire going and were preparing to grill some wonderful spiced meat köfte on skewers. Another guy was chopping cucumbers into a pan of lettuce and tomatoes. And there were several loaves of warm ekmek, wonderful Turkish bread. Though we protested that we’d just had lunch, heaping plates were presented to us anyway. We ate. I cannot remember ever having food as good as that. It has remained in my memory as one of the great feasts of my life, social awkwardness, language gaps and all.
That unexpected feast has also stayed with me as an icon of the feasts God prepares for us to stumble onto every day of our lives. No one in that crowd of over 5000 that Jesus and his disciples fed was there for food – they had come for healing, for hope, for wisdom, maybe to catch a glimpse of this Jesus guy, to tell folks at home they’d been there. But God had a feast in store for them.
God has feasts in store for us as well, lots of them. They might be large or small, material or spiritual or both. We have feasts of conversation and books and music, good work and hopefulness. And of course many feasts of food, one of the best ways for us to experience the goodness and abundant generosity of God. Every morning these days I cut into a plump, ripe, perfectly sweet peach, sprinkle a few luscious blueberries on top, and enjoy a feast. Whatever perceived “not-enough-ness” I may encounter later in the day, I have been reminded from the start that God is in the feasting business. As the prophet Isaiah spoke long ago:
Thus says the Lord: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1-2; also for this Sunday)
What are you spending money on and laboring for that does not satisfy? This dislocating time offers an invitation to shift our priorities. What feasts have you declined, or not recognized until later?
Do you associate God with feasting or with fasting? How might we better balance the two?
We will live differently if we expect feasts. We will give differently if we expect feasts.
We will love differently, and perhaps even allow ourselves to be loved more deeply.
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