This last week in our “Summer Pastimes” series we’re focusing on Picnics. Picnics, barbecues, tailgates – food just tastes good when we’re eating outside (except on a windy beach when there’s sand in your hotdogs…). Generally, taking “inside” activities outside, whether it’s showers, fire places or food, gives that experience a new twist.
But how might picnics speak to us of our life of faith? Well, picnics happen outside, which is where our faith is meant to be lived – outside the walls of churches and homes, on the road and in the streets, taking God’s love and life to wherever people are hungry for it. Faith is a pilgrimage and it gets stronger when we exercise it, stretching beyond our comfort zones and comfortable communities.
Picnics can take place anywhere. They might happen on a blanket laid out on a grassy field, at an outdoor concert, or wolfing down a sandwich at a bus stop. And sometimes, as once happened to me in Turkey, you’re invited to join a group of strangers grilling spiced meat and chopping up salad on a beach where you least expected a feast – and find it’s the most delicious meal you’ve ever had.
Picnics don’t just happen – someone needs to prepare them. I remember in my childhood in Africa, we’d go to the ambassador’s pool on Sunday afternoons, and my mother would always make egg salad and tuna fish sandwiches, and various other foods, each wrapped in their particular containers. So our faith lives require some preparation and intention if we’re to get the most out of them.
And picnics, like faith, need to be unwrapped. They come in baskets and boxes and bags, each element neatly nested. Watching a picnic come out of its containers is like seeing a mystery unfold – what’s in that bag? What’s in that container? What does it taste like? At its best, that’s what growing in faith can be – discovering nuggets in scriptures, learning new songs of praise, sensing God’s presence in prayer or ministry, tasting the richness of love in community.
Picnics are usually shared experiences, and often the meal is a combination of foods brought by different participants. This is how we live our faith communally, in church and out, with each person bringing the “dish” they make best, providing their gifts in beautiful diversity to make up a picnic that is delicious and varied, with unexpected pairings of tastes and textures and colors.
In fact, we add our gifts to a feast God has already prepared for us. In the gospel story we will hear on Sunday, the disciples are shocked, after a night of fishing, to see the risen Lord Jesus on a beach, with a fire going, making a picnic for them. “Come and have breakfast,” he calls, and invites them to bring some of the fish they have caught.
God wants us to bring our gifts to the picnic, even if he gave us those gifts in the first place. God’s feasts are always joint efforts, and as we contribute our gifts and enjoy what others have brought, we are brought closer to the heart of love, to that Lord who is both host and feast for us, inside and out.
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