Faith And Fast-Food Religion
Sermon
The Feasts Of The Kingdom
Sermons On Holy Communion And Other Sacred Meals
It was many years ago when he told me. It was somewhat unbelievable then, but surely not now. My wife's uncle was a buyer for a large restaurant chain. "Our research shows us," he told me, "that in a few years American businessmen and many businesswomen will be eating out twice a day. More than that," he said, "there will be a proliferation of fast-food chains, like you won't believe."
Well, I believe it. His prophecy proved to be more true than perhaps even their researchers dreamed. People do eat out a great deal. Most every American child knows the delights of a Big Mac or a Whopper and fries. Domino's Pizza will deliver in thirty minutes or it's free, and Kentucky Fried Chicken can be eaten in or taken home for the whole family. Chicken McNuggets and Dunkin' Donuts and bagels by the billions are a part of the fast-food phenomenon. America is eating on the run.
And in some respects Americans are taking their religion on the run. Some years ago, Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd published a book of prayers titled Are You Running With Me, Jesus? In my mind the title always provoked the image of a marathon runner with Jesus running up alongside to give him a quick drink or morale-boosting prayer, then fading to the side while the runner rushed on toward his goal. Boyd seemed to imply Jesus' main role in life was to rush up to help us with whatever need we might have, and then fade into the background while we pursued our goals.
That's the way it has become with much of American religion, says Dr. Leander Keck of Yale University in his book The Church Confident. Instead of praising God we expect God to praise us. We expect God to help us reach our predetermined goals of success and high self-esteem. Like important busy executives, we come to worship to give God an audience, telling him in effect, okay, you've got sixty minutes to make your sale.
Better yet, many of us prefer a drive-thru, take-out, pick-up religion of convenience for people on the go. It should be pre-cooked, pre-packaged, ready to pop in the microwave to eat instantly along with instant soup and instant coffee. That's about it, God, we say. We're a consumer-oriented culture on the fast track to success and glory. So when we come to your take-out window, you better have it ready to go. And at best, you've got sixty minutes to make your case.
I.
It may surprise you to know that fast-food religion appears in the Bible.
Recall the famous story of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in 1290 B.C. Soon after their miraculous escape with Moses through the Red Sea, and then the beginning of their arduous trek through the Sinai desert, the Hebrews began to murmur and complain.
As their rations of food began to run out, they started looking longingly back toward the land of their slavery and bondage. With hunger pangs growing ever more intense, they yearned for the leeks and onions and fleshpots of Egypt. At least in Egypt, they complained to Moses, we knew where our next meal was coming from.
And then the fast-food miracle occurred. God provided fresh each morning manna from heaven, a honey cake, bread-like substance adhering to the desert tamarisk bush. There it was each morning. No cooking necessary. Just go over to the take-out bush and eat!
But the Israelites got tired even of this bread from heaven. They longed for some real meat. After all, they complained, you can be vegetarian only so long. So God caused quail to land near them on their migrating routes. And since the quail were exhausted, they were easy to catch and cook. No, it wasn't exactly instant pheasant under glass, but it was a kind of take-out and heat-up perpetual dinner.
But fast-food didn't quite do it for them. They still were murmuring and complaining. But Moses warned them in a sermon, saying, "God humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3). But they still didn't quite get it.
The same is true in the time of Jesus. In the classic temptations text, Jesus, after his fasting in the desert wilderness, is tempted to turn stones into bread. The temptation is powerfully symbolic in many ways. It is not just a matter of Jesus satisfying his own hunger, but of using his Messianic powers to institute massive economic reform to feed the hungry multitudes of the world. In other words, the best thing he could do for the world would be to provide bread, physical bread, bread of this world for the good life in this world.
One can understand the temptation. One vision of the Messianic Age from the prophet, Amos, predicts the day: "When the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed" (9:13). Materialistic abundance, the rich benefits of the good life, a full stomach and bank account are what it's all about, they argued. Turn those stones to bread, Jesus, and do it fast, because we want it all, and we want it all now. Are you running with me, Jesus?
Another biblical fast-food episode forms the background of our text from John's Gospel. Jesus had just miraculously fed 5,000 men plus women and children. The next morning, the crowd came rushing around the northern end of the Sea of Galilee looking for Jesus. Why, you might ask. Well, because they had had a fast-food, miraculous dinner the night before. Now they were looking for a free, fast-food miraculous breakfast -- their version of Egg McMuffin and coffee.
Knowing what they were after, it was then he advised them in the words of Isaiah, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you...." (John 6:27; Isaiah 55:2). Faith is more than fast-food religion and instant, effort-free gratification. As Jesus, echoing Moses, said to the Tempter, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God," so he would tell us (Matthew 4:4). Rather, we should seek for the bread of eternal life which he wishes to give us.
II.
If the Bible speaks of fast-food religion, it wishes even more to draw our attention to the religion of feasts and banquets and dinner parties. The religion of faith is really gourmet religion.
Some of you will recall the absolutely delightful movie, Babette's Feast. A masterpiece of art and symbolism, the film depicts a puritanical Protestant sect of Jutland, the northwestern peninsula of Denmark. Accustomed to a dark, cold, damp, and gray existence, their theology and their food reflected their environment.
Then Babette, an exiled French chef, appeared in their midst and determined to prepare for them an absolutely exquisite gourmet feast. Weeks in preparation, she ordered wines from France, spices from Europe, and exquisite foods from everywhere, paying for it out of the lottery prize she had won. In due time, those gourmet-deprived, gray, pleasure-denying Protestant Jutlanders were in the seventh heaven of gastronomical delights. And the feast became a symbol of Jesus' Last Supper, offering himself, as Babette offered herself, her talents and skills and money for the physical and spiritual nurturance of those deprived people.
So too Jesus would have us come to the rich, gourmet banquet of faith. But as with Babette, it takes patience and preparation and a willingness to wait upon the Lord. University of Chicago's Allan Bloom thinks it's precisely those qualities we have lost in America. We have lost the centrality of the Bible and faith and a gripping inner life, says Bloom and "the dreariness of the family's spiritual landscape passes belief." He says, "People sup together, (usually on the run, we might add), travel together, but they do not think together (and we might add, pray together)" (The Closing of the American Mind, pp. 57, 58). Our spiritual life too often resembles the gray dreariness of those Jutlanders in Babette's Feast.
Faith, real faith, takes some time, some reflection, some introspection and confession and contrition. It takes some serious Bible study, some discussion and sharing, some confrontation with new ideas, and sometimes, it takes a crisis or two to make us think there may be more to life than success and a specialized competence.
But the 5,000 Jesus fed a fast-food dinner, now looking for a fast-food breakfast, were disappointed. They were hoping for a new Moses who would give them fast-food manna and quail every day. But Jesus told them he was the bread of heaven, his message was the true bread of life. You need to eat of this bread to really live. And many, seeing he was not going to perform another miracle of fast-food, turned away. They wanted a quick-fix, drive-thru, take-out faith. Jesus was calling them to a feast -- himself.
Jesus was the man of destiny with economic and political power his for the taking, to actualize the good life here and now. But he gave up his life, his Messianic complex, his ego, his fascination with money and power, to worship the only true source of life and power -- God himself.
And as a result, God has made him the very spiritual bread of life for us all. So Jesus has stimulated more books and art, music and literature, architecture and medicine than any figure in history. What he has done is provide a veritable feast for mind and soul, gourmet food for the spiritual life. Jesus saw early on what it takes many a lifetime to see: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God."
Fast-food religion? It may be just the thing for some. But for faith, God has planned gourmet food. He invites us to his everlasting table in the Psalmist's ancient words:
O taste and see how gracious
the Lord is,
blessed is the man that
trusteth in him. -- Psalm 34:8 (KJV)
True faith and religion is not the McDonald's drive-thru after all. It's Babette's feast!
Prayer
Eternal God, mind of the universe and our mentor, from whom comes every good and perfect thought, and in whose presence darkness and confusion dissipate, we give you thanks and praise that you have not left us desolate nor abandoned us to chaos. Everywhere we look we behold your beneficent intelligence at work in all living things -- from bacteria to buffalo, from ants to antelope. In wisdom you made them all, and in patient mercy you sustain them.
And you have made us -- we know not how -- a little lower than the angels, to have dominion over the earth and to govern ourselves and the world with wisdom. But in your holy presence we must confess our readiness to follow instinct and passion, our tendency to allow fleeting feelings to hold sway over considered judgment. Forgive our impulsive ways, our compulsions and obsessions, and bring us to the considered truth and wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
O God, who loves us each as if there were only one to love, attend to the deepest yearnings of our hearts, and heed the inmost longings of our souls. Grant us insight to know your will and wisdom to do it. Help us to know that it is in love and worship of you we find our true self and that our souls are restless until they rest confidently in you. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Well, I believe it. His prophecy proved to be more true than perhaps even their researchers dreamed. People do eat out a great deal. Most every American child knows the delights of a Big Mac or a Whopper and fries. Domino's Pizza will deliver in thirty minutes or it's free, and Kentucky Fried Chicken can be eaten in or taken home for the whole family. Chicken McNuggets and Dunkin' Donuts and bagels by the billions are a part of the fast-food phenomenon. America is eating on the run.
And in some respects Americans are taking their religion on the run. Some years ago, Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd published a book of prayers titled Are You Running With Me, Jesus? In my mind the title always provoked the image of a marathon runner with Jesus running up alongside to give him a quick drink or morale-boosting prayer, then fading to the side while the runner rushed on toward his goal. Boyd seemed to imply Jesus' main role in life was to rush up to help us with whatever need we might have, and then fade into the background while we pursued our goals.
That's the way it has become with much of American religion, says Dr. Leander Keck of Yale University in his book The Church Confident. Instead of praising God we expect God to praise us. We expect God to help us reach our predetermined goals of success and high self-esteem. Like important busy executives, we come to worship to give God an audience, telling him in effect, okay, you've got sixty minutes to make your sale.
Better yet, many of us prefer a drive-thru, take-out, pick-up religion of convenience for people on the go. It should be pre-cooked, pre-packaged, ready to pop in the microwave to eat instantly along with instant soup and instant coffee. That's about it, God, we say. We're a consumer-oriented culture on the fast track to success and glory. So when we come to your take-out window, you better have it ready to go. And at best, you've got sixty minutes to make your case.
I.
It may surprise you to know that fast-food religion appears in the Bible.
Recall the famous story of the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt in 1290 B.C. Soon after their miraculous escape with Moses through the Red Sea, and then the beginning of their arduous trek through the Sinai desert, the Hebrews began to murmur and complain.
As their rations of food began to run out, they started looking longingly back toward the land of their slavery and bondage. With hunger pangs growing ever more intense, they yearned for the leeks and onions and fleshpots of Egypt. At least in Egypt, they complained to Moses, we knew where our next meal was coming from.
And then the fast-food miracle occurred. God provided fresh each morning manna from heaven, a honey cake, bread-like substance adhering to the desert tamarisk bush. There it was each morning. No cooking necessary. Just go over to the take-out bush and eat!
But the Israelites got tired even of this bread from heaven. They longed for some real meat. After all, they complained, you can be vegetarian only so long. So God caused quail to land near them on their migrating routes. And since the quail were exhausted, they were easy to catch and cook. No, it wasn't exactly instant pheasant under glass, but it was a kind of take-out and heat-up perpetual dinner.
But fast-food didn't quite do it for them. They still were murmuring and complaining. But Moses warned them in a sermon, saying, "God humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3). But they still didn't quite get it.
The same is true in the time of Jesus. In the classic temptations text, Jesus, after his fasting in the desert wilderness, is tempted to turn stones into bread. The temptation is powerfully symbolic in many ways. It is not just a matter of Jesus satisfying his own hunger, but of using his Messianic powers to institute massive economic reform to feed the hungry multitudes of the world. In other words, the best thing he could do for the world would be to provide bread, physical bread, bread of this world for the good life in this world.
One can understand the temptation. One vision of the Messianic Age from the prophet, Amos, predicts the day: "When the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed" (9:13). Materialistic abundance, the rich benefits of the good life, a full stomach and bank account are what it's all about, they argued. Turn those stones to bread, Jesus, and do it fast, because we want it all, and we want it all now. Are you running with me, Jesus?
Another biblical fast-food episode forms the background of our text from John's Gospel. Jesus had just miraculously fed 5,000 men plus women and children. The next morning, the crowd came rushing around the northern end of the Sea of Galilee looking for Jesus. Why, you might ask. Well, because they had had a fast-food, miraculous dinner the night before. Now they were looking for a free, fast-food miraculous breakfast -- their version of Egg McMuffin and coffee.
Knowing what they were after, it was then he advised them in the words of Isaiah, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you...." (John 6:27; Isaiah 55:2). Faith is more than fast-food religion and instant, effort-free gratification. As Jesus, echoing Moses, said to the Tempter, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God," so he would tell us (Matthew 4:4). Rather, we should seek for the bread of eternal life which he wishes to give us.
II.
If the Bible speaks of fast-food religion, it wishes even more to draw our attention to the religion of feasts and banquets and dinner parties. The religion of faith is really gourmet religion.
Some of you will recall the absolutely delightful movie, Babette's Feast. A masterpiece of art and symbolism, the film depicts a puritanical Protestant sect of Jutland, the northwestern peninsula of Denmark. Accustomed to a dark, cold, damp, and gray existence, their theology and their food reflected their environment.
Then Babette, an exiled French chef, appeared in their midst and determined to prepare for them an absolutely exquisite gourmet feast. Weeks in preparation, she ordered wines from France, spices from Europe, and exquisite foods from everywhere, paying for it out of the lottery prize she had won. In due time, those gourmet-deprived, gray, pleasure-denying Protestant Jutlanders were in the seventh heaven of gastronomical delights. And the feast became a symbol of Jesus' Last Supper, offering himself, as Babette offered herself, her talents and skills and money for the physical and spiritual nurturance of those deprived people.
So too Jesus would have us come to the rich, gourmet banquet of faith. But as with Babette, it takes patience and preparation and a willingness to wait upon the Lord. University of Chicago's Allan Bloom thinks it's precisely those qualities we have lost in America. We have lost the centrality of the Bible and faith and a gripping inner life, says Bloom and "the dreariness of the family's spiritual landscape passes belief." He says, "People sup together, (usually on the run, we might add), travel together, but they do not think together (and we might add, pray together)" (The Closing of the American Mind, pp. 57, 58). Our spiritual life too often resembles the gray dreariness of those Jutlanders in Babette's Feast.
Faith, real faith, takes some time, some reflection, some introspection and confession and contrition. It takes some serious Bible study, some discussion and sharing, some confrontation with new ideas, and sometimes, it takes a crisis or two to make us think there may be more to life than success and a specialized competence.
But the 5,000 Jesus fed a fast-food dinner, now looking for a fast-food breakfast, were disappointed. They were hoping for a new Moses who would give them fast-food manna and quail every day. But Jesus told them he was the bread of heaven, his message was the true bread of life. You need to eat of this bread to really live. And many, seeing he was not going to perform another miracle of fast-food, turned away. They wanted a quick-fix, drive-thru, take-out faith. Jesus was calling them to a feast -- himself.
Jesus was the man of destiny with economic and political power his for the taking, to actualize the good life here and now. But he gave up his life, his Messianic complex, his ego, his fascination with money and power, to worship the only true source of life and power -- God himself.
And as a result, God has made him the very spiritual bread of life for us all. So Jesus has stimulated more books and art, music and literature, architecture and medicine than any figure in history. What he has done is provide a veritable feast for mind and soul, gourmet food for the spiritual life. Jesus saw early on what it takes many a lifetime to see: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God."
Fast-food religion? It may be just the thing for some. But for faith, God has planned gourmet food. He invites us to his everlasting table in the Psalmist's ancient words:
O taste and see how gracious
the Lord is,
blessed is the man that
trusteth in him. -- Psalm 34:8 (KJV)
True faith and religion is not the McDonald's drive-thru after all. It's Babette's feast!
Prayer
Eternal God, mind of the universe and our mentor, from whom comes every good and perfect thought, and in whose presence darkness and confusion dissipate, we give you thanks and praise that you have not left us desolate nor abandoned us to chaos. Everywhere we look we behold your beneficent intelligence at work in all living things -- from bacteria to buffalo, from ants to antelope. In wisdom you made them all, and in patient mercy you sustain them.
And you have made us -- we know not how -- a little lower than the angels, to have dominion over the earth and to govern ourselves and the world with wisdom. But in your holy presence we must confess our readiness to follow instinct and passion, our tendency to allow fleeting feelings to hold sway over considered judgment. Forgive our impulsive ways, our compulsions and obsessions, and bring us to the considered truth and wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
O God, who loves us each as if there were only one to love, attend to the deepest yearnings of our hearts, and heed the inmost longings of our souls. Grant us insight to know your will and wisdom to do it. Help us to know that it is in love and worship of you we find our true self and that our souls are restless until they rest confidently in you. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
