Transcript

Hi.

I'm Emily Stimpson Chapman, author of The Catholic Table, and welcome back to part two of our meditations on the book.

As we talked about last time, when I was 25, God healed me from a six-year battle with anorexia.

That healing began after I returned to the Catholic Church, and one day after mass, on my way back from holy communion, I realized that the most intimate communion I had with God was that I ate him, that he took on the appearance of bread and wine to feed me with his very self.

After that, I realized I couldn't abuse food or my body anymore.

Instead, I needed to treat all food for what it was, a sign of God's love and a foretaste of the Eucharist.

How though did I get there?

How did I go from seeing food as a problem, as something to be feared and controlled, to seeing food as one of God's most greatest and glorious gifts?

Well, remember all that reading I talked about last week, all the reading I was doing after I first came back into the church?

It was doing more than helping me understand the Trinity.

It was teaching me to see the world as a Catholic.

It was teaching me about a world where matter matters, where everything in creation is made by God and loved by God, and is meant to teach us something about God.

The church calls this the sacramental worldview, and it just means seeing the world as God meant it to be seen.

It means seeing His hand in every sunset and mountaintop, seeing His love in every broccoli stalk and bluebird, and knowing that all of it, from butterflies to dirt, can be an occasion for grace because it is always an occasion for teaching us about God.

The modern world, however, doesn't see things this way.

To the modern mind, a mountain is just a mountain, a body is just a body, and a cup of coffee is just a cup of coffee.

That mountain might be majestic, the body might be beautiful, the cup of coffee might be delicious, but they don't have any meaning beyond that.

They don't have any meaning beyond our experiences and emotions, so they don't convey truth.

They don't teach us about God, and they are certainly not occasions for grace.

Like, they're all just different forms of matter to be molded and manipulated or used however we feel like molding or manipulating or using them.

Even though I grew up Catholic, I didn't grow up seeing the world like a Catholic.

I didn't have a sacramental worldview.

Like, I may have looked at a majestic mountain and recognized that it was the handiwork of an even more majestic God, but when I looked at my body, I didn't see the image of God.

I didn't see a temple of the Holy Spirit.

I didn't see that what made my body beautiful and valuable was its ability to love and serve and reveal my soul to the world.

I thought that what made it valuable was its size and its shape.

Likewise, when I looked at a cup of coffee, I certainly did not see proof that God is good and God is love, which I assure you I see now.

I saw caffeine and zero calories and fat grams.

I saw plain old ordinary matter that I consume or not consume, control or not control.

That is how the world tells us to see food.

It says food is a material substance composed of vitamins and minerals, calories and fat grams.

It also says that food can be an occasion for pleasure, for sensual enjoyment, or for vice, for consuming too much food, or the wrong types of food.

Which is true, like food is, is those things, but it's only a half-truth, because the world doesn't tell us that food is a sign of God's love.

The world doesn't tell us that food is a symbol of the Eucharist.

The world doesn't tell us that food, like plain old ordinary food that you can go buy at your local grocery store, can be an occasion for grace, for growing closer to God and one another and becoming more and more the men and women God made us to be.

But that is reality.

That's what food really is.

Believe it or not, sacred scripture has a lot to say about food, and one of the things that it says most often is that food is one of the reasons that we should know God is good and God exists.

It is one of the signs about himself that he has written into creation.

Saint Paul, in the Book of Acts, when he's preaching, says, In past generations, God allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways, yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

So in every crop, in every meal, in every glass of wine, man was meant to see the hand of a good God.

He wasn't supposed to need a prophet or a scroll to tell him that God existed and that he was good.

Bread and wine already did that.

Likewise, throughout the Old Testament, God doesn't just promise his people that he's gonna provide for them.

He promises that he's going to provide the very best food for them.

So he's not just gonna give them a land of their own.

He's gonna give them a land flowing with milk and honey.

When he feeds them in the desert, he doesn't just feed them with ordinary bread.

He feeds them with the bread of angels.Then, in the New Testament, God the Son keeps it up.

So at Cana, He turns dirty, nasty foot-washing water into the finest wine.

Afterwards, first on a mountaintop and later on a plain, He turns a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish into a feast for thousands.

And after the Resurrection, on a quiet beach, the God of the universe Himself cooks a tasty breakfast for His disciples.

In both the Old Testament and the New, we are told that food's abundance and tastiness signifies God's favor.

From the beginning, it is a natural sign that helps the Jewish people understand that God is good and God is love.

It also helps them understand that this good, loving God loves them.

They can trust Him, He is providing for them, and He's not gonna lead them astray.

Today, food does the exact same thing.

It is a sign, it is a witness to the absolute gratuitous love God has for us.

The word gratuitous is really important.

I didn't just throw it in there.

Um, because God's love is gratuitous.

You know, like God's love, food wasn't necessary.

Just think with me about this for a minute.

It wasn't.

You know, God didn't have to make our bodies in such a way that we have to eat morning, noon, and night.

Like, He didn't have to make our bodies in such a way that we have to eat at all.

He's God.

If He willed it, we could've gotten our nutrition from the sun and the trees and the rain, just like plants do.

God also didn't have to fragment the nutrition we require across five different food groups or hundreds of difference of vegetables and fruits and grains and animals.

He could have, if He wanted to, have concentrated it all in one little plant.

Like kale really could've been the end-all, be-all.

And I like kale, but you know, amen for variety, right?

Lastly, God didn't have to make food taste so darn good.

Like the whole lot of it could've tasted like dirt or beets, which I know is kind of the same thing, but it didn't.

You know, lemons didn't have to be tart and arugula didn't have to be peppery, and bacon?

Bacon didn't have to be so sweet and salty and magical.

But it is.

And while an atheist might credit that to the benevolence of random chance, the rest of us know that chance is not that benevolent.

Chance might produce beets, okay?

I will grant you that.

But bacon?

Not likely.

Life is hard.

We live in a fallen world.

Countless millennia ago, our first parents made a shockingly bad choice, and the entire universe reverberates with the consequences of that choice.

Sickness and death, earthquakes and fires, broken hearts and broken relationships, all in some way are a consequence of Adam and Eve's bad choice.

But despite all of that, the world itself isn't bad.

The world is fundamentally good.

It is the work of a good and loving God, and there is evidence all around us of that.

C.S.

Lewis has this great metaphor where he talks about the world as enemy-occupied territory, so it's like France during World War II.

The idea is that all of us are caught up in this great battle between good and evil.

And for now, the evil one has taken hold of our world, but he has not won the final victory.

He can't win the final victory.

And even in the territory that Satan thinks he controls, there are constant signs and signals breaking through, reminding us that our good God is there, that He has not forgotten us, and that He is moving Heaven and Earth to help us.

In this metaphor, the Church functions like the divine equivalent of the French Resistance movement.

So She's the one there on the ground, operating in enemy-occupied territory, reminding people who we are and what we were made for, and giving us the sacraments so that we can be the Church militant.

But it's not just the Church reminding us of that.

The world is full of signs and wonders, reminding us that all of the pain and all of the stress and all of the anxiety is not what we were made for.

We were made for more.

Now, some of those signs are grand and glorious and they're hard to miss.

So it's like when you're seeing a sunset over an ocean or you're glimpsing a vista from a mountaintop, you know God is there and God is good.

But other signs are more ordinary, and they're easier to miss.

Sound of a baby's laugh, the warmth of our spouse's touch, or even a hot cup of cocoa on a winter's night.

All of those things are telegrams from God, consoling us and comforting us and helping us to endure.

One of the things about today's diet industry that always drives me batty is that they go around telling people that they're not supposed to take comfort in food.

You know, you've heard that, right?

Like, Eat for hunger and nutrition.

Never eat for comfort.

And I hear that and I think, Seriously?

Like, are you living in the same world that I'm living in?

I mean, yes, don't overeat for comfort, okay?

Don't commit the sin of gluttony because you're having a bad day.

But if God didn't want me eating for comfort, could you explain what He made chocolate for?

Or macaroni and cheese?

Or wine?

Like, it's like a parent who spends all this time and money decorating their child's bedroom and filling it with all sorts of beautiful and wonderful things for them to enjoy, and then the kid takes one look at it and says, Mm, sorry, mom and dad, bedrooms are for sleeping.

I can't do anything here but sleep.

Again, life is hard.It's a little less hard with cheesecake.

Like, that is not something to deny, that is something to praise Jesus for.

Right now, every single one of us is carrying some kind of cross.

We are struggling with job loss, or marital problems, or illness, or infertility, or loneliness, or aging parents, or just like the typical ordinary crazy stuff of life, like computers crashing and roofs leaking and people driving like madmen on the freeways.

Catholics do not call this world a veil of tears for nothing.

But it's not an impenetrable veil.

Grace reaches through, and we've got french fries and tacos and really good gin martinis with the stuffed olives reminding us that beyond the veil lies something much, much better.

Those things also remind us about something else.

Food helps us see that we don't have to wait until we get to the other side to encounter that much, much better.

We can encounter it right now in the Eucharist.

Food is a sign.

It is a blinking neon sign that helps us understand what happens on that altar when bread and wine become body and blood.

Remember, seeing the world through a sacramental prism means recognizing that ordinary truths reveal extraordinary truths, natural purposes point to supernatural purposes, and that's how it works with food.

For example, food nourishes us.

With fat and calories, vitamins and minerals, food keeps us alive naturally.

It keeps us alive physically.

But the Eucharist keeps us alive supernaturally.

It keeps us alive spiritually.

It fills us with sanctifying grace, which is the life of God.

Food also makes us strong, right?

It helps us to grow, um, up at first and, you know, out and around later.

Uh, likewise, the Eucharist helps us to grow, but in much more flattering ways.

It helps us to mature as Christians and grow in the virtues.

Food can heal.

Oatmeal lowers our cholesterol, fruits and veggies keep our blood pressure low, chocolate helps tame a cough, again proof of God's love.

The Eucharist, it heals too.

It heals our souls.

It wipes away venial sins and helps us to get our lives in order.

Food brings people together, right?

Gets people to come out of their rooms and put down their phones and sit around a table and look each other in the eye and have a real conversation.

And when we do that, good things happen.

Friendships grow, relationships are healed, um, kids perform better in schools and marriages last longer.

The communities are built through meals.

Guess what?

The Eucharist incorporates us into the ultimate community, into the family of God, which is the body of Christ.

The list goes on.

Food comforts us, you can't deny it.

You know, it helps us to forget our troubles for a moment, but the Eucharist consoles us on an infinitely deeper level.

It helps us to join our sufferings to the sufferings of the crucified Christ.

Food goes hand in hand with sacrifice, right?

Anyone who's ever cooked Thanksgiving dinner or just lunch for some picky toddlers can tell you that.

But not the level of sacrifice that goes into the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the re-presentation of the greatest sacrifice the world has ever known.

It cuts across space and time and allows each of us to be mystically present on Calvary, where the God of the universe sacrificed His life for our fallen, broken selves.

Lastly, food brings joy, but only fleeting, passing, momentary joy.

Like, we want more chocolate.

You know, we need to eat again in a few hours.

The Eucharist received frequently and reverently and readily, it brings us the everlasting joy of eternal life with Christ.

Every natural truth about food, food as a source of nourishment and strength and community and comfort and love and healing and joy, ultimately points beyond itself, helping us to understand the supernatural truth of the Eucharist.

It makes visible in the world the invisible work the Eucharist does in our souls.

And that's exactly how God designed it to be.

From the beginning, God knew He would become man and die on a cross.

We also knew He would give Himself to us body to body and flesh to flesh.

The Eucharist wasn't some plan He dreamed up a few thousand years into man's existence.

Okay?

Becoming bread wasn't a scheme He concocted on the fly after watching the Israelites screw things up one too many times.

God is eternal.

He is infinite.

He is outside of time.

And from all eternity, He knew how this whole salvation history drama was gonna play out.

Accordingly, food's role in that drama is not a coincidence.

It's not happenstance.

Food's ability to be both what it is and more than it is, to shed light on natural truths about man and supernatural truths about God, is all by design.

It's how God made it to be from the very beginning.

Food was always meant to be an ordinary sign that would point beyond itself to the extraordinary reality of the Eucharist.

It was always meant to be a natural symbol of the very greatest supernatural truths.

It was always meant to help us understand what is happening when a priest holds up a white host before us and says, The body of Christ, and we say, Amen.

And that is why so many people struggle with food.

It's why so many people overeat or undereat or obsess about what we eat, because of what God wants food to teach us.

'Kay, Satan is no fool.Okay?

He knows how God designed the world and he knows if he can corrupt our vision, like if he can get us to miss all the lessons of love and grace that surround us, he can lead us away from God and towards him.

So he tries to twist our understanding of food and sex and marriage and the body and new life, because these are the things that point most clearly and powerfully to the Eucharist and the most holy trinity.

When we call Satan on his lies though, when we see the world for what it really is, like when we see food and sex and marriage and bodies and babies for what they really are, freedom follows.

That's what happened to me 17 years ago.

It's why I stopped counting calories and fat grams and worrying about having some curves and stopped measuring my value in numbers on the scale.

It's also why I started making like an Italian grandma and pouring all of the love I had for my friends and family into steaming bacon risottos and crispy roasted brussel sprouts and rich creamy tiramisus, because I wanted food at my table to do what food was supposed to do, to nourish people, and strengthen people, and heal people, and build community, and most important to let people know how incredibly worthy of love they are.

People need that.

Like, they need it desperately.

All around us, people are starving for love.

They are starving for friendship.

They're starving for Jesus, and each of us has a part to play in feeding them.

Next time, we're gonna talk about how we can do that through hospitality.