The Disciple's Well Part 5

Eating Well
Eating is at the heart of our daily lives. Eating is a social event. Eating is a time for fellowship. It is around the table that we build relationships. Table fellowship was a big part of the ministry of Jesus and the life of the early church. Eating is far more than just eating.
That is why the enemy has twisted it. Our adversary is always twisting what is good and making a counterfeit. The counterfeit is to make food about us instead of about relationship with God and others. It is what He did in the garden.
Genesis 3:1-6 (NIV)
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
He tried it on Jesus during the temptation.
Matthew 4:1-4 (NIV)
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
He tries to manipulate our longings into making us sin. We long for heaven. Intuitively we know there is something more. We try and satisfy the longing in our own strength instead of just trusting God. Instead of us consuming food, food consumes us. We eat alone, we hide what we eat. We eat in our cars. We stop at the Jiffy Quick and grab a Nuke and Puke. We eat mindlessly. We eat to cover emotional pain, boredom, frustration and longing. It causes so many problems.
Did you know that half of the people in this world don’t get enough calories to satisfy hunger, while the other half get too many calories, and many of them are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese?
Those are a couple of terms I don’t like. Obese and morbidly obese. It is my belief that these terms were made up by a group of skinny mean people. I think there are better terms, like stocky. Pleasingly plump. Robust. Big boned. Could stand to lose a few pounds. I remember being on a mission trip in Cuba and one of the people looking at me and saying, wow, you are really fat. They weren’t saying it as an insult. They were like, hey, you are really fat and I’m hungry most of the time so while you are here I want to hang around you. I always knew I was heavy, but I never let myself consider that I was obese or morbidly obese. I was just big boned and needed to lose a few pounds. Someone once asked me if I would consider being their teammate on Biggest Loser. I thought, you need Biggest Loser, I just need to lose a few pounds. I weighed 340 pounds. I was morbidly obese. Someone once mentioned to me in conversation that they were doing great things with gastric bypass surgeries. At first, I didn’t get that they were telling me I should do it. After all, I just needed to lose a few pounds. I didn’t do the surgery. People ask me all the time if that is what I did. For me, it was about moving more and changing the way I eat. I worked hard to get down to obese. Then I worked hard to get down to overweight. At my height, I didn’t get to overweight until I hit 214 pounds. I weigh 190 pounds now. I am still technically overweight by ten pounds, but I feel like this is a good, maintainable weight for me. And now, it is about moving well, resting well and continuing to embrace eating well.
To get food back in the context that it was created for, I want to eat mindfully. I don’t want to turn to food to deal with my longings, I want to trust in God. I want to be aware of the connections between what I eat and how I pray and how I relate to others. Eating in its proper context is about fellowship with God and others. I believe that eating well is very communion like. I believe communion is much more a picture of Jesus and His friends sitting around a table having a meal and fellowship than sipping a plastic thimble full of grape juice and eating a tiny square of cracker. Eating well is part of the common union we have with God and others.
Acts 2:42 (NIV)
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
There is something that happens when we are eating well. When we are sitting around a table having fellowship. We are often surprised at how much we learn about people in this setting. How often we actually see something of God in them. This is exactly what happens on the road to Emmaus on Luke 24:13-35:
Luke 24:13-35 (NIV)
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
The two guys in this story are unaware that Jesus is with them until they sit down with him to break bread at lunch. There was something that happened in the table fellowship, the breaking of bread. The story in Luke is really a communion story. Communion is a remembrance of all that Jesus did for us at the cross, but it is also a reminder of the fellowship we have God and now and forever. That He is present in our lives now. That we are His body reaching out to others in fellowship and love.
So how can we embrace eating well? How can we appreciate the bigger picture of connecting with God and others? Instead of fast food, let’s think about slow food. Let’s make eating about fellowship. Let’s make it a holy moment as often as we can.
Action Steps for Eating Well
Make the preparation of food an act of love.
Always try and eat meals with other people. Stopping our work and activity and connecting around a table.
Remember to thank God for the food and for the opportunity to connect.
Eat slowly, appreciating and enjoying what God has provided.
I would like for you to email me some ideas to add to this list about eating well.
stevelawes@gmail.com