The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
May 2, 2010
Vol. 13 no. 18
Potlucks and picnics are scary things if you are not certain what you are going to be eating. United Church potlucks may be the closest sacrament to a Wesley Love Feast, but if you are allergic to a particular dish or simply hate it, the love is gone.
For the record, I love potlucks, though I must say I have seldom indulged in one outside North America where the cuisine was familiar. On several occasions I participated in a Japanese potluck and that made only want to try more. And there was that English one in which I came to learn the difference between peanut butter and Marmite.
Peter was not much into eating with other people, unless they were people like him. Dietary laws and kosher classifications had been deeply ingrained into his mind and palate. The world was divided into clean and unclean, and after all, you are what you eat. He had a dream and it was not a pleasant one at first - a picnic blanket-full of creepy and crawly things, scavenger animals and beasts of prey came down from heaven in front of him. The dream had audio and he was invited to eat, but Peter was a good boy and never had eaten something not kosher. The voice of the dream kept talking, observing that if God has cleansed all of these animals and foods, then you can’t really call them unclean.
The world became bigger in that dream and Peter couldn’t shake it or forget it. He gained a new and different appetite that not only included quite different foods, but also new people with whom to eat. It is all about eating in the Bible and in particular with the New Testament. No longer is the world unclean or its food (not even Marmite) and there are more sisters and brothers than we have imagined. You are what you eat.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan