Food and Hope

I went to a pot luck in one of the Cluster Churches tonight. About as many people showed up as on a good Sunday morning and the food was abundant, delicious and the conversation was positive, enlivening and hopeful.

Food and hope just go together.

Perhaps that's why the liturgy of our church always includes a ritual meal. Food and hope just go together.

I remember a story my old friend Jim Lewis from West Virginia told me. He knew a new priest was  having his first ever service in a tiny church about 12 miles from Charleston. Jim did the 8 o'clock Eucharist at St. John's, the big, downtown parish, but had his assistant do the 10 o'clock so Jim could go to this first ever service in this tiny church.

Well, Jim got lost and didn't get there until 10:30 and pulled into a parking lot where there was only one other car.

He got out and met the priest coming out of the church with a bag of coffee beans and a package of Oreo's. No one, not one person, had come to his first service. So Jim makes him go back inside and makes him give Jim communion and then they drank coffee and ate Oreo's.

Eating together, in the ritual meal and in the cookies dunked in coffee, gave hope to the young priest. The next week a few people showed up. The next week a few more. And over time, that tiny parish took on a level of aliveness that fostered hope.

And their coffee hours and pot lucks gave them hope.

Food and Hope go together somehow, in the economy of God.

I always tell people I can tell how healthy a congregation is by two measures--how they do the Peace and how they do Food.

St. James' Peace lasts almost forever. Everyone greets everyone else. And tonight's pot luck went over the top for quality and quantity.

Food and Hope. That's what I believe in, whatever anyone else has to say.