practice makes perfect

"My generation is a practical generation, and I am challenged by my faith to be a practical person. Don't get me wrong: I love all verbal and theological things: story, theology, politics, and history, perhaps even inordinately.

But I believe in places. I believe that relationships, rooted in love, transform us. And it just so happens that most lasting human relationships are formed around the table." 

This is how Jeremy John begins his guest post on Tony Campolo's blog, Red Letter Christians. Jeremy writes on The Table is the Microcosm of a Practical Faith. After reading it, I realized it might as well have been written by me on this blog (although it might not have been as well-written). So, I'm sharing (stealing?) it.

Jeremy expands the theology of Eucharist beyond...well...theology. He calls us to see Eucharist in times when "the ordinary is made sacred." It is an embodied meal in more ways than one.

"The Eucharist gathers us at particular place, with a particular people, to eat particular food(s) together. While we believe theologically that Christ is present at the table with us, the Eucharist is more about what you do than what you believe...

...You may have guessed by now that I do not limit the Eucharist to Sunday morning. I believe that all of the foods we eat at our tables are sacred: not through their essential nature, but through the relationships that they represent: relationships between farmers and communities, relationships between food and bodies, food and the earth, and farms and our ecosystem."

And here's the kicker:

"Our tables are a microcosm of the way we live out our faith."

I love what Jeremy does by tying in not only the table fellowship, but the practical nature of meals: how we produce, harvest, distribute, buy, and consume food, as well as the relationships between all of the different parties involved (including creation).

And if the table is the primary place of practice for our faith, then we must ask: What does how we eat, including all of those practical concerns I just mentioned, say about our faith? It might be easier for us to determine how our faith would/could/should impact our lives, but what does our practice say about our faith? What does it say about my faith that I rarely eat with someone of a different cultural or ethnic identity? What does it mean that I view food as a commodity rather than a necessity? What does it say about my faith that I get buy what I want rather than what was fairly traded or organically grown or whatever...

So the next time you sit down at a table, ask yourself (as I will ask myself): Where did this food come from? Were those involved in its production and preparation fairly compensated? Am I willing to "bless the hands that prepared it"...and mean it? Who am I eating with? Who am I not eating with? Is my eating this meal actually taking opportunity for food away from others?
And - ultimately - what does how I practice a meal of the embodied Christ say about me as a person of faith, and my embodiment of Christ in my life?