Lamentations 3: 19-26 (New Jerusalem Bible)

In the book “Hungry Planet: What the World Easts” by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio, it was an idea they had to travel the world to see what people eat. So they sat down with 30 families from 24 nations, and talked about their lives and their work, their favorite recipes and how they got their food. Did they shop at a place similar to Walmart? Did they farm, grow or raise their food sources? Did they barter with others nearby? Then the two authors photographed each family with one week’s worth of the food they consumed.

Of course prices and food vary from each nation. One family from California spends $159 each week for their food, while a family from North Carolina spends $341. One family from Germany spends $445 in Euros each week which is $500 in American currency. A family from Darfur lives in a refugee camp in Chad, spending 685 Francs, which is $1.23 in American dollars. Only those living in Chad, Ecuador, Bhutan and Mali have absolutely nothing packaged or processed in their diets. That might be a more healthy way to eat.  

How we eat, and what we eat is a common thread that binds us together as well as something that sets us apart from one another. Some of the favorite meals were shared with the authors of their book. A family from Great Britain loves chocolate fudge cake and a family from Mongolia treasures their recipe for mutton dumplings. A family from Poland treated their guests to pig’s knuckles with carrots. That sounds to me like something from Grannie Clampet’s recipe book. And a family from the Philippines love chicken feet. They eat it for breakfast. Has anyone here ever dined on that delicacy? When I was very young, around three or four years old, my family and I lived in Florida on a chicken farm where my father then was kind of a sharecropper. But the crop was all chicken. We were lucky to get the good parts so we dined on chicken feet. All I can remember was they were very crispy.

The authors of “Hungry Planet" wanted to show us t new and exotic foods are showing up in great abundance on our own supermarket shelves. And the food Americans eat like KFC, Kraft Cheese singles and Coca Cola are showing up on grocery shelves from Bosnia to Bahrain. It is a hungry planet we live on and it is a small planet getting even smaller as our cultures reach out and touch one another.

It is challenging to think about what we know in the perspective of globalization and starvation plus the epidemics of diabetes and obesity in our own nation. Another author has expressed it this way, “There’s a hunger beyond food that’s in food, that is why feeding someone is always a kind of miracle. The creation of the Warming Station in the SPC is a kind of miracle. Who would have predicted this just five years ago? When we dine together, we bring together the fragments of our lives and become a community. We move from being separate, to being One.

Each year on the first Sunday in October we observe World Communion Sunday, a day that is organized around the idea of sharing a meal together. It was first celebrated at Shadyside Presbyterian Church at Pittsburg in 1933, a year that has been called the darkest year of the Great Depression and a time when fascism was on the rise in Europe. Unfortunately, it seems the rise of fascism is happening again in southern Europe (Italy). other nations and even in the United States. 

The people of Shadyside Presbyterian thought a celebration emphasizing Christian unity would provide encouragement, peace and that Jesus the Christ is still relevant, and that the church still has a word of hope to speak to a world that is feeling hopeless. And so the members of Shadyside wanted to emphasize that unity through the sharing of a common meal could break down the walls between churches and individuals. When we eat together, we bring together parts of our individual lives and experience communion. We move from being separate people, to being One.

In the book of Lamentations, the Prophet Jeremiah cries out, “Bring to mind my misery and anguish, it is wormwood and gall.” Wormwood is a very bitter herb. But with a sign of hope Jeremiah also says, “Yahweh is all I have, I say to myself, so I will put all my hope in Yahweh.”

When we are in the depths of fear or despair, everything tastes bitter like wormwood. But when we rest in the reassurance of the God of abundance, life is filled with flavor again. We know encouragement on the dark days and we know the comfort of the embrace of God.

Our call as people of faith goes beyond reassuring ourselves. It goes to caring for others. How can we serve others? The answer to that question is as different as human personalities. We can serve others in countless ways. But for Christians, table service is the first and foremost, and that is the one Jesus modeled for us most often.

Today, we recognize a truth we often take for granted, the Table of Christ extends around the world on this World Communion Sunday. We gather around the table we use, remembering Jesus’ call to love our neighbors and to serve them. And today the table we use be with many with us. Thanks be to God, AMEN.