Resurrection Habit #2 | EAT
To Eat is essential to human survival. Unfortunately in our world many find themselves facing constant physical hunger. In 2014 the World Health Organization published the following.
1. About 842 million people in the world do not eat enough to be healthy. That means that one in every eight people on Earth goes to bed hungry each night. (Source: FAO, 2013)
2.The number of people living with chronic hunger has fallen by 17 percent since 1990–92. If the trend continues, we will fall just short of the hunger target in the Millennium Development Goals. (Source: FAO, 2013)
3. Most of the world’s undernourished people are still to be found in Southern Asia, closely followed by sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Asia. (Source: FAO, 2013)
4. A third of all deaths in children under the age of five in developing countries are linked to under nutrition. (Source: IGME, 2011)
5. In the developing world, one child in four is stunted, meaning that their physical and mental growth is impaired because of inadequate nutrition. (Source: The Lancet, 2013)
6. The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, from pregnancy through age two, are critical. A proper diet in this period can protect children from the mental and physical stunting that can result from malnutrition. (Source: IGME, 2011)
7. If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. (Source: FAO, 2011)
8. It costs just US $0.25 per day to provide a child with all of the vitamins and nutrients he or she needs to grow up healthy. (Source: WFP, 2011)
9. By 2050, climate change and erratic weather patterns could have pushed another 24 million children into hunger. Almost half of these children would be in sub-Saharan Africa. (Source: IFPRI, 2009)
10. Hunger can be eliminated in our lifetimes. The Zero Hunger Challenge, launched by the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, works to galvanize global support around this very objective.
For all to Eat and be healthy is a basic human right and as people of faith we are called by God to do all in our power to share food resources so all can thrive and live an abundant life.
But to Eat Together is also central part of our practice of the Christian Faith. The Gospels have many references to Jesus eating with all kinds of people. He accepted and gave acts of hospitality. The Early Church regularly ate together. They practiced love-feasts, that somewhat resembled our “covered dish dinners”. But when they gathered for worship they regularly celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Eating Together provided the opportunity to be “hospitable” and have fellowship in the setting of a table meal. The Eucharist and its invitation to Eat and Remember was an opportunity to participate and share in the saving act of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Eating is a part of what it means to be a part of the Church.
But eating is also a means of sharing God’s Love with the unbeliever. In Acts 10 there is the story of Peter’s interaction with the Roman Centurion Cornelius. When Peter and Cornelius meet they are two men from different worlds who discover they are so alike. Peter says to Cornelius, “I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another. 35 Rather, in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to him. The willingness to eat with another created the environment for God’s Grace to change both men. A common meal became the catalyst for them to see each other as persons of worth created by the One God. Their meal together allowed them to Bless the other and be Blessed by the other!
