Making a meal of it
James Cathcart
August 08, 2023
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Micah 6: 9-15 (NRSVA)
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city
(it is sound wisdom to fear your name):
Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city!
10 Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
11 Can I tolerate wicked scales
and a bag of dishonest weights?
12 Your wealthy are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
13 Therefore I have begun to strike you down,
making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not save,
and what you save, I will hand over to the sword.
15 You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
This is Micah in full flow and it’s heavy stuff. In many ways it’s a familiar prophetic cry we hear again and again throughout the Bible and across human history. “Get a grip! Can you no see what’s happening? If you go on like this you’re not gonnae reap.”
Or: “It’ll end in tears.”
In the short space we have got today I want to focus on verse 14, about eating without being satisfied. If these words hit home a few thousand years ago (and it’s a fairly safe bet they did seeing as we’re still reading them) they really do now.
We live in an era of ultra-processed food where a lot of what we eat offers very little in terms of nutrition or wellbeing. Now it bears saying that many of the innovations we have worked in preserving and storing food have worked wonders and literally saved lives. And they sure can be tasty too.
My wife and I did our best with our daughter to introduce her to lots of fresh fruit and vegetables (“Hello I’m Asparagus, nice to meet you…”) and I’m glad she has a hearty and varied diet. But over the years things have slipped a little. My wife overheard a few months back our daughter contentedly sighing to herself as she tucked into a snack and said “I like food in packets!”
But nonetheless we are living in a new era of ultra-processed food that we can eat and eat without ever being satisfied. We can move heaven and earth to create an elaborate supply chain that crisscrosses the globe to give us a packet of something that will leave us wanting something else twenty minutes later. Much of this food never actually gets eaten too, piling up in waste while millions are underfed.
This is not eating. This is dysfunction.
PRAYER:
Dear God,
We’ve made mistakes
cut corners
taken needless detours
messed about
got our priorities mixed up
and instead of scratching our heads and reaching for another packet
we need to reconnect with food
and the pleasure of sharing it.
Amen.
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