Having a healthy relationship with food
Proverbs 9:1-6
Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven
columns; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her
table. She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the
city: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; To the one who lacks understanding,
she says, Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake
foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”
Do you
know what a “foodie” is? It’s a person
who loves anything and everything about food.
Would you raise your hand if you’re a foodie? Here’s how Wikipedia describes a foodie:
“Typical foodie interests and activities include the food industry, wineries
and wine tasting, breweries and beer sampling, food science, following
restaurant openings and closings, food distribution, food fads, health and
nutrition, cooking classes, culinary tourism, and restaurant management.” Next to a foodie, I am a culinary caveman
because I don’t know anything about food.
But I’ve
noticed that foodies have a certain wisdom regarding food: certain do’s and
don’t’s, how to make the most of your meal.
Let me share a few examples. A
priest-friend who’s a foodie, believes your should never miss breakfast and so
he loves to say, “Breakfast is the most important meal…of the morning.” If you didn’t get that you probably didn’t
have breakfast this morning. Another
foodie friend says “eat your colors,” meaning that there should be plenty of
colors on your plate, not just brown and yellow (all fried foods!). Colorful
food ensures you get plenty of vitamins and minerals. Another foodie says, “fill your mouth with
words, not just food.” That means that
supper should also be a social experience: it’s about the people not just about
the potatoes. I’ll never forget when
Msgr. Hebert, a gourmet foodie, gave a talk to us seminarians and held up a
spoon and announced, “This is a spoon, not a shovel.” Know anyone who uses a spoon like a
shovel? Foodies don’t do that. Recently,
I learned that when you try to lose weight, “it’s 90% diet and only 10%
exercise.” In other words, good health
is more about what you don’t eat as what you do eat. I was so depressed to hear that I went and
ate a double cheeseburger. You see,
foodies have not only learned to love food, they have also learned a certain
wisdom about food, that is, how to have a healthy relationship with food: food
is a friend, not a foe. Would you say
you have a healthy relationship with food, or are you just a culinary caveman
like me?
Our
Scripture readings today invite us to be spiritual foodies. The book of Proverbs says, “Come, eat my
food, and drink the wine I have mixed!
Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of
understanding.” In other words, try to
see the whole Bible as a 73 course gourmet meal (because there are 73 books of
the Bible). One of my favorite
Scriptures is Jeremiah 15:16, which reads, “When I found your words, O Lord, I
devoured them. They became the joy and
the happiness of my heart.” And in the
gospel Jesus serves a delicious new dish for his disciples, saying, “I am the
bread that came down from heaven…and the bread that I will give is my flesh for
the life of the world.” Clearly, Jesus
is talking about Bread we taste as Mass, the Body of Christ. The Jews, however, were culinary cavemen like
me and said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They didn’t get it, and so they didn’t get
it, and they walked away. Sadly, recent
research shows that only 50% of Catholics believe the bread is really Jesus,
too. That means that half the people in
this church don’t believe in the Eucharist.
Or, maybe that means we all believe, but St. Boniface parishioners
don’t! Foodies know and love food;
Catholic foodies know and love spiritual food: the Bible and the Body of
Christ.
My friends,
just like we need to have a healthy relationship with material food, so we need
to have a healthy relationship with spiritual food. Here are some ways you can see if you are a
Catholic foodie. First of all, do you
consume the Word of God, the Bible, like Proverbs said? I didn’t ask if you HAVE a Bible, I asked if
you READ the Bible. A Bible in the hand
is worth more than two on the shelf!
Secondly, I hope everyone had a great summer vacation, laying on the
beach, working on your tan. Everyone
wants to look like Fr. John! But I hope
you didn’t skip Mass on Sunday, taking a vacation from your vocation, and
starving spiritually. Now, here’s
something a Catholic foodie would never do: chew gum when they come up for Holy
Communion. Do you chew gum before you
eat your cheeseburger? Of course,
not! So, don’t chew gum at Mass before
you eat the Bread of Life. I gotta tell
you how proud I am of one teenage girl from our parish who emailed me and asked
what she should do about Mass because she would be camping on Saturday and
Sunday with friends. She decided to come
to our last-chance Mass on Sunday at 5.
That young girl is a Catholic foodie, because she didn’t want to miss a
good meal. I am also so proud of our
non-Catholics and even some Catholics who come up with their arms folded to get
a blessing because they cannot receive Communion. These folks are Catholic foodies because they
know that sometimes a healthy diet has more to do with what you DON’T eat as it
does with what you DO eat. It’s 90% diet
and only 10% exercise. So, what does all
this mean? It simply means that when it
comes to spiritual food, you only have two choices: you can be a Catholic
foodie or a culinary caveman.
By the
way, have you heard this little bit of foodie wisdom, “a minute on the lips,
but a lifetime on the hips”? Someone
jokingly said that means that kissing someone leads to more until you’re
carrying a baby on your hips! No, that’s
not it. That saying means you should
think twice about what you put into your mouth.
Good health has to do with what you eat and what you don’t eat, and
that’s true whether it’s a blueberry pancake or the Body of Christ.
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
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