Oakland City Church is being planted for two simple reasons - love for Jesus and love for Oakland.
http://www.oaklandcitychurch.org/

Monday, January 24, 2011

Article for Sunday's Potluck Discussion

How OCC Eats

A Reflection on our Beliefs and Practice of Eating at OCC

Food: Our City and Our Moment

Food matters in our city. It matters in ways that we think carefully about and it matters in ways that we don’t want to think about. The East Bay is home to some of the most forward thinking on food. From Alice Waters[1] and Michael Pollan[2] to the Slow Food Movement[3], the Locavore movement[4], and proliferation of Farmer’s Markets, there is greater attention given to how we eat, what we eat and where we get our food from. People are realizing that food matters to who we are.

Conversely, there is the other side of food. Large swathes of Oakland have liquor stores on every corner and not a supermarket for miles. The cost and availability of groceries along with the availability of unhealthy, even poisonous alternatives means that many in our city are unable to sustain even a basic healthy diet. “In the flatlands, where the median household income is $32,000, there’s an average of one supermarket per 93,126 residents, according to a 2009 report by the Hope Collaborative. The same report found that in the Oakland Hills, where the median household income is over $58,000, there’s an average of one supermarket per 13,778 residents.”[5]

Childhood obesity and other health problems also plague the city. While local schools in the OUSD are working to provide healthier lunches, Alameda County Food Bank is experiencing its lowest stocks in years. Food for many families is one more source of stress.

We can also say briefly, since the point is obvious, that food is a deep identifier of culture and economic status. Simply imagine the acceptability of walking into certain environments with a Starbucks Frappuccino in a paper cup or with an extra large McDonald’s ice tea. Caloric differences aside[6], we all sense the cultural judgments each would convey.

In many ways, food in Oakland is a ‘Tale of Two Cities’. And when it comes to food, it is the best of times and the worst of times. Food, like money, education and crime, divides our city. What would the gospel say about this?

Before we answer that question, we must also say that food is the great unifier – and that matters too. We all eat. But more than that, food is a common language. A table is a table. A meal is a meal. An invitation to share a meal is, in most cases, an honor. Even as we look through a diverse socio-economic lens on food, we remember also that food is not a grand idea, but an everyday reality. Whether it’s a table for one, or a crowded kitchen, it’s around food that we most powerfully experience family and friendship as well as loneliness. We may eat Top Ramen or the latest experiment from Epicurious.com, but it’s around food that we taste and feel the mundane repetition and glorious variety of life. A microwave meal, a drive-thru or a slowcooker says a lot about the busyness of our life. With food we show love to our children, learn wisdom from our parents, and open our lives to friends and strangers. With food we tell the story of our culture. Food tells people who we are. Food is not just nutrition or diet – it is an expression of our lives – our pace, our wealth, our relationships and our commitments.

But food brings us together in other ways. One of the most common ways we interact with people of a different economic level than ourselves is through food. A beggar asks for a handout. A waiter asks for the customers’ order. A street vendor hands the pedestrian a burrito. Speaking culturally, many of us have loved an ethnic cuisine before we have loved someone of that ethnicity. So, it is also true to say that food can unite. And what does the gospel say about this?

Our Gospel: The Connection Between God and Gut

Broadly speaking, a deep physicality pervades Scripture. Our spirits are deeply connected to our bodies, each affecting the other. The world we touch, taste and smell is a reminder of a good God. This connection is only strengthened by the appearance of Jesus, the Son of God in the flesh. Scripture embraces the goodness of creation, including food and the process of growing, cooking and eating. It is, in God’s own word, good.

Yet even as we see the positive connection between real food and real spirit, we must also take with seriousness the potentially negative correlation. Physical hunger can crush a person’s spirit. Rejection from the table can translate to real spiritual despair. Paul, in his discussion of meat offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8-10 is able to say: “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” (8:8) But if food is eaten in a way that shames or discourages a brother… this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.” (8:11) In short, Paul can say “whether you eat or drink… do it all to the glory of God.”

IN SHORT: Who we eat with and how we eat matters to God. It is never neutral.

Specifically, I see 4 major threads in Scripture that help us see the connection between food and the gospel of God. 1.The dependence of the people of God on the provision of God in the wilderness (see Genesis and Exodus) 2. the legal redistribution of food for the sake of justice and joy in the law of the OT (see Deut 26 esp. and Isaiah 58) 3. Jesus use of food as a ministry tool (Luke 19), a teaching moment, a kingdom parable (Luke 14), and supreme image of his relationship with his people ( Lord’s Supper) 4 The role of food in the NT church as a signifier of unity and gospel living. (1 Cor 11 and Acts 13)

In these threads I see 4 principles that we as a church can address and apply.

1. Eating should be joyful and builds community: Food should be a cause for celebration. It is nourishing and delightful. In Genesis we hear that the plants in the garden are pleasant to the sight and good for food. The OT tithe was really a feast for everyone. Jesus clearly loves a party and sometimes invites himself over to dinner! Jesus cooks for his disciples to celebrate his resurrection and becomes known in the ‘breaking of the bread’.

2. Eating is a reminder of our dependence on God and on each other: Deuteronomy 26:5-15 teaches the necessity of remembering and generosity. A strong theme throughout the Old Testament is the tendency of humans to forget our dependence on God when things are going well for us. Our dependence is a unifying reality which binds rich and poor together – we simply need to acknowledge. The Old Testament remedy to this chronic forgetfulness is a regular feast with a liturgy ‘A wandering Aramean was my father…’ and an invitation to all the community to share in it.

Who We Eat With Is More Important than How Well We Eat: Jesus makes this explicit and implicit in his ministry. In Luke for example there are 19 instances of Jesus sharing food. In Luke 14 he speaks specifically about the need to invite everyone into the feast. Radical hospitality is close to the heart of God. We are judged by who comes to our table. And the wedding feast of the lamb in Revelation 19 is notable for its diverse guest list.

Food is a Crucial Way to Express Justice: Hunger is a spiritual. Connected here is the way hunger brings shame, and hospitality brings honor. To invite the hungry to your table is to honor them. To let the hungry go unfed is to shame them. And those who insult the poor insult God. We cannot claim to love the hungry unless we feed them. We cannot claim to have fellowship without table fellowship.

Practice: How a Value become a Virtue

Values are just opinions unless we have the shared strength to live out those opinions. That’s what virtue is.

So, how then, should we live? As a church of people who ‘don’t belong together, gathered around Jesus’ how do we approach food? Can we say that we are truly gathered together, if we are not gathered around food? Can we truly say that we belong, if we don’t sit around the same table? Moreover, as a church of people who exist for the sake of the people who don’t belong, how do we extend belonging through a shared meal? How do we extend joyful eating to the hungry?

How do we share table fellowship? In a church where people have differing cultural expectations of food and differing resources (some – more time, some – more money, others – more skill) how do we come together? How does food become a strengthening of our fellowship and joy together? How do we use the strength of our food values to help us do it?

How do we offer food to the city? Do we give money, give food, serve food, or share meals? Each of these steps is closer to the poor than the next – from handout to hospitality. How close do we want to come to those in need? What values can we draw on to sustainably care for the hungry.



[1] Waters’ work and philosophy is based on the principle that access to sustainable, fresh, and seasonal food is a right, not a privilege, and believes that the food system needs to be “good, clean, and fair”. Waters also serves as a public policy advocate on the national level for school lunch reform and universal access to healthy, organic foods, and the impact of her organic and healthy food revolution is typified by Michelle Obama’s White House organic vegetable garden.

[2] Pollan is the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and other books and articles. His main theses are that we should return to eating foods that our grandparents would recognize; We should shop around the perimeter of the supermarket where fruit and fresh foods are kept, rather than the middle, frozen or processed food sections; Finally and most bluntly: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

[3] The Wall Street Journal highlighted urban farming in Oakland in its article on the Slow Food Movement in the US. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121926371492857735.html.

[4] See http://oaklandlocal.com/tags/locavore

[5] See http://oaklandnorth.net/few-food-choices/

[6] Or not. A Chocolate Triple Thick® Shake (21 fl oz cup) is 770 cal. A Venti White Chocolate Blended Creme Frappuccino with whip will get you 760 cal. – so, there’s that.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

What does it mean to love the city?

Interesting view of 'loving the city' from an African American perspective. It challenged me on some approaches. Anthony Bradley is a thoughtful Reformed pastor in NY. Love to hear your feedback. Here is his conclusion:

"As such, one would expect that on Sunday a church that's really "loving the city" making claims about "renewing the city," and so on, would have pews filled with single black and Latino adults, single moms, pregnant women, ex-cons, neighborhood children, substance abusing addicts, HIV/AIDS patients, the unemployed, and so on, in addition to those elites who have the opposite providence in order to transfer human capital and demonstrate solidarity with those who are disadvantaged."

http://bradley.chattablogs.com/archives/2011/01/on-loving-2-ver.html