“This bread we have baked represents each one of us in this family,” says the prayer we recite after baking the prosphora, or communion bread. Every time, this sort of shocks me. Fascinates me. Mildly appalls me. How can it be that altar bread represents us–how can something so sacred and central to our faith and […]
As I See It: Food Fight at the Lord’s Supper
At synod and churchwide assemblies and in many parishes the communicant is presented a menu with a variety of options: broken loaf or wheat wafers or gluten-free wafers, wine drunk from a common cup, a cup for intinction, or wine in individual containers, or a non-alcoholic beverage. The institution narratives of the Lord’s Supper in […]
Beyond Loaves and Fishes: the Church’s Role in Food Policy Discussions
Food justice is a bit of a touchy subject for me. By day, I am a mild-mannered PhD student studying Agricultural & Resource Economics. By night Sunday morning, I don a mask and cape choir robe and masquerade around as a Lutheran. Around my economist colleagues, I generally avoid discussing where I go on Sunday […]
On Being Vegan
“So, why are you vegan?” I am asked this question frequently and I dodge it almost every time. “It’s a long story,” I’ll say, or “It’s complicated,” or “Do you really want to know?” They almost never really want to know. For the persistent acquaintance, there’s a second buffer of deflecting responses. “For the same […]
Taking Food For Granted
As one about to go on a final ministry internship and then on to ordained ministry, I see the topic of food justice with kind of a grim awe. The words, when they stand next to each other, food and justice, force me to realize that the food I enjoy each day comes at more […]
An Unbroken Stream: Connecting Theology and Practice in the Fight Against Hunger
What resources can we, as Christians (and specifically Lutherans), access to help us address hunger or food justice issues? By resources I mean models or tools that inform a response. It may help to first recognize that people respond to need from various motivations. We may do so out of charity or humanitarian response. We […]
Nicaraguan Coffee a la Feminista
Coffee is the most traded good in the world behind oil, due to the fact that most coffee is grown in developing countries but consumed in developed countries1. Although coffee is part of many people’s ‘daily grind,’ most do not realize that before reaching their mug or their church coffeepot their coffee has been grown, […]
After the Harvest: A Church Journeys Beyond the Community Garden
The Missing Ingredients Trinity Lutheran Church, Nampa, Idaho’s journey with food preparation and preservation began in the kitchen. In 2010 we, like so many community gardens in Southwest Idaho, were distributing thousands of pounds of fresh produce to food banks and food pantries, our own pantry included. Looking from our cupboards full of canned and […]
Growing Home
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.1 Food is medicine. When you are not properly nourished you cannot think, reason, or behave normally. When you are properly fed you have the ability to operate at your full physical and mental potential. Many in our communities are not operating at their full potential […]
On the Way: Bread Enough and to Spare
In the realm of human life, hunger is omnipotent. It can level a city, throttle a kingdom, halt an army, empty a countryside, stunt a growing body, shrivel a grown one, and wrench God out of our heaven. Images of hunger are terrifying, largely for the suffering they portray but also, I think, because they […]
Are Food Deserts Just a Mirage?
“The South Side really has so much beauty,” she told me. “The old buildings, the lakefront.” “I’m acclimated to the neighborhood now. But not everyone is able to.” We were speaking of Woodlawn, Lyletta and I. She’s lived there 11 years, she knows everything about her neighborhood, she’s written about it extensively, she can’t afford […]
Food and Justice
For as often as we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. This beloved phrase from the Eucharistic liturgy reminds us that God’s word is present at the heart of our actions and rituals. As Lutherans, we teach that Christ’s death intersects with all the […]