Food and Cheer
Recently a newer attendee at Christ Church commented to my wife, “This church sure eats together a lot." I suppose that is true. From Wednesday night dinners, both in the Atrium and on the lawn, to C-Groups, to that food that appears at Bible Studies and session meetings, to gathering for breakfast and hosting one another for meals in the home, we do eat together a fair bit! As we noted in kicking off our Ephesians study, there is something about food that both identifies us and connects us to one another. In the shared vulnerability of hunger we draw close in ways that we might otherwise not.
One of the great creations of J.R.R. Tolkien are the merry little hobbits, a people that value good food, drink and good company. It was the very ordinariness of their delight that often protected them from falling prey to more sinister hungers. Tolkien illustrates this in The Hobbit through the character of Thorin Oakenshield. Thorin was the the leader of the band of dwarves intent on reclaiming their treasure from the dragon, Smaug. While they do recover the treasure, it is not without the treasure first grabbing hold of Thorin's heart and twisting it with greed. Along the way he becomes dark and bitter, and drives away friends that he should have kept close. Thorin does have a change of heart, though. As he lays dying, he says this to Bilbo, the hobbit, "“There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
The Preacher of Ecclesiastes gives us a similar teaching, "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? (Ecclesiastes 2:24–25)". Some have seen these so-called "Epicurean statements" of Ecclesiastes (3:I2, I3; 3:22; 5:18, I9; 8:15; 9:7-9) as a sort of throw up your hands, there is no point to life, might as well enjoy it kind of sentiment. Such statements do characterize that Greek hedonistic philosophy, but then one remembers that Solomon lived long before the Epicureans so we must be careful to read their meaning into these statements. When we take these statements in context of the rest of Ecclesiastes, Solomon does in fact seem to be saying, in all seriousness, 'Fear God and keep his commandments (12:13), and enjoy the little things in life that he has put before us’ — like eating together. So join us Wednesday night, or in a C-Group, or wherever as we continue to grab the casserole, gobble the cookies, and grow closer to one another even as we grow closer to the Lord.
This Sunday we will be joined by Great Lakes Presbytery church planter Ryan McVicar. About 10 years ago Ryan moved his family to the Detroit area and began a work that became New City Presbyterian Church (Ferndale). This past summer he stepped down from that work to begin a new plant under direction of the GLP in Ann Arbor. Ryan will be opening the word for us this Sunday, plugging into our Ephesians series by looking at chapter 1:7-10.