Food and nourishment are central to our Gospel reading today.
First Jesus reveals himself to his disciples by preparing and sharing with them a simple breakfast he had cooked around a charcoal fire. Second, later in the passage, as Jesus commissions Simon Peter to feed and tend his lambs and his sheep. Two contrasting but linked images of food and nourishment.
On one hand we should not be surprised to find these images and stories of food in this passage from John’s Gospel. As this Gospel draws to a close with this chapter, these images remind of the number of times in which Jesus practically uses food and water to share his message, and then uses the language and imagery of nourishment to communicate the truth he shares with us. So what is happening here?
Well one reading could be that these images and uses of nourishment are used to communicate something of the abundance and grandeur of God’s love for us in Jesus. For instance in the first of Jesus’ signs – the miracle at the wedding at Cana – it is not just the transformation of the water into wine we are asked to notice, but the sheer abundance of this transformation.
Another reading is that the language of food and nourishment points us to the deeper spiritual nourishment we receive in Jesus, that nourishment we will receive this altar today. As many commentators have noted, John’s Gospel is the only Gospel which does not include an account of Jesus sharing the bread and wine at the last supper. But that is not to say that the image of the Eucharist does not suffuse John’s Gospel. All through the John’s Gospel Jesus speaks of himself as the “bread of life” and the “water of life” – that in him we literally find the nourishment we need to find eternal life.
There is though another interpretation of this language of food and nourishment which I would like to explore this morning. That when Jesus uses and speaks of food, he is asking us to attend very deeply not to just a sign or a metaphor, but to the thing in front of us, to the food and nourishment we need, we all need, to thrive and flourish in our lives. And to the spiritual dimension to this practical need.
There is a pressing need to us to explore this theme at this time. We are, whether we choose to notice it or not, standing of the edge of a food crisis not simply within this country, but across the world. The crisis in Ukraine has merely sought to exacerbate a crisis which our farming communities have been facing for some time, that the underlying costs of food production have in some cases doubled or tripled in recent times.
Added to this we have become accustomed to cheap food. This might seem a strange claim to make as we all face a cost-of-living crisis. But in real terms our food costs are about one third of the same costs in the 1950s.
This revolution in cheap food – supported by changes in farming methods and the increased use of scientifically developed fertilisers and crops – has not come without a cost. Increasingly we are being made aware of the ecological cost of this more intensive use of our land.
These three factors – the immediate challenge to farming, the downward pressure on food producers for cheap food, and the ecological cost of these practices – are coming together into a crisis which will affect us all.
One person who has thought deeply about this is the Cumbrian farmer and author James Rebanks. In his recent book English Pastoral – an inheritance he recounts his own journey in farming, from his earlier enthusiasm for the supposed benefits of efficiency in farming to a realisation of the ecological – and one might even say spiritual – damage this was causing.
The cause of this, he argues, is deeply woven into the assumptions of modern society. As the modern world has developed over the last few centuries we have become dislocated from the world around us. But this comes at a cost, as he says at one point bluntly:
We live on earth; we cannot float above it like angels or separate ourselves from it entirely.
It is common to think that a retreat to the rural – like television programmes which encourage us to “escape to the country” – is somehow an escape from the realities of the modern world. In fact, the opposite is true. Everything we do has an effect on the rural landscapes we treasure – how we shop, how we eat, how we vote. All of us have a part to play in this.
For Rebanks this revelation has led to a fundamental transformation of the form and practices of his Lake District farm: allowing the return or crop rotation; the use of different grazing and breeds of sheep and cattle for this grazing; the reestablishment of natural watercourses; the planting of trees. And the transformation has been dramatic, with the return to a biodiversity in flora and fauna, otters in the streams, and a rejuvenation to the soil of the land of his farm, degraded by years of supposedly “efficient” farming which no longer need the chemicals and pesticides that add such costs to our farming economy.
Although he does not use this language, this has a spiritual dimension to it as well. In one part of the book describing the effect of the life of his farm on a boy visiting with his school from a distant town. Through the day the troubled, silent and timid boy is gently brought to life by his encounter with the life and diversity of the farm. Although his book titles this vision a utopia, the reality Rebanks says is a little more realistic. As he says:
One of the best ways to create a better rural landscape is to mobilise the farmers, and other country people, working with what is left of their old culture of stewardship, and tapping into their love and pride in their land. We can build a new English Pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.
This is something we can all be part of. As he says later in his book, famers:
have to rely on the shopping and voting choices of the rest of us to support and protect nature friendly, sustainable agriculture.
How can we do this – given the challenges all of us face in the cost of living and the pressures of everyday living. As James Rebanks’ says at one point: “who is rich enough to be that holy?”.
Well perhaps one place for us to start is with the image we have of Jesus in our Gospel today. Here the food he shares with us is not simply metaphor for our spiritual life. The food which nourishes us, and the practical everyday choices we make about that food, should be part of our spiritual life and wellbeing.
As we think about the food, we eat we might consider the value, the cost, and flavour of the food we buy. But do we think about how the food we buy will nourish us deeply, not simply in ourselves, but in how the production of that food will nourish the creation of which that food is the chief product, a creation which of which we are part.
These are choices with a spiritual as well as practical dimension. This can be as simple moving – if you can – to a local fruit and veg box scheme and not rely on what Tesco has flown in from Spain or North Africa. It might mean eating less meat, but what meat we eat coming from local sources and breeds. It might mean cultivating some land we might have – in a garden or allotment – to grow our own produce.
This is not easy, and it will not be quick. As I was writing this sermon and reflecting on the choices I have made this last week I can say that I have singularly failed on all of the suggestions that I have just set out.
But this is something we must do. As James Rebanks concludes in his book:
The old social contract between farmers and society is stretched to breaking point. We need a new deal…that brings farming and ecology together…Some of the solutions are small and individual…other require big political and structural changes…that see…[the]… land and what happens on it as being at the heart of building a more just and decent country.
As we hear today those words of Jesus to feed his lambs and sheep, we must hear this not only as a spiritual call, but as a spiritual call to practical action to nurture, nourish and transform God’s creation for all.
That through this spiritual and practical transformation we might recognise the food we eat in the way Jesus used food to feed his disciples. Not simply as an image for the life-transforming power of God’s love he brings, but the real and tangible food he shared with them in that beachside breakfast to strengthen them to begin the work of building the new creation he brings.
