I would like to share two of Fr. Richard
Rohr’s daily meditations from this weekend, as I think they are particularly
relevant to the Franciscan Action Network’s efforts to build Franciscan Solidarity
Tables in cities across the United States. I have shared some commentary in between as
well.
Fr. Richard Rohr shared in his daily meditation on July
21st:
Again and again,
Jesus demonstrated one of the simplest, surest ways to connect with others
across differences: share a meal. Somehow in eating together our barriers
lower. We sit across from and beside one another, at the same level. Perhaps we
recognize the familiar in each other, the universal need to be fed.
He encourages us
to “participate in some form of breaking bread… as a contemplative practice, a
way to open your heart and be deeply present to someone else.” He then shares,
The People’s
Supper, a nonprofit “building community through better conversations,” offers a
helpful framework for purposeful meals. Their goal is “to repair the breach in
our interpersonal relationships across political, ideological, and identity
differences, leading to more civil discourse. And, we plan to do it in the most
nourishing way we know—over supper!”
This isn’t about
a political party, or what is or isn’t happening in Washington. It’s about us,
and our relationship to one another. Too often, we exist in echo chambers and
see each other as monoliths: one-sided stereotypes who can be reduced to a
single word or phrase.
Instead, we want
to go beneath the headlines, to see each other as real people with real
struggles, real fears, real hopes, and real dreams.
Suppers are a
place where we can come together over one of humanity’s most ancient and simple
rituals. A place where we can share meaningful stories, good food, and a sense
of community. A place where we can build understanding and trust.
We invite you to pull up a chair.
The People's Supper helps hosts create a safe, comfortable space. You don't have to be a professional chef! Potlucks - where everyone brings something to share - are the best way to build community.
This is precisely what the Franciscan Action Network is working to
build: Franciscan Solidarity Tables where all are welcome and we can build
understanding and trust and work for justice for the marginalized. This frequently means engaging on political
issues, which Fr. Richard quotes Peter Armstrong in saying that this is necessary
to do for us as Christians to be able to claim we “have anything to do with
Jesus.”
We need not seek
division and further polarization; however, we can continue to engage in tough
debate and conversation across dividing lines, expressing our own deeply held
convictions and being willing to be changed by our encounter with the other,
because that is the way that Jesus engaged with others.
He also quotes Parker Palmer on the topic:
When we forget
that politics is about weaving a fabric of compassion and justice on which
everyone can depend, the first to suffer are the most vulnerable among us—our
children, our elderly, our mentally ill, our poor, and our homeless. As they
suffer, so does the integrity of our democracy.
On July
22 in his daily meditation, Fr. Richard discusses “The Shape of the Table.” He
starts with the Eucharist’s relevance to the conversation about bringing people
together around a table in today’s context: “the Eucharist is an invitation
to socially experience the shared presence of God, and to be
present in an embodied way.”
First, let me share some context. In Jesus’ time, the dominant
institution was the kinship system: the family, the private home. That’s why
early Christians gathered in house churches, much different from the typical
parish today. In Matthew’s Gospel the word house is used many
times. Jesus is always going in and out of houses (as in 8:14, 9:10). What
happened around the tables in those houses shaped and named the social order.
Table friendship ends up defining how we see friendship in general.
Jesus often used domestic settings to rearrange the social order.
Nowhere was that truer than with the meal—with whom, where, and what he ate.
This is still true today, more than we might imagine. (Another example of Jesus
changing the social order is in the relationship between employers and
workers.) Jesus’ constant use of table relationships is perhaps his most
central re-ritualization of what family means. Note that he is always trying to
broaden the circle (see Luke 14:7-24 for three good examples). Jesus brought
this all to fullness in his “last supper” with “the twelve.” This was not to
emphasize male fellowship, but the full quorum of the twelve tribes of
Israel. (I know it does not look that way to us now, but the Eucharistic
meal was from the very beginning a gathering of both women and men, which shows
how Christians understood equality.)
Jesus didn’t want his community to have a social
ethic; he wanted it to be a social ethic. Their very way of
eating and organizing themselves was to be an affront to the system of
dominance and power. They were to live in a new symbolic universe, especially
symbolized by what we now call open table fellowship.
This has a particular relevance to food justice and climate change:
In all cultures, sharing food is a complex interaction that
symbolizes social relationships and defines social boundaries almost more than
any other daily event. Whom you eat with defines whom
you don’t eat with. Certain groups of people eat certain kinds
of food. Through our choices and behavior at table, we name and identify
ourselves.
…today a vegetarian (or even vegan) diet has become a conscious choice
for many because they’ve studied the politics of food: who eats meat and who
can’t eat meat; what eating meat is doing not only to our health but even to
the planet. Researchers surmise that the meat-heavy Western diet contributes to
one-fifth of global emissions on our planet. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh writes: “As a
spiritual family and a human family, we can all help avert climate change with
the practice of mindful eating. Going vegetarian may be the most effective way
to stop climate change.”
(While overall
there are climate benefits to eating less meat, there are also health
implications to consider in going completely vegetarian, and it is not
something everyone should do. However,
the majority of people could eat less meat and adopt a “reducetarian” diet for climate and health
benefits. There also a host of complex
economic, cultural, and social factors to consider to be able to answer the
question, “Who sits at my table?” with integrity….to be covered in future dialogue.)
Another element
of breaking bread together speaks to the statement that eating together makes about
immigration policies: when citizens and immigrant families eat together, we are
working to keep families together rather
than break them apart. This is the essence of the movement “Break Bread Not Families.” Breaking bread together with immigrant
families not only allows us to get to know different peoples’ cultures and
cuisines, but also gives us an opportunity to learn about the stories of what
brought people to immigrate in the first place. Were they seeking refuge or
asylum, escaping tyrant governments or violent gangs in their home communities? Were they forced off of their land because
multinational companies started pillaging the land so they could make a profit
off of its resources, thereby leaving the families without a means to grow
food, access clean water, and make a living?
Coming together around the table allows us to hear stories from our
immigrant brothers and sisters and then see if there is anything we can do to
help, both in their current situation such as with food, shelter, or
healthcare, as well as the situations of their home countries, such as through
working with Franciscans International and engaging at the United Nations.
In September 2017
when the New York City Franciscan Solidarity Table preliminarily began meeting,
three of the topic areas people expressed interest in engaging on were
immigration, health/food justice, and climate change. There is certainly overlap between each of
these issues; coming together around a table allows us to discuss the areas of
overlap as well as how we can make progress on achieving justice and continue bringing
more people to the table and building community.
Kelly Moltzen, OFS, MPH, RD is a board member of the
Franciscan Action Network, program manager of Bronx Health REACH, and 2015 Re:Generate
Fellow of the Food, Health and Ecological Well-Being Program of Wake Forest University’s
School of Divinity.
