[Note: I didn't go completely by this written version when preaching—I lost track of my notes while focusing on making Hummus, proving that I shouldn't host a cooking show—the content, though not the delivery is largely reflected here]
It must have been a day like today. The crowds, like those gathered for the Garlic Festival, thousands strong. A caravan of sorts, a variety of tents and carts, people carrying whatever supplies they need however they could, gathering together after another day of pilgrimage.
God’s people have been following cloud by day and fire by night on their trek through wilderness and mountain. They’re following smoke signals and some guy who looks vaguely like Charlton Heston until they camp for the night, perhaps in a park by the lake.
At first it’s a party. The excitement of it all, escaping legions of chariots, horse and rider thrown into the sea. They sing, they dance, they celebrate.
As they make camp in those first days, the people share their wares, their hand-made soaps and carved bowls, their rare artisanal Sea Salt and freshly fried mini-donuts. And yet over time, whatever supplies they had brought run out. Over time, they forget what they left behind, the pain, the suffering, the sleepless nights.
There they are, wandering the wilderness, and nobody seemed to remember the miracle of their liberation. They are no longer enslaved. They are no longer being forced to make bricks out of thin air. The task masters are long gone, and their minds are left to wander.
All they can think about is the garlic.
"Do you remember the Garlic," they ask? "Do you remember the meat, the fish, the cucumbers and melons, the leeks, the onions, and oh, dear Lord, the garlic?" You can see them salivating. You can hear the lust in their voices. “But now we have nothing,” they say. “We have nothing but this manna to look at.” Their stomachs turn. “We’re so sick of it,” they say, “that we look at it and lose our appetites.”
I'll trade my freedom for a bulb, my firstborn for a clove.
In this morning’s reading from Numbers, the only place in the Bible that mentions garlic, we encounter a vegetable so transformative, so seductive, that God’s people consider trading their freedom for one more taste.
Here in town for today’s garlic festival, we know that the ancient Hebrews could get a little grouchy. We know this because we have the same tendencies: to lament when what we have seems less than enough, to struggle to see the wider picture of our blessings alongside our trials. And sometimes, sometimes even the good things—those things that brought delight and sustenance in one time—become stand-ins for our discomfort with change.
Even when that change is the change of liberation. Even when we are being freed from one way of being, a past and a system that causes harm to us and to others. Once we may have been lost. Now we may be found. But that doesn’t mean we don’t look back—perhaps through rose-coloured glasses—for a past that was decidedly not as wonderful (at least for all of us) as we remember.
This morning I went searching, out in the morning dew, for Manna. When my search came up empty I went to the store, to see what I could find. The best I could do were these mini-naans and some chips. And so I brought them, and a food processor, and a few ingredients.
[Make hummus as you talk]
Throughout the scriptures, food comes up again and again. Not just as fuel for the journey (although that’s some of it), but also as a place of relationship. A place of connection. A place of transformation. Not because the table is a place where we seek to change one another, but because in sitting with one another, in our shared humanity, we encounter something of one another, something of the divine spark within, and we leave changed.
And so this morning, I want to invite you to reflect on your best experience of a shared meal. As you close your eyes, as you enter into that scene, I invite you to remember the sounds, remember the smells. What images come to mind? Who was there? What did you talk about?
[Dwell in those images for awhile, and add the next ingredients]
And now I want to invite you to share. What emotions does that experience stir up for you? What does it feel like in your body? What does that experience feel like?
[Members of the congregation shared these feelings—what would you add?]
- Joy
- Warmth
- Tingling
- Connection
- Playfulness
- Electricity
For many of us, it was easy to imagine a moment, a favourite experience of a shared meal. What’s more, we had a distinctive sense of how it felt. For some of us, we could remember not only in our heads, but also in our bodies. The warmth. The tingling. That sense of connection.
And of course we know that not every meal feels that way. Sometimes you’re just trying to get a meal on the table. Maybe it’s for yourself. Maybe it’s your family. Nothing fancy, just the same thing you eat every Monday. And sometimes it feels that way when we come to church, too.
Sometimes we show up, and it’s nothing special.
And sometimes, it’s like that moment that Cleopas and his friend have with Jesus in their home, after their walk from Emmaus. They sit down and share a simple meal, talking about deep things, difficult things, they tell stories and ask questions and try to make sense of it all. It’s this amazing encounter with Jesus, and looking back they take notice:
Weren’t our hearts burning within us?
That's the kind of heartburn I'm looking for! I want to invite you forward to take some hummus—hummus I made with garlic from our garden, garlic that won third prize at the Rossland fall fair just yesterday. I know it’s not New Denver level garlic, but it’s good!
Come forward and take some hummus, take some naan or chips, and reflect. When we gather here, how might people taste and see that the Lord is Good? How might they see it or experience it in how we gather. How we take care of one another? How might they experience it in the ways we both accept and extend the invitation to Jesus’ table, the table where our hearts burn brightly within?
What would our gatherings—what would our common life—look like if when we gathered, we did so setting the table for the best experience of a shared meal. What are the characteristics of such a gathering?
A place where you can be yourself. A place where you know the rules of engagement. A place where you feel not just accepted, but honoured and welcomed. A place where you are made to feel at home, introduced, connected. A place where it is possible to open up, to encounter others who are willing to open up, to share their stories—not in a posture of bravado, but of vulnerability and openness to God's presence.
As we are sharing now, we will continue to gather around the Lord’s table. A table where Jesus gathered with his friends in deep vulnerability. He sets the stage by washing their feet. Making them feel at home. The food is made. It is blessed, broken, and shared. It’s not perfect. Not at all. But it starts with a table set with love. A table set for one and all.
That is the table that Jesus sets for us. And it’s the table we are called to set. Wherever we are. In the wilderness. In the valley of the shadow of death. On mountaintops and lakeside parks. At Garlic Festivals. At community events. In this place, and in our homes.
May we live in such a way that extends God’s table so that all of us are nourished in heart and mind, in soul and in body, by the love of God that knows no end.
Amen.
