Philippians 4:10-14 and Exodus 16:4, 13-15

Surprising Nourishment by Chelsea Page

On Friday morning, I got to tag along with Eddie like some “embedded reporter” as he went to the restaurant supply warehouse to buy all the yummy produce for the Breakfast Buffet. I wanted to know where the food came from! It was fun as I looked at the boxes of ingredients and thought about the farms they had come from and the workers who had grown, harvested, and brought them here for sale. Truly the Breakfast Buffet feast did not just appear on the lawn on Saturday morning, gathering with the dew. The food nourishing our community was a labor of love. I live here next to the church and after getting used to Parkview being quiet during the week, I was astonished by the number of hours people logged setting up for this extraordinary Breakfast Buffet event. Eddie and Yvonne have been here late practically every night this week, to the point where I actually started having dreams that strangers were breaking into the church and sleeping there overnight.

At the produce depot I also noticed that we were right by Loaves and Fishes, where a Parkview crew serves lunch to the homeless every month. It was on my mind anyway because the last time I had been to a big food warehouse was when I used to pick up produce from the food bank in Albuquerque to distribute at a free grocery store in the parking lot of the homeless shelter that Marcus and I ran. While much of the food that is served to the homeless is donated and served to them free, it too is also a labor of love. It doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. In fact, when our Parkview group was serving there this month, a young man who served in our buffet line had been there since 7 am cooking to create the dishes we served!

A friend of mine likes to say that “food is God’s love made edible.” The food we have received in our families as an act of love and caregiving is “comfort food,” the food we will always love. There is a lot of love in the act of sharing of Eddie’s Crew, and the food they serve is comfort food par excellence. It’s why people come back to the event year after year. Perhaps the Manna in the desert became comfort food to the Israelites, symbol of God’s love for them?

A few days ago, a few of us from Parkview went to the local Sikh temple in West Sacramento for a community open house and dinner. Five hundred people answered the Sikh’s invitation to practice interfaith cooperation by learning about their religion and standing with them against hate crimes. We spent two interesting hours in their temple hearing speeches about their religious founders, scriptures, hymns, clergy, their faith in One God and their beliefs in egalitarianism and inalienable human dignity. But to me the most powerful moment was when we moved into their community kitchen designed to feed 2,000 worshippers. There is something about being served beautiful food in a house of God, whether at the Sikh temple or here at our beloved Parkview, that says “you matter, you are loved. We love and welcome you because we believe you are beloved by God. Exactly as you are, hungry and here. You, yes, YOU.”

So unlike Manna which just dropped from the sky, providing food nowadays is a lot of work, but it is a work of love. What does this work of love actually accomplish in people’s lives? Is it as fleeting as Manna, digested and gone? Or can it be of lasting significance? How would our world be different if this love were the norm? Who would be surprised?

In our letter today from Paul to the Philippians, Paul is talking about a labor of love the Philippians made on his behalf. Remember Epaphroditus from a few weeks ago? He had brought Paul money and food from the Philippian community while Paul was in prison, and now Paul is sending him back with a letter that thanks them. They are not a rich church, but they have sent their resources to help Paul and also in the past gave him money for him to bring to his poorer churches. Paul commends the Philippians for sharing their resources. “You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone.” (v. 15)

But what’s this he says in addition to thanking them? “Thanks, but I’m not referring to being in need, for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” Paul mentions a “secret” of having little and having plenty. What is this secret?

I think the secret, or the key to understanding Paul’s contentment, is that both states are meant to be temporary, as fleeting at Manna or morning dew. When Paul doesn’t have enough to eat, he endures, because he trusts that sooner or later he will be helped. When he has more than he needs, he knows it’s not going to last, because good times come and go, plus food has an expiration date. That’s why in the Lord’s Prayer we pray each day for our daily bread. If we get more food than we need today, it becomes leftovers that will be tomorrow’s daily bread for us or for someone else, or it becomes forgotten and spoils the atmosphere of your fridge. Leftovers will not guarantee you against hunger forever. God designed it so that even those who are stuffed full of wonderful things, as I have been these past few days at all these wonderful events—haven’t you been too? Wasn’t it wonderful? Still, we will get hungry again soon, and only the exchange and flow of a just community can match the ebb and flow of our bodies’ need for nourishment.

At the risk of sounding simplistic, this flow of community is the same thing the kids and I talked about at the table earlier; it’s called sharing. Sharing is tangible love that flows between a giver and a receiver, instigated by the giver’s problem of having more than they need and the receiver’s problem of having too little, and solves both problems at once. Paul writes about this flow when he says to the Philippians, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account.” (v. 17) Much of Paul’s traveling ministry involved taking up collections in the richer Greek churches and carrying the money to the poorer Jewish churches in Jerusalem. He saw himself as helping out all parties when he facilitated that giving, not just the poor party. The rich needed the opportunity to serve, to participate in the flow of giving and receiving.

So this week, I pray that you will find yourself surprised by gifts of unexpected, unplanned, unearned nourishment. They will be gifts from God coming to you through others, nourishing you in the same way you have fed so many as Parkview Church this past week. In fact, may the miracle of nourishment always be surprising to you, causing you to marvel at the new energy that God brings into your life when you ask and receive. Amen.