Today’s devotional is adapted from Masao Takenaka’s book, God is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith. Enjoy some food for thought!

“In the Bible, there is a significant expression of God’s love towards all people. It evokes the symbol of the daily sustenance of people. Jesus said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” (John 6:51). He taught us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Furthermore, Jesus often illustrated the coming of the kin(g)dom by the story of a banquet. To it are invited all people from the East and West. They are invited to share the common meal. And the night before he was betrayed, he took bread, and broke it, and distributed it among the disciples, saying: “This is my body given for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24).

We tend to consider wheat, or bread, as the symbol of daily food everywhere. But to many Asian people bread is a foreign product. It comes from abroad. We Japanese had never seen this kind of food until the Portuguese missionaries and traders brought it to our country about the middle of the sixteenth century. In fact, we still use the Portuguese term for bread, pan, in Japanese. The most popular indigenous food has been, and still is, rice.”

…

“It is quite appropriate for us, therefore, to say, ‘God is rice’, rather than ‘God is bread’. Kim Chi Ha, the well-known Korean poet… has written the following poem:

Heaven is rice
As we cannot go to heaven alone
We should share rice with one another
As all share the light of the heavenly stars
We should share and eat rice together
Heaven is rice
When we eat and swallow rice
Heaven dwells in our body
Rice is heaven
Yes, rice is the matter
We should eat together

It certainly reminds us of the holy communion, which is the occasion to share our daily food together with all people as the symbol of eternal life. This has a social implication as well as a spiritual meaning. The Chinese character for peace (wa) literally means harmony. It derives from two words: one is rice and the other is mouth. It means that unless we share rice together with all people, we will not have peace. When every mouth in the whole inhabited world is filled with daily food, then we can have peace on earth.”