Funerals and Food ~ Part One

The April-May 2017 issue of Liturgy focuses on Liturgy and Food Culture, guest-edited by Jennifer Ayres. Benjamin Stewart writes about the relationship between the funeral liturgy and the liturgy of the funeral meal, recounting scriptural references to food imagery in its connection with death and life and urging our churches to encourage meals as vital to the funeral remembrance. 

Christian funerals in North America have long been associated with food. A number of practices have been relatively widespread: food carried to the bereaved by fellow members of a congregation; the funeral communion rite; a post-funeral meal; and food traditions at the grave, including food offerings for the dead and yearly meal-sharing among the living. While its symbolism is complex and multivalent, food has proclaimed the power of life in the face of death, including through the sharing of food across the boundary of death. 

 Today, however, many of the food practices associated with Christian funerals are disappearing in dominant North American cultures. What is lost as these food practices wane? Especially given the trends toward delayed memorial services, declining communal participation in returning the dead to the earth, and replacing bodies with images on screens as the chief representation of the deceased, does the disappearance of long-standing food practices at death contribute to a larger trend in which communal, ritual engagement with embodied, earthly, mortality is receding, replaced by the ethereal and the virtual? . . . 

Prof. Stewart links food with faith in many ways throughout his essay beginning with the references in scripture to food as a metaphor.

Food may help us in the face of death to taste and see the goodness of God, and to know it as the land of the living. . . . 

 In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes his death as a single food grain dying in the earth to bear much more food. . . John represents Jesus’ death as that of a lamb slaughtered for the Passover meal: the first sighting of the earthly Jesus is announced by John the Baptist, “Behold the lamb of God.” 

 Jesus’ death in John occurs at the time of the slaughter of the lambs, and a branch of hyssop—used to sprinkle the blood of sacrificial lambs—is used to offer Jesus a drink of wine as he dies.  

 Paul reminded the community at Corinth that their eating and drinking is ongoing engagement with death: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Paul suggests that trying to separate the Christian meal from the suffering and death of the body leads not to suffering-free life but rather, in a mystical reversal, to illness and death. 

 The understanding of Christians as themselves “body of Christ” extended to striking images of food offerings in some accounts of martyrdom. Ignatius of Antioch described himself as “God’s wheat … ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ.” Polycarp, burned to death in a martyrdom remembered in Eucharistic terms, was said in his death to have the golden appearance of baking bread. 

 With the study of ancient Christian catacomb art. . . it was commonly taught that Christians pragmatically used the catacombs as a hiding place to carry out secret Eucharistic gatherings during persecutions. . . . While, as we will see below, the practice sometimes drew stern rebukes from church authorities, eating food among the tombs seems to have left lasting influences on Christian practice. 

Further remarks about this important window into Christian witness will be offered on March 24. Check back!

Benjamin M. Stewart is the Gordon A. Braatz associate professor of worship and director of advanced studies at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago.

Benjamin M. Stewart, “Food and Funerals: Why Meals Matter for Christian Mortality and How We Might Respond Gustatorily to Changing Death Practices,” Liturgy 32, no. 2 (2017): 52-61.

A Liturgical Pattern of Joy – 24 January 2016 – Third Sunday after the Epiphany

The readings from Luke and Nehemiah show us people at worship. What do we see? A gathering, a reading from the holy book, a commentary on what is read, and at least in Nehemiah, a feast and a sending to those who have nothing.

What shall we make of this? As narrative, as history, as poetry, as the depiction of a one-time event – whatever the the actuality, whatever the rhetorical offering – scripture gives us an image of worship. Notice that pattern is linked to the teachings of liturgical renewal:

Gathering

Word

Meal

Sending

Finally, the people are commanded to rejoice: “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine… for this day is holy… and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Neh. 8:10)

Luke 4:14-21

Today's selection tells of Jesus at the synagogue on a Sabbath in Nazareth, where he reads a scroll that Luke cites as Isaiah 61:1–2; (4:16–19). This postexilic text from third Isaiah likely originated as “the call” of its author to proclaim an eschatological vision of a redeemed Israel.

Luke clearly senses this vision fulfilled in Jesus when he claims that Jesus concludes the reading by stating that “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21). Here we sense that Luke's Jesus is aware of his empowerment by the Spirit that descended upon him at his baptism (3:22).

While today's selection allows for the community to celebrate its understanding of Jesus as one who fulfilled messianic prophecy, preachers need to recognize that fulfillment is a secondary post-Easter interpretation that has led the church into the ideology of supersessionism that is rejected by Catholics and all mainline denominations today. – Regina Boisclair

Nehemiah 8:-13, 5-6, 8-10

This episode clearly associates Ezra with the identification of texts as sacred. It bears witness to the idea of a sacred text given by God that gained prominence early in the postexilic era (c. 400 B.C.E.) Today, most scholars sense that what Ezra may have promulgated was some rendition of Deuteronomy. Dating this event on the first of Tishri (Rosh Hashanah [v 2], the Jewish New Year) underscores the idea that something new is taking place. The setting of this episode in the square before the water gate, which allows for all persons to be present including those ritually defiled, suggests that whatever Ezra's role, the issue of mixed marriages was resolved for the moment. Both men and women voice an amen of ascent that is reinforced with uplifted hands and prostration. – Regina Boisclair

Read this scene with care. Notice that the people beg to hear the scripture, are deeply moved, accept responsibility for disobedience, and then obey Ezra's command to celebrate.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

The people gathered around Nehemiah and around Jesus in the temple are from a different era than our own, yet they remain close to us. Paul gives us a way to understand our relations with our ancestors and ourselves.

Although Paul stresses the unity of the community, he does not consider all equal. Just as he considers parts of the body more honorable than others (vv 22–24), he ranks for the church: apostles, prophets, teachers, then he lists miracles, healing, assistance, leadership, and tongues (v 28). Stressing that none have all charisms (vv 29–30) he calls all to seek the greater gifts (12:31) that will identify those that build up the body (14:4–5). – Regina Boisclair

The story of Ezra and his people serves as a reminder of the humanness of our biblical brothers and sisters. It is the type of story that enables us to relate to them in their pain, remorse, and hope for a brighter future. It might also create a thirst for churchgoers to expand their knowledge and understanding of the wide variety of stories and lessons held within the Bible, and create a deeper kinship with those whose stories offer a snapshot of life in centuries past.

When viewed in the full context of last Sunday's epistle lesson, today's lesson from Corinthians refers to the ability to interpret scripture, and also serves as an affirmation of all members of the body of Christ. Therefore it fits in nicely with the theme of knowing, understanding, and celebrating the fullness of our faith tradition.

Carol J. Noren

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic theologian, is professor of religious studies, Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage.

Carol J. Noren, a United Methodist pastor, is the Wesley W. Nelson professor of homiletics at North Park Theological Seminary. She served chuches as pastor in Minnesota for twenty years.

Homily Service 40, no. 2 (2007): 45-56.