The Immovable Feast

The Christian Lawyer (Fall 2024 Issue)

The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good”; and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.

(Isaiah 41:7)

Introduction

Writing in New Lines Magazine, author Zinara Rathnayake describes a phenomenon that shaped the culture of Sri Lanka. “Short eats,” often described as a quick hunger fix, are embodied as a type of snack that has become synonymous with community and memory for the people of the region. “Each bite serves up a dose of nostalgia,” said Ranji Thangiah, a London-based food photographer and food blogger of Sri Lankan heritage. “For me, short eats hold memories of the gatherings my parents would have with relatives and friends arriving to eat, drink, discuss, debate, and attempt to solve Sri Lanka’s problems from our small living room in a suburb of London.” 

Reading this piece, I was struck by the honesty of the culinary arts. Certainly, I’ve seen the artistry of food in films like The Taste of Things from Tran Anh Hung. Or the capacity of food for constructing (and sometimes destroying) communities in shows like The Bear on Hulu. But in this article on short eats, I found another layer to the meaningful presence of food and its remedial effect on history and memory. The author writes,

During my many conversations, both within and outside Sri Lanka, it was certain that short eats are a window into the island’s social fabric. For some, it’s a full meal itself, one that momentarily fills you up. Others find home in the food. Short eats for decades have shaped the lives of those who shape them.

Short eats—such simple and inconsequential items—string together a pattern of memory and time, weaving together the social fabric of a community to create not only bonds of affections, but also a tapestry of strength and deeper awareness.

What the Bird Said

As I was thinking about short eats on an empty stomach and the role of the Church in society in the midst of Sunday service at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, I began to understand the ways food taps into our collective memory and shapes the very relationships we embody. I was reminded by a simple reality of the nature of food and the preparation it entails. Food made is a process that requires premeditation. It requires intentionality and ingredients. It requires time and space, patience and finesse. The taste remains forever the judge and witness to this process. Oftentimes what this preparation allows for is community and the creation of history that seeps into the fabric of society. It is a process by which we hone our craft, and, in this pattern, we learn to love the other in all their struggles. It allows for what Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as a two-fold effect from God to us and to our brothers. “When God was merciful to us,” he writes, “we learned to be merciful with our brethren.”^[1] Alone we are often lost to the limitations of our own capacities that in community become the opportunity for new vision. Together we hold the multifaceted vantages that come together to create the tapestry of knowledge. It is in the kitchen we hone the metaphors of grace and divine witness—even in the mundane preparation of seed and soil.

One of the most remarkable stories in the history of the Church is C.S. Lewis’ conversion. Retold in Holly Ordway’s spiritual biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, she describes the moment along Addison’s Walk where Lewis, Tolkien, and their friend Hugo Dyson took frequent walks that were filled with discussion and debate over the nature of myth and theology. Lewis, who was renowned for his knowledge of the pagan gods, had always seen the Christian story as a reiteration of the myths of old widely held to be a course of fiction. But, on one faithful walk, something changed. Something in their conversation triggered a new social reality. As Ordway recounts, “[t]hey began with discussions of myth and metaphor;” and, as their talk progressed, Lewis, who was often prone to understanding Christianity through allegorical lenses, “began to see that Christianity was primarily a story, not a system of thought, and that it had to be approached with the same imaginative embrace that enabled him to enjoy myths in general.”^[2] In the poem Tolkien wrote shortly after this incident, Ordway recounts the change she believes finally took place in Lewis. For the first time, he was able to pierce through the “endless multitude of forms” into the “real intrinsic value” of things perceived.^[3] Despite us being estranged from God, we still can tread on the shadows of His creation and see, even for a moment, the radiance of His glory. In our momentary sight, even the most reluctant of all converts, when surrounded by friends, can grow to become the preeminent Christian apologist of the 20^th century. 

I am convinced that for the Church to stand strong in the coming decade, we must accept a two-fold process in the intermingling of our lives with society writ large. The first is we must remind ourselves to trust God and to pray in earnest for a small glimmer of His movement and repose. To dedicate anew to seek His face and study His word as the process by which we are increasingly becoming conformed into the image of His son. In Isaiah 41:8-10, the Lord speaks to the children of Israel through the movements of time—demonstrating God’s power and agency over the course of history and his sheer supremacy over man and their idols alike.

But you, Israel, my servant,
    Jacob, whom I have chosen,
    the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
    and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant,
    I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
fear not, for I am with you;
    be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Second, we must heed the instruction of Christ to Peter in the midst of his failure that failure must lead to a renewing of strength for the development of others. The warning in Luke 22:31-32 was clear, and the command salient: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” When Tolkien and Dyson took that faithful walk alongside their friend and ally, they had hoped that their words could pierce through the levers of Lewis’ design and turn the nob toward an ever-greater vision for the meaning of myth. They had hoped for a new vision strengthened by the contours of new sight. When Lewis wrote his essay Myth Made Fact, he was infinitely aware at the change in his awareness, writing poignantly of this strength that newly coated his past understanding: “Myth is the mountain whence all the different streams arise which become truths down here in the valley.”^[4]

I’ve been in ministry for almost two decades now, and I’ve seen far too much “looking to God” and far too little “strengthening our brothers.” In fact, what I’ve seen is the flattening of the first as a point of reminder and the negligence of the second as a process that happens by chance. If the Church desires to strengthen its members, we must become the type of steel that carries weight and forms through impact. We must avoid becoming complacent with the idea of God but live in step with the mandate of being sent by God as vice-regents. That takes dedication—as Paul notes, it takes discipline (1 Corinthians 9:27). It requires a daily commitment to growth and vigilance, an unwavering jealousy for the things of God with a mediating wisdom to speak with truth and love. We have become absurd and obnoxious in the application of our fears to the lifestyles of those we consider to be at odds with our own preferred patterns. And we have ceased to become conformed to the image of the Son. The only image we have remaining as a point of comparison is our own. My advice to you is to find friends who will challenge your commitments to the life of simple-favor and push you toward a life of increased strength and vision.

Conclusion

C.S. Lewis would memorialize the moment at Addison’s Walk with a poem that now stands as a monument on the property. In it, he writes about the contrast between the temporal and the eternal state—about the overcoming of things that confuse and the prevailing spirit of divine serendipity. He talks about the overcoming of nature and the natural self, reminding us how we too often find ourselves unable to see past our immanent frames and become like Edmund consumed by Turkish delight under the spell of the Witch, for “there’s nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.”^[5]

It is in the community of Saints that we can overcome these things—to have our limits scaled back and for our eyes to see the glory of the Lord without clouded lenses, to enjoy the presence of God and not quench the Spirit through wanton self-indulgence. It is here we can find the truth in the bonds of our common affection and yield the labor of our hands as the strengthening nails that hold the foundation in place. “This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell, we shall escape the circle and undo the spell.”

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^[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: A Classic Exploration of Christian Community 24-25 (1954).

^[2] Holly Ordway, Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography 178, 179 (2023).

^[3] Id. at 179.

^[4] C.S. Lewis, The Grand Miracle: And Other Selected Essays on Theology and Ethics from God in the Dock 41 (1986).

^[5] C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 84 (1950).