40Acts 2016 - 5 ' QUICHE '

What better way to start the week than with food?

Some of us struggle to share a box of popcorn, whilst others happily over-feed everyone who crosses their threshold.
Wherever you are on that spectrum, consider this: food has brought people together since the dawn of time. Use it as a means to build relationship today.

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, 

he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ 

(Matthew 26:26 NIV)

Everyone was squished together on the boat travelling down the Mekong in Laos. My husband was the only non-local. A woman opposite him got a leaf out of her pocket, carefully unwrapped it, and began to eat the rice rolled inside. She glanced at my husband and instantly recognised him: someone who has no food. She offered him a portion of her tiny packed lunch. Language and cultural barriers were smashed – albeit a bit awkwardly – as they chewed and nodded and smiled.

Across land and time, in Edinburgh in Scotland, some 15 years later, my daughter and I chat with a guy sitting in the drizzle on the pavement outside a well-known coffee chain outlet. Actually, he says, in answer to our question, he doesn’t need a sandwich – someone’s already in the queue buying him one! We laugh with him, pat his dog Basher, and get him a latte to go with his sarnie.

I love the fact that some of the most powerful conversations Jesus had were over a meal. He invited himself to lush banquets with the ‘wrong kind of people’ such as tax collectors – social outcasts of the time – and had beach barbecues of fish and bread with his dearest friends and followers.

In fact, what they ate wasn’t really important. It was the conversations and human connections made over those meals that changed hearts and touched minds. It’s no coincidence that Jesus spoke of himself as synonymous with food – essential to the human condition. When you share food with someone, you share something incredibly valuable and precious: yourself.

Today's blog was written by Jackie Kaines. 
Find out more about them and support her chosen charity here.

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