America is the most obese nation in the world. I know, I are one.

We have an amazing fascination with food. We have restaurants of every kind up the wazzoo, whatever a wazzoo is. We upgrade our kitchens so we have the best cooking surfaces; I know, I have one. We will go to cooking shows, create celebrities out of chefs, and we even have our own television network dedicated to all things food. Call it the by-product of our prosperity, the great climate, a blessing of God, the fact still remains that we are hooked on food beyond a means for survival.

In church, food can be a good thing or a bad thing. It is a good thing when we come together as a community (the church building is not necessary to accomplish this) and share a pot-luck, the major cause of Christian obesity. It’s a good thing when my 86-year-old mom brings her famous cinnamon coffee crumb cake to the church social.

However, food is not such a good thing when it becomes the center of the worship, rather than who it stands for. It is not such a good thing when it becomes an expectation to provide for the pot-luck rather than it being a blessing out of a person’s generosity. “Did you notice that Mary didn’t bring the dumplings, again? How are we to have a Chickin’-n-Dumplins outreach if we don’t have the dumplings?”

Paul writes that it is not such a good thing when the coming together becomes a Bacchanalian Feast of gorging and drunkenness where some push for the front of the line. This in church! He wrote to tell us that there really is a right and wrong way to celebrate the Eucharist or Communion or Lord’s Table. He doesn’t write about what day or how often it is to be taken. He writes instead about our attitude whenever we take it.

You’ll find the description in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Paul goes so far as to state that some will wrongly take from Christ’s table to their own destruction. So while food is important as a part of our Christian/Church culture, we must use it in its proper place and in a proper way.

Now some of you who just read my previous post about wonder are saying, “but didn’t he tell us to move away from black and white concepts, away from the 10 Commandments for the 10 Commandments’ sake?” let me say that this is hardly a black or white issue. I’m not telling you you must do or not do something in taking the Communion. I am saying exactly the same thing that Paul, himself, asks in that same chapter. “So let a man (read “mankind”) examine himself and then come to the table,” he writes. What is your attitude in taking it?

In an underlying tone Paul is suggesting that there is nothing mystical or magical about the literal bread. (I know that at this point I may have lost my Catholic friends, but for a moment, let’s put away arguments about transubstantiation (now I’ve lost the Protestants) and focus on what the bread has become for us.) So rushing to the table to get the first or largest or “best” piece is really irrelevant. We can’t claim Christ in the Bread while reaching for it with the unclean hands of gluttony, greed or selfishness at any level.

It is in that vein that Paul asks whether the readers’ have homes in which to have dinner? The Communion isn’t the main meal, it’s just the most important one. So he suggests that you examine your motives, physical, spiritual and psychological, to put them in order before you come to the table. In essence if you are hungry, go home, get a sandwich first and then come to the table.

Tomorrow, as we do each week, my church and I will celebrate Communion. We will do it understanding that it represents the One whom the Father sent to set humanity free from our current foolish state. We will do it with reverence and respect. We will do it and then go have lunch to satisfy our physical needs. The Communion is a meal that neither Mario nor Rachel nor Giada nor Emeril could possibly prepare. Only Jesus can prepare this meal.

Bon Appetit!