117 Organic Food

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Organic Food”, originally shared on May 20, 2021. It was the 117th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We can buy organic food at the Farmers’ Market or at the supermarket. Sometimes it costs more than non-organic food. We can grow organic food in our back yard and pay a price in labor. But did you know that there’s a kind of organic food that is free (but not cheap)? An organic food that will never run out? Today, we’ll find out what it is.

   The most important thing about an organic garden is the soil. Does it contain the right kind and amount of living matter?

   In Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13:1-9 and its explanation in Matthew 13:18-23 (and found also in Mark 4:1-20 and Luke 8:4-15), the most important medium for the sower’s seed is “good soil”. The parable reminds us that for the seeds of faith to take root and grow and bear fruit, the most important element is the status of our inner selves. Are we like a hardened path, rocky ground, thorns, or good soil?

   Organic gardening is the growth of plants without artificial chemicals and pesticides. It does not make edible plants more nutritious; it just makes them free of things that may be toxic to human beings. It’s not always popular because its sometimes scarred and smaller. Artificial chemicals stimulate growth and pesticides kill insects that can damage the appearance of the food.

   Many people won’t buy food that isn’t perfect. It’s estimated that 20% of all the food grown in the United States is thrown away because it has cosmetic or size imperfections.

   Organic food doesn’t always look as appealing, but it is just as nourishing. It’s healthier only because it doesn’t contain that other stuff. And, like artificially treated food, it needs to be harvested and handled carefully.

   I studied in Israel for the first semester of my Senior year in college. We were on a 4-1-4 system so for the extra month, or Interim, we received a course on the Early Church and traveled from Istanbul (Constantinople) to Athens and to Rome.

   I ate in at hole-in-the-wall restaurants with great food and from sidewalk vendor carts throughout the trip and never got sick. Until I got home. My parents had bought some granola from the new health food store in town as a delayed Christmas present, and I got amoebic dysentery.

   We have a little organic garden in our back yard. We converted some lawn during the pandemic and added organic compost and organic soil amendment. We currently have organic radishes, kohlrabi (like a turnip), cucumber, romaine lettuce, dill, basil, and scallions. The white bunching onions and marigold around the edges are mostly there to discourage critters and pests by the way they smell.

   Our containers are pretty much organic. I say “pretty much” because I’ve used Miracle Grow fertilizer in some of them occasionally over the months but went organic a while ago. They contain three kinds of tomatoes, oregano, rosemary, swiss chard, basil, lavender (yes, that’s edible), bell pepper, and sage.

   Oh, and dandelions. They’re edible, but not so organic in our yard.

   And we also have a “pretty much” organic pomegranate, an orange, a fig, and a lemon tree. Our back yard is actually not that big. It’s just “space efficient”. 😊

   But “organic” has another meaning. It means “denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole.” as in

"the organic unity of the painting" And, related to that, “organic” means, “characterized by continuous or natural development.” as in "XYZ Company has expanded as much by mergers as by organic growth".

   In this sense, Christians live by organic food.

   That food is the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

   It sounds creepy when you say it like that, doesn’t it? In fact, Christians throughout history, especially in areas where the Church had previously been unknown, have often been accused of practicing cannibalism by people who were either ignorant or more commonly trying to convince others that the new Christian religion was despicable.

   We believe that the elements of bread and wine form an organic whole with the body and blood of Jesus Christ in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine. But if you took the elements to a chemist, he/she would say “bread and wine” not “flesh and blood”. The forms don’t change, only their organic reality changes. They become organic food in the sense that they “fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole.” Bread and Wine, Body and Blood.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, wrote in his Small Catechism,

What is Holy Communion?

   Holy Communion is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given with bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us to eat and drink.

Where do the Scriptures say this?

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul say: Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take, eat, this is my body, which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me.” After the same manner also he took the cup after supper, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins; this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (I’ll put a link below in the comments section to a free digital version of the catechism with more information about Holy Communion)

   Some Christians see the forms of bread and wine as symbols of Jesus body and blood. Most Christians now and throughout history have talked about the bread and wine of Holy Communion in some terms of the real presence of Jesus in the forms of bread and wine. Some say that the forms change into the body and blood of Christ. Lutherans say that Jesus is present in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine, but that he is truly present in these forms.

   This makes Holy Communion an organic connection between Jesus and the forms of bread and wine. In Holy Communion we commune with God in these very common forms. Holy Communion is organic food. There is nothing unnatural, no additives or preservatives, just the natural unadulterated presence of God.

   We read in John 6, starting at the 53^rd verse:

*John 6:53-59

   When we are baptized, we become part of the Church, the Body of Christ. Though each of us has a different spiritual gift, the elements of the Body “fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole”. That’s organic.

   When we receive Holy Communion, we commune with the living God.  We are fed as a whole self, body mind and spirit, wherein the elements “fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole”.  That’s organic. We are an organic whole, and we receive the real presence of God into our whole true selves. This organic food feeds us in every way.

  The Holy Spirit, the streams of living water that is within us, reveals that these elements of bread and wine, body and blood, “fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole”.

   What is the state of your true self? Have you received Holy Communion, communion with God, the organic food of life? Are you spiritually fed or spiritually hungry?

   And if you are fed, what are you doing with the presence of God at work within you? Are you exercising your faith, or are you inactive and spiritually obese?

   Is your true self like a hardened path, rocky ground, thorns or good soil today? The pandemic has left many of us pretty frazzled as we re-emerge into the New Normal.

   Be good soil for the seeds of faith. Be fed with the spiritually organic food of Jesus Christ in the real presence of Holy Communion. But don’t let it end there. Instead, let those seeds grow and bear fruit.  Be who God has gifted you to be, and talk with others about Jesus, the faith that is within you, and the organic food that feeds you with the assurance of forgiveness, of eternal life, and the real presence of Jesus Christ.

   All that is necessary is a believing heart, a gift you receive, believing in the words “for you”. Receive the organic food of Holy Communion. And be good soil.