Food talk will showcase biblical imagery

By Linda Leicht on May 16, 2009
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When Becky Hebert encountered Bread for Life [sic] in seminary, she found "a major influence in my life."

Now pastor of St. John's Chapel United Church of Christ in Springfield, it took years before she was motivated to start a Bread chapter herself in 2008.

Thursday , she hopes that others will learn more about Bread for the World and how the Christian faith is expressed through its work.

Bread is a collection of Christian voices dedicated to ending hunger "by changing policies, programs and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist."

The Bible, she says, clearly tells people to feed and advocate for the poor.

To make that point, Hebert has invited John White, a retired New Testament professor, to speak on the "gospel's mandate to feed the poor."

White earned his doctorate from Vanderbilt University and taught at the Missouri School of Religion in Columbia and Loyola University in Chicago until his retirement in 2002.

He will speak about the "food imagery" found in the gospels and how that is used in stories about Jesus and the messages in those stories.

That imagery is sometimes transparent, such as the feeding miracles, and sometimes more nuanced, he says. For example, the Gospel of Mark has Jesus describing how the religious authorities take places of honor at the banquet, and "devour widows' houses."

That is followed by the parable of the widow who gives her last coin to the Temple.

The beheading of John the Baptist is another food image, White says. At his birthday feast, Herod brings out John's head on a platter, then, in Mark's gospel, the story is followed by the feeding of the 5,000 with a few fishes and loaves.

"Herod cannibalizes his subjects and dines only with his courtiers," White says.

"Jesus feeds the masses, contrasting the types of rule."

White also points out that fish and bread were not "basic" foods. Instead, they were luxury foods eaten by the rich.

"And Jesus has them recline to eat -- something the wealthy do as if they were upper class."

Hebert agrees. "The gospels not only mandate that we feed the poor, but that we feed them well."