I speak to you to in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
***
I was once invited to a dinner party hosted by a friend of mine. It was a gathering mostly of theological students, as well as a few others, including one professor.

Although most of us lived in East Vancouver at the time, the meal was to take place on Galiano Island, a small island that sits a short ferry ride off the mainland of British Columbia in the Strait of Georgia. The intention was, no doubt, that the meal should happen in a place of retreat, surrounded by the unique and distinctly non-urban beauty of the Gulf Islands. It also meant that the guests gathered for this meal could spend the entire day together, enjoying the comparably untouched beauty of the forrest and the sea, while our host prepared the meal.

As someone who has experience working in kitchens, I was drawn in to one small bit of the preparations — I was to help to roll out the freshly made pasta. This meant that I had a glimpse, not only into the immense amount of work that was required to pull together this multi-course feast, but of the quality and cost of the ingredients.

As someone who has trained in restaurant kitchens, it was all I could do to restrain myself from commenting on the excessive costs, and to suggest shortcuts to make the preparation easier.
— was fresh pasta really worth all the trouble? Don’t you think 4 bottles of wine would have been plenty? Do you really want to serve such large portions of steak?
Fortunately for Sarah, the host — and perhaps more fortunately for the guests — I left the kitchen as soon as the pasta was rolled and, therefore, did not succeed in tempering the lavishness of the feast.

Later that evening, as I was called to the table with the rest of the guests, I found myself participating not just in a meal, but in an experience of grace and abundance. An experience of God, even. — One that overwhelmed and put to shame my calculations of cost and labour.

***
The meal began with white wine.

And a salad of fresh greens and vegetables, harvested from the garden outside only hours before.

Then came more wine

The soup course was a kind of light and creamy asparagus foam, that we sipped from espresso cups.

Next, more wine.

Then came the pasta course — a pumpkin stuffed ravioli, scented with nutmeg, and covered in browned butter, infused with fresh sage.

Then, more wine, this time moving from white to red.

Then the absurdly over-portioned steaks were served. I don’t recall the cut, but I do recall the flavour. It was pan-seared to a medium rare, in a generous amount of butter.

There were vegetables served as well, I’m sure, but the memory of the steak has overtaken any recollection of what vegetable it might have been — It was no doubt pulled fresh from the garden as well.

After the steak, people asked for a break before the freshly opened bottle of Port was poured into each glass.

Then, finally, a dark and white chocolate layered brownie, covered with a Grand Mariner- infused cream sauce, finished the meal.

It was after midnight before the first person left the table.

***

The meal took so long, not only because the food continued to arrive and the wine continued to flow, but because the food was meant to do more than just satisfy hunger. Each course was an occasion for reflection upon the creation that gave us this food.

This meal doubled as a graduate course assignment. In fact it took place in the home of the professor who taught the course. The meal not only began with grace, but was punctuated throughout by scriptural and theological reflections that Sarah had composed prior to the meal.

While the meal was inspired, in part, by the wonderful danish film, Babette’s Feast, it was intended to demonstrate the deep theological meaning of our eating, our drinking, and our speaking together. In short, our communion — with each other and with God.

Sarah’s reflections began in the beginning: In the book Genesis.

This goes back many years, and I don’t recall the content of her reflections. But I do recall being moved by them.
And I still believe that there is a significant connection between the experience of such a feast and the account of creation that we just read.

***

When humankind is brought into being on the sixth day of creation, man and woman are created primarily as “hungry beings.” For in the perfection of the original creation eating is not considered first of all a biological necessity, and it is certainly not a consequence of “the fall.” It is instead something basic and essential to created life. Immediately after speaking humans and animals into existence, God says this:
“See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

In this rather terse liturgical account of the divine creation, we do not get an elaborate description of each created thing. (Although we do get more elaboration in the poetic literature of the bible, like the Psalms and the book of Job). Instead, we get only what is most basic:
The sun provides light,
birds fly,
creeping things creep,
sea creatures swim.
Humans — well, they eat.

Humanity’s way of being in the world of God’s creation is eating. To eat of the abundance that God has provided. Not because they “need” to eat, not because, they are worried about what tomorrow might bring, but because it is the specific way in which human beings are in God’s original creation. Human beings are hungry creatures.

Listen to the way one theologian puts it:

“In the Bible the food that humans eat, the world of which they must partake in order to live, is given to them by God,
and it is given as communion with God…
All that exists is God’s gift to humanity,
and it all exists to make God known to humanity,
to make humanity’s life a communion with God.
It is divine love made food, made life for humanity.”

You see, when God blesses all of creation in the creation story (when God calls it “good”), God makes the whole of creation a sign and a means of divine “presence and wisdom, of love and revelation.” That is why the psalmist can have recourse to that powerful turn of phrase:
’O taste and see that the Lord is good.’”

***
Returning to Genesis: the work of creation comes to an end once God has provided food for humans and animals to eat.
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

On the seventh day, God rests. The work of creation has finished; all that God had desired to make has been made.
The sun provides its light
the birds fly
the creeping things creep
the sea creatures swim
and the humans — eat.

As God and the whole of creation enter into the rest of the sabbath, it is not anxiety or competition that rules the day, but communion, and feasting. And this, furthermore, is not merely a reprieve from the work and competition that will resume on the next “day.”

This, instead is what God has desired for all eternity — to live in communion with God’s own creatures in the abundance of creation.

You may have noticed that while there is “morning and evening” on the first six days of creation, there is no morning and evening on the seventh. Whey do you think that is?

I suspect it is because the seventh day, the sabbath of rest, feasting, and communion is not meant to end.

The origin and goal of all of creation is communion.

***

You probably know, however, what happens next in the story. Or, even if you don’t,
you know of the brokenness, competition, and anxiety that has characterized and continues to define life on this earth.

I don’t need to remind anyone that we do not live in paradise; that our life with one another and with the rest of creation is tainted by sin and self-interest. That our relationship to food is mediated by unjust economic, geographical, and political realities.
So, if food is a means of God’s grace and presence, and the purpose of the church is to make the presence of God known to the world, then we must acknowledge that food justice is a deeply theological matter;
that food security is a calling of the church.
Indeed there is a certain kind of food security that lies at the very centre of our worshipping life.

***
As we await the day when all might enter fully into the Sabbath rest of God;
As we seek in small ways (through community meals and acts of hospitality) to share the goodness of God’s creation with the whole world;
we can catch glimpses, even now, of paradise.

It is possible to catch such glimpses, for instance, in the common meal. When we share food together, when we gather around the dinner table to enjoy the goodness of God’s creation. In this, it is possible to experience something of the original abundance of Paradise.
And if we do so with gratitude in our hearts,
if in these feasts (opulent like the one I experienced on Galiano Island, or as simple as a bit of bread),
if in these feasts we offer back to God what God has so generously given to us in creation —
in such moments we approach the intensity of the communion and love of God that was known in Paradise.

And more than that…
We, as the church, have a small but significant access to that same grace and presence of God in the reality of a very specific shared meal. This practice of memory and of mystery that we call the Eucharist returns us to and reminds us of our origin and our goal:
uninterrupted communion with God; knowing and being known by God; loving and being loved by God.

When we bless and offer back to God the gifts of bread and wine, when we consume the fruits of God’s creation in this way, we are, in a way we call sacramental, re-engaging that communion that was known in Paradise. In Christ, that is, we participate in a new creation. The subtle but profound reality of a creation renewed and redeemed —
around the table
with food and drink
with those we rightly call brothers and sisters.

This happens, as I menionted, in Christ —
and that’s a pretty important part in all of this. That’s the part that makes the Eucharist more than just a meal. That’s the part that makes it communion.
And Christ is the way in which this all comes back to the Trinity — It is Trinity Sunday, after all.

In Christ we are not just reminded of a past reality of a Paradise where God and creation existed in a perfect love, but we are invited into a present and eternal reality of a God who is always and already in relation. If God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then God does not exist in a splendid isolation, but in and as a community already — a community that we are invited to join.

The trinitarian language we find in both the epistle and the Gospel reading today is not primarily doctrinal,
it is, first of all, an invitation into the divine community that is God — an invitation to love and to communion.

When Jesus commands his followers to make disciples by baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, he is not commanding them to make converts. He is calling them to become hosts, and to invite people into the community of divine life and love —
as it is practiced and experienced in the breaking, the blessing, the sharing of food and drink.

Human beings are hungry creatures. Let us never forget that. And hunger is more than biological urge. Beneath our hunger is a desire for communion and love. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. We are hungry until we are able to feast at the table of divine love.

And so I pray that this place might be a space
of feasting and of sharing,
of breaking and blessing blessing — a place of communion.
Whether we are soup, quinoa salad, or consecrated bread
coffee, juice, or the very blood of Christ,
Let this be a place where all who enter might be able to taste and see that the Lord is good.

Amen.