My eye was caught by a BBC podcast featuring the Chaplain to the Anglican church in Moscow. Just outside the Kremlin’s walls, it hosts both a Russian and expatriate congregation. The chaplain spoke of the last few years, as you would expect, as being extremely difficult, but added that he had never before in his ministry experienced such a hunger for God as amongst the Russian people.

The expression ‘Hunger for God’ reminds us of the close links, indeed, the identification of food with spirituality. We approach God through food as we consume the bread and the wine of Holy Communion. We experience, at times, a longing for the divine presence just as we experience hunger. It might be added that we also lose our appetite for God, at times!

Today’s gospel is all about food, not literally but used as a metaphor illustrating our approach to God. The food laws that the Jewish people observed were designed to remind the Isrealites of God’s holiness. They were not to eat unclean flesh as a marker of their distinctive religious identity as God’s people. Jesus, however, redefined holiness not by what went into our mouth’s but what came out.

‘Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.’

Matthew 15: 17-18

The significance of food as a gift of God, however, has not been lost and it is that theme that Jesus picks up as he is confronted by the Canaanite woman who pleads for her tormented daughter and throws herself on the mercy of Jesus.

‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. She said , ‘Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ Matthew 15: 26/27

In this exchange we can find an echo of the sharp confrontation between Moses and the children of Israel in the desert. The food that God had provided for the Isrealites in the desert was ‘Manna from heaven’. It was a sign of God’s mercy and a reminder of their dependence on God’s provision. Jesus, here also talks of food as a means by which God’s people access his mercy. The Canaanite woman is quick to take up the point, even the little dogs can feed on the crumbs that fall from the table, but Jesus is not going to give way without knowing her heart just as Moses sought to lead the Isralites into a deeper relationship with their God.

Jesus' tone in this encounter seems confrontational and we are offended by the language he uses, but it has the tone of a real conversation without any gloss or attempt to evade the force of Jesus’ argument. I understand it as a test thrown out by Jesus who is searching the heart of this woman to see whether her desire is for the gift or the giver. Is it just her daughter's healing she is seeking or is it really God’s mercy? Again we see the same dilemma that Moses encountered when the Isrealites demanded food. The demand is offensive because it lacks faith in God’s goodness and Moses is angry with the crowds who protest that God has abandoned them in the desert. God provides but only to remind them that all good things come from God.

The distinction between food received as a gift from God and food that serves only to satiate our desire for good things is a distinction made by the Dutch still life artists of the 16th/17th centuries. Early still life paintings depict the typical peasant diet of bread and cheese, the stuff of life, but as the Dutch republic grew fat on trade with its newly acquired colonial empire all sorts of rich and exotic foods began to flow into the homes of the rich merchants of Holland.

Banquet piece with Mince pie 1635. Willem Claesz Heda

Our painting today depicts such a feast, featuring a mince pie that was stuffed with the spices from the Dutch East Indies. Alongside it is a plate full of oysters and a lemon, both symbols of rich living. Front and centre, though, are two plain bread rolls that have not been eaten. The point is made! Whilst the rich enjoy the rich food of the East the plain and wholesome food is ignored. The uneaten bread is further used to depict the spiritual poverty of the rich, for it is the food that God provides, the food that feeds the heart, the bread of heaven, the body of Christ.

The same point is made in many other Still life paintings of the period where huge piles of exotic fruits and flowers are piled together in a display of bounty that is meant to impress. Indeed that was the purpose of these paintings. We are, as guests of this rich merchant, meant to marvel at the magnificence of the food displayed. This is all about ‘Conspicuous consumtion’, but look closely at these paintings and you will notice that the artist often includes a fly or maggot eating away at the fruit which itself has begun to rot! Food is not for display, but to be eaten with thankful hearts for God’s goodness.

Our own society is certainly one of conspicuousness. Is that, maybe, why we in the West have lost our appetite for God? Let’s not count our blessings, but forget to give thanks to the God from whom all good things come.

Rev Simon Brignall