Food

YEAR B & C, EASTER 4, MONDAY, DAILY MASS: PSALM 96:1-9; ACTS 11:1-18; JOHN 10:1-10

This past fall I led a Bible Study on Genesis. What people can eat has a suprising history. Adam and Eve and their descendants are allowed to eat vegitables and things that grow. It isn't until after the flood and when Noah and his descendants start eating meat. At the end of Genesis a different issue around food has arisen, the Egyptians refuse to eat with foriegners - this we find out in the story about Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. As the other books of the Penteteuch are written, what can and cannot be eated and who it can be eated with remains an issue. In the early church food continued to be an issue. Jesus tells his followers that what goes into a person is not a problem, rather it is what comes out. Still, early Christians refused to eat certain food that were sacrificed to other gods and in effect ostracized themselves from the larger community.

Today's first reading from Acts runs with this food imagery. Peter's vision of all animals made clean by God spurs him to bring the Gospel to the gentiles, a whole people he had considered "unclean". I'm not sure if we can ever be reminded enough to keep spreading the Gospel to new people. Again and again I think we can take a fresh look at the world we live in and see what new ways use to bring new people to Jesus.