Texts: John 21: 1-14
The Time Jesus Cooked a Culturally Appropriate Meal
A few weeks ago, I was privileged to sit with Joseph and Martine Kazadi over lunch. As we ate, they narrated their long and arduous odyssey from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Old Lyme, Connecticut. It’s a story they’ll be sharing in our adult forum next week, and I hope many of you will be able to hear it then. But one of the details they shared was what it felt like to arrive in Connecticut on the first night, after flying from Nairobi, and then Dubai, and then into JFK, after which they found a car waiting to drive them to New Haven. They showed up in this new town, in this new state, in this new country, and it was dark. They were taken to an apartment that they were told would be their new home, and they were exhausted and overwhelmed. Except waiting for them when they arrived was a huge meal that had been cooked in their honor, a spread of African and Congolese dishes that they would have been familiar with from Kinshasa. The State Department mandates that all refugees being resettled in the US shall have a culturally appropriate meal provided for them within 24 hours of their arrival. Did you know that? It’s one of the best parts of the refugee resettlement program in the United States.
It’s a way of saying “Welcome,” of course. But it’s about so much more than that. It’s a way of saying: “We recognize the hell that you’ve endured. We understand, at least in part, what you’ve lost. We know, at least in part, all that it took for you to arrive here. We realize that the way ahead will be long and sometimes discouraging. But you’re here now, and you’re safe. We’re glad you’re here, and we’ll do our best to love and support you. Even though you’re a long way from anything that feels familiar or comforting, we can at least provide this. And we can trust that somehow it will provide the sustenance to get you through a new ordeal, which is resettlement.” That’s what I like to think that first meal signifies. It functioned something like that for Joseph and Martine and their family. Over lunch that afternoon, Joseph shared that for him, that culturally appropriate meal was one of the most significant parts of his family’s resettlement. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small gesture. But it made, and makes, all the difference.
This week I’ve returned us to what is probably my favorite story about Jesus. Because he too knows something about preparing a culturally appropriate meal. You probably remember the story, and so I don’t need to recount it in detail, save to say that it takes place immediately after the upheaval surrounding Jesus’s crucifixion. And the disciples are traumatized, not altogether unlike refugees after the world around them has collapsed. But then the resurrected Jesus appears on the shores of Galilee. He doesn’t walk on water this time. He doesn’t say, surprise, remember me? He doesn’t do anything spectacular. He sets about preparing some food, his own version of a culturally appropriate meal, made for friends who are still trying to find the ground beneath their feet. There’s so much to say in that loaded moment. After all the fear, after all the heartbreak, after all the pain, what I imagine him saying is this: I understand the hell you’ve been through. I understand what it is that you lost. I know what you’re going through, and I also know that the way ahead might feel overwhelming. But I’m still here for you. And I still love you. And there is a way forward. I can’t say all those things outright, but that’s what this meal is saying. The story is about Jesus cooking a culturally appropriate meal, using food to reach into the most chaotic parts of his friends’ lives to stabilize the shaky and crumbling ground beneath their feet.
In a few days, many of us, though not all, will gather around tables with our families, with our friends. For those of you lucky enough to gather in such a way, I hope that table signifies a sense of fullness and of belonging, together with the knowledge that you’re loved, all the way down. I hope that’s true, but I’m well enough acquainted with the travails of family life to know that it doesn’t always work that way. Whether it’s a vision of goodness that you experience over Thanksgiving or simply a source of tension, I can say this for sure: this meal, here and now, arrayed on our communion table, is our own version of a culturally appropriate meal. Not all of us have lived through the travails of exile, but life is life, and we each of us, in our own singular way, know what it is to feel afraid, or lost, or alone, or displaced, or alienated. This food, these elements of bread and wine, are ways of reaching into those lost lonely corners of our souls, saying, “You’re here now. We’re so glad you made it. The way hasn’t always been easy, and it might not be easy all the time from here on out. But you’re here. And we’re together. And this will see us through.” Amen.
