Lectionary: 503
"Please test your servants for ten days. Give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then see how we look in comparison with the other young men who eat from the royal table, and treat your servants according to what you see."
He acceded to this request, and tested them for ten days; after ten days they looked healthier and better fed than any of the young men who ate from the royal table. So the steward continued to take away the food and wine they were to receive, and gave them vegetables.
Vegetarians can point to this and other passages of the Bible for confirmation of their beliefs. Personally, I never bought into vegan; but as a Catholic, I am happy to worship with people of different lifestyles, philosophies, and opinions.
Genesis suggests that Adam and Eve and their descendants, until the time of Noah, were vegetarians. In verse 29 of the first chapter, after telling them to "be fertile and multiply," God says to the man and woman, "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food." In the next verse he gives the "wild animals, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth" the same permission. To neither man nor beast does he say anything about eating flesh.
In Genesis 9, after the catastrophe, a new law appears, "Any living creature that moves about shall be yours to eat; I give them all to you as I did the green plants."
With that permission, the Lord recognizes an altered relationship of God's image and likeness with the animals. They are afraid of the human species, but they also might prey upon them, as they prey upon each other.
However, the animal that kills a human must pay the cost, for the human enjoys God's favor:
"Indeed for your own lifeblood I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from a human being, each one for the blood of another, I will demand an accounting for human life.
Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being, by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God have human beings been made.
Permission to eat any kind of meat reappears in the Acts of the Apostles, when the missionaries meet in Jerusalem to discuss the influx of gentiles into their Jewish community. Despite the Jewish repugnance to unclean foods, they assured the people of Antioch:
"‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.’”
The discussion would continue about meat sacrificed to idols -- like those that die in the bullfight -- since nearly every slaughtered animal had gone through some pagan ritual. In Romans 14, Saint Paul addressed the divisive matter of scruples and urged his people to show special consideration to one another, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit...."
The freedom we enjoy as Christians is never an excuse for rudeness.
Reformation England would re-engage the discussion, as evidenced to this day by Jehovah's Witnesses.
In our Catholic tradition, the Holy Spirit offers several alternate lifestyles; vegetarianism being one of them. Pacifism, celibacy, and natural family planning also have solid scriptural foundations. In his memoir, Rome Sweet Home, Scott Hawn relates how his wife Kimberly was initially drawn to Roman Catholicism by her discovery of the Bible's abhorrence to artificial means of birth control. Who would have thought?
As we approach Advent, we should consider what small sacrifices we shall make to show our devotion to the Lord. We need not throw logs onto a kindling fire, but we should do something that is at least a minor inconvenience. If our lifestyle and eating habits are precisely those of the millions who profess no religion -- the "nones" -- our salt has become insipid.
Because our Catholic religions includes alternate lifestyles we begin our penance with an open-minded, unreserved hospitality to people of every sort and many differing opinions.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.