If you call yourself a gastronome, you might be familiar with Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a nineteenth century French lawyer, politician, and gastronome himself. In his 1826 book that roughly translates into English as The Physiology of Taste, Brillat-Savarin suggested that food was an art, something much more than a practical matter. What we eat, in some sense, defines who we are.
It’s no surprise that the slow food movement across the world has picked up on Brillat-Savarin’s philosophy. The slow food movement has three basic tenets: eat good food, eat clean food, eat fair food.[1] In other words, good food will be tasteful and enjoyable. Clean food is food that doesn’t come from processes of production that are detrimental to the environment. And fair food is food that can be available to all people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, and whose producers receive fair wages.
Slow food, by its very nature, isn’t fast food. According to slow food principles, good, clean, and fair food can’t be produced quickly. Fast food treats food as less than an art. It prefers quantity over quality. It’s utilitarian and practical. Fast food is concerned only about squeezing a meal in during the shortest amount of time and for the least amount of money. It’s not primarily concerned with being good, clean, or fair.
Slow food, on the other hand, is the art of long meals in fellowship with others. One can’t partake of slow food without being somehow connected to creation. Eating slow food is living close to the ground. Eating slow food involves a willingness to sacrifice speed and financial savings to ensure that those producing the food are treated fairly and that the environment is respected.
“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are,” said Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. If you ask me, that sounds rather theological. It sounds like St. Augustine of Hippo, who famously said in a sermon on the Eucharist: “If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying “Amen” to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith.”[2] Behold, who you are. Become what you receive. Indeed. Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.
When looking at Scripture, it becomes clear that God doesn’t readily offer fast food. Have you ever wondered why when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, he didn’t bring them out the most direct way? He brought them out the long way. We hear today in Deuteronomy that the Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness, being tested and humbled. Between grumblings and disobedience, though, God fed them. There was always enough, if just enough.
And the food of which Jesus speaks in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel is not food on demand. It’s not fast food. It’s slow food. Consuming his flesh should never stop. Consuming his blood should never stop. But those who hear Jesus’s words, from his disciples to those who oppose him, don’t yet understand. Their eyes don’t yet see. Their ears don’t yet hear. Their hearts are still somewhat hardened. They want fast food: miracles, signs, and immediate satisfaction.
But only slow food is on offer. When Jesus feeds the five thousand from five barley loaves and two fish earlier in John’s Gospel, it’s not fast-food service. When Jesus later says that he is the bread of life, and that eating his flesh and drinking his blood is the means of finding eternal life, the disciples and crowd still don’t get it. Where’s the fast food, they seem to say? This is what the Israelites said in the wilderness. Hunger is immediately associated with God’s abandonment. They have no concept of what slow food is because it’s about more than just the food. Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.
And so, it begs the question to us: what are we eating? What we’re eating says everything about who we are. On this Feast of Corpus Christi, we celebrate who we are by virtue of what we eat. We celebrate that in the Church, we are part of a slow food movement, because what we eat and how we eat it says everything about who we are and how we are more truly becoming who we are called to be.
“The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves,” Brillat-Savarin also said. We can likewise say that the destiny of the Church depends on how she nourishes herself. If the Church feeds on the wrong things, she will wither. If she hungers after quick fixes and gimmicks, she will fail to thrive. If she feeds on power, she will oppress. If she feeds on status, she can’t be Christ-like. If she tries to control or weaponize the gift of the Eucharist, she will cause others to starve. If she’s only concerned about the meal, she will never serve the poor. If she only wants her heavenly food quickly, she will never be patient with God’s time. If she stops eating, she will have no strength to thrive and spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth. If her members refuse the gift offered to them, they will fail to find their lives tied up with others, and the Church will wither and die. Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.
But we know what we eat, and we know who we are by virtue of the heavenly food promised to us by Christ. While beyond the doors of this church, we may consume power, status, money, and quick fixes, here, in this place, we slow down. Here we learn the art of eating well. Here we feast together, not alone. Here the TVs are turned off and the phones are put away while we feast together. Here all people share a meal, because those baptized into Christ have put off all other identity markers in order to be clothed in the goodness of Christ.
Here the supreme gift of heavenly food is available to all those baptized into Christ so that they can truly become what they eat. Here the food will sustain us not for a few hours but for eternal life. Here the food that we eat is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. And what we eat is who we are.
We have no choice but to be the Body of Christ in the world. We have no choice but to be a part of a broken world being put back together again. We have no choice but to feed those who have no food, to love those who have no one to love them, to bind the wounds of those who have been ripped apart by cruelty and injustice. We have no choice but to be the lifeblood of peace, love, and mercy that will course through the clogged and poisoned veins of a fast-food culture that’s slowly dying. We are a slow food movement whose mission is nothing less than the life of the world.
Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are. If others look at us, they should be able to trace us back to our roots. They should be able to find this place where we feast together and the food of which we partake. Because we are what we eat. And our destiny depends on how we nourish ourselves. And if we truly become what we eat, maybe others will find themselves longing for that heavenly food which never ends and by which we will live forever.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Feast of Corpus Christi (transferred)
June 11, 2023
[1] https://www.slowfood.com/about-us/our-philosophy/
[2] https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/augustine_sermon_272_eucharist.htm