Plenary,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Official Report 635KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good morning. Our first item of business this morning is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is the Rev Dr Richard Frazer, minister of Greyfriars Tolbooth and Highland Kirk in Edinburgh.

Good morning. I thought that I would give you some food for thought this morning by talking a little bit about food.

It seems that there is hardly a religious tradition in any part of the world that does not set great store by food but, when a culture is secular or non-religious, I am interested to know what it thinks about, and what responsibility it takes for, food.

For nearly all religious cultures, the food chain from plough to plate is surrounded by ritual significance, sacred activity, deep communal significance and delight and celebration. Everyone who comes from the Christian tradition, as I do, knows that the centre of the Christian community is the holy communion. That sacramental attitude to food reinforces the idea that food is the starting point of human well-being. We can just about imagine life without cars and computers, but life without food is impossible.

To ensure that we enjoy wholesome food, we need good soil, reliable crops, stable weather patterns and, of course, farmers and people to prepare our food. Seeing the religious or spiritual significance of food has reminded us that sustaining those things is a sacred trust.

There is a rather odd short proverb in the Hebrew Bible that says:

"Better a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it."

I do not think that the writer is advocating vegetarianism or thinking about people's cholesterol levels, but he is saying something that is worth listening to in today's fast-food culture, in which the spiritual significance of food is under threat. Our lives are seduced by affluence. We eat processed food on the hoof or in front of the telly. In our struggle to enjoy a lavish lifestyle, we can damage not just our own bodies, but our communities and our environment. That is the fatted-ox—or the fast-food—mentality.

The writer of the proverb has an alternative vision: he advocates greater simplicity and appreciation. He thinks that when people have time for each other, there will be less strife. I suppose that that is what he calls the vegetable option—or the slow-food option.

As everyone knows, Scotland is the fast-food capital of Europe. Obesity, tooth decay, heart disease and numerous other ailments that can be attributed to poor diet are reaching alarming levels, especially among the poorest in our society. We are also losing the simple courtesies that we learn around family tables. All the while, some of the best farm land and the most delicious fruit, vegetables, meat and grain that can be had anywhere can be had here in Scotland.

As I think about those issues from a Christian perspective, I sometimes wonder whether the whole purpose of our food chain has been distorted. From plough to plate, should not the purpose in producing food in all its different forms be the promotion of the health and well-being of the people of Scotland? The reality is that we treat the food chain as though it were simply an extractive commodity industry.

From a Christian perspective, from that story in the Old Testament in which manna was provided to the people of Israel in the wilderness to the wine and bread of holy communion, food has been the sign and symbol of people's spiritual and physical nourishment. My wish is that we might recover that spiritual dimension to the food chain in our lives and recognise that promoting health through good food, feeding the world and sustaining the entire global food chain, in relation to which 6.2 billion people are so marginal, is a sacred trust. Thank you for listening to me this morning.