Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17
Isaiah 54:11-55:5
I John 4:1-11
According to Maslow and common sense, a person needs some things more than others. Food and water are at the top of the list, and if you don’t have those, the rest won’t do you much good. A connection to God is important too, although it’s not as intellectually obvious to the natural man where in the hierarchy of needs that relationship should fall. As you will see, the mere existence of these needs for food and religion are not their only commonality.
When we don’t eat, we get hungry. When we don’t have the right balance of nutrients in our diet, we experience cravings or illness, and we fulfill those needs by eating more quantity and variety of foods. Our feelings of need are usually satisfied in the short term by just about anything we can stuff in our mouths that meets the minimum requirements. If our bodies need calories, then a candy bar will suffice. That’s not necessarily the best source of nutrition, however. Certainly, the sugar and fat will supply calories, but usually in the wrong proportions or in undesirable forms. An apple or handful of nuts would be better because it satisfies the immediate craving without overkill and provides for longer-term nutrition needs as well. Our understanding of nutrition and the body’s biosphere is still far from complete. As our science progresses, we will come to understand more of why the Designer’s instructions tell us to eat this and not that.
God didn’t say anything to Moses about candy bars because the ancient Israelites didn’t have access to them, but he wasn’t silent about diet. For example, he told us not to eat blood and he even told us why (because the life of an animal is in its blood) even if his reasoning is incomprehensible to many medicine. Contrary to some recent diet fads, he told us that bread is perfectly acceptable so long as it isn’t the only thing we eat. He told us that some animals are good to eat and others aren’t and that we shouldn’t eat certain parts of animals (e.g. the spleen and adrenal glands, aka the fatty lobe attached to the kidney). Those things might meet the body’s basic nutritional needs–in fact, they might be excellent sources of some nutrients–but, just as a nutritionist might say that many edible substances aren’t food, so does God. Pigs might be perfectly edible and provide perfectly usable nutrition, but there is something else about them that makes them non-food. Our Designer and theirs has said that we shouldn’t eat them whether we understand why or not.
Our need for spiritual connection with God is very similar. Voltaire wasn’t so far off when he said that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” We have a deep need to worship and serve something greater than ourselves. Every human society throughout history has worshiped and theologized. Not even alcohol has been as widespread as religion. But for the most part, we follow our urges without knowledge. We know instinctively that prayer, singing, dancing, and offerings are all good and necessary, but like children in a grocery store, we don’t necessarily know to take more of the green stuff and less of the pink and gooey. Like candy, there are religious practices that sooth our cravings, but don’t provide good spiritual nutrition. With that in mind, it’s not too surprising to find McDonalds “restaurants” in churches. There is a right way and a wrong way to relate to God, to worship and serve him, and just as with food, he gave us some substantial direction in his Torah.
God linked food and religion, and Moses made that link clear. In this week’s Torah portion, Moses said, “You will not worship like the pagans do. You will destroy the places the pagans used for their worship, and you will wipe out the names of their gods. You will not offer sacrifices just anywhere you want, but only in that place that God chooses for his name. You will not eat blood, and you will only eat those animals that God has declared food. And, don’t forget, you will worship God in his way, not in your way nor in the ways of the pagans.” God left a lot to our tastes and aesthetics, but there are important ingredients to a healthy spiritual life that we ignore to our own detriment.