One dish, please!

Many food shows have appeared on television in recent decades – from basic cooking to eating and cooking competitions. They starkly contrast to the menial workers I knew growing up in India. Those workers brought lunches – several cups of cooked plain rice and a tablespoon of thovayal – a mixture of red chilies and salt – to flavor the tasteless rice. Rarely did they have a vegetable gravy to flavor that rice. They didn’t have high quality, freshly flown-in duck breast, grilled to perfect, and a red-wine reduction sauce decorated with microgreens.

Their lunches always reminded me of what God said to the Israelites.

I humbled you by giving you manna every day for forty days for all your meals to see if you’ll understand that a person does not live by food but by the words that come from God’s mouth (Deut 8:3 paraphrased).

They ate every day and for every meal something called “manna,” which in Hebrew meant, “What is this?” Think what would happen to us if we were to eat rice and thovayal every meal, every day, for forty years! We can’t eat Italian, Thai, Korean, American, French, or Chinese food. We can’t have pizza, hamburger, thosa, bar-b-que (American and Korean), laksa, sushi, biriyani, pasta, steak, burger, etc. Only small, round, thin, white, wafer-like flakes that had a hint of honey taste! We would have gone crazy! But the Lord tested the Israelites with such a harsh test that they understood food was a luxury; all they needed was God’s instructions.

Nearly 1,500 years later, this very test was before two sisters – Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38–42). Jesus and his disciples have visited Martha and Mary’s house. As was anticipated of a good Hebrew host, Martha was busy preparing dishes to feel the thirteen-plus hungry stomachs. But her sister, Mary, was at Jesus’s feet, listening to his teachings. Furious, Martha walked to Jesus and accused him of a crime:

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister left the service to me alone? Tell her to help me.” (Luke 10:40)

She most likely expected Jesus to agree with her and command Mary to join Martha. Instead, he said to Martha,

“Martha, Martha, you worry and trouble about many (poli) things. But one is enough.” (10:42)

Martha might have cooked pita bread, hummus, baked or grilled fish, cut fruit, olives, and new wine. But Jesus and the rest of the people, whose ancestors lived on just manna, needed just one dish, perhaps bread with olive oil sprinkled on it! More than that, what was crucial was what Mary found: “Mary chose the portion that cannot be seized from her,” which was hearing God’s Son’s words. Mary understood that a person does not live by bread or food but s/he lives on God’s words, teachings, and promises.

I am still learning this lesson – food is for living, and I shouldn’t live to eat. So many people – like those in Israel and Palestine, Ukraine and Russia, Myanmar, Manipur, and refugee camps – live on just bread and wish their sufferings will come to an end. Let’s not live for food – one dish is all needed, and that dish is called “God’s word.”