When we sit down in front of the television it doesn’t take long before we see start seeing the commercials and hear Burger King telling us to “Have it Your Way.” Or, perhaps it is Wendy’s saying, “It’s way better than fast food.” Then Dairy Queen proclaims they are something different.” You can get anything on the menu at any time at Sonic, “America’s self-proclaimed Drive-In.” McDonald’s says, “I’m Lovin’ It,” but if we go to McDonald’s it is because someone else is loving it. I don’t. What-a-Burger is “just like you like it,” and I would have to say What-a-Burger isn’t bad. Oh, and don’t forget Kentucky Fried Chicken because they are, “Finger lickin’ Good.” And, if we head out for something resembling Mexican Food there is Taco Bell, “Thinking Outside the Bun” but Cindy isn’t going to be thinking about Taco Bell regardless of what is in or out of the bun. And finally, Subway says we should always, “Eat Fresh.”
We love our fast food in American society. The list of fast food restaurants is a much longer list than what I just said. Those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head with some kind of catch phrase or motto advertisers use to get our attention. I even tried to look up a few like Jack-in-the-Box to find their slogan and didn’t have much success.
We not only like our fast food, but we really like it fast, on the go, and ready to eat right now. It can even become one of those idols we serve in American society, instant gratification. But I digress. Much of the time we don’t even take the time to sit down in the restaurant or in the park. Many people take their lunch at their desk. It isn’t really hard to drive down the road and see people eating as they drive. I rarely eat fast food anymore but when I did you could see me as one of those shoving food in my face while driving down the road. It becomes really easy to do when you think you always have to be in a hurry.
Perhaps that is the reason we like our fast food so much. As a society, Americans tend to always be in a hurry. We are always rushing around to get somewhere. We all know it takes food to fuel our bodies so we can continue on with this journey we call life. So, in our rushed lifestyles we want to run in and grab a bag full of fuel we can shove down our throats. We need to eat something and do it in a hurry so we can get on with the journey.
When I ate a lot of fast food I thought I liked fast food because I really like hamburgers. But, if that were the case I would have been going someplace besides Burger King. In those days Burger King was my favorite haunt when it came to fast food joints. As much as I may have liked it, there are much better hamburgers around than what Burger King, or any fast food restaurant offers. So, if it isn’t the quality of the food it has to be something else.
Could it be that like so many other places in our lives, we search for meaning in our food? Could it be that for so many our lives are so empty we want to find real meaning in life and we are looking everywhere in an effort to find it, including all the wrong places to find it? Truly my friends, people search to fill the void, the empty places in their lives, with alcohol. Others try to fill these empty place by using drugs. Still others try to fill it with who knows what else. I am no expert but I don’t hesitate for a moment to believe the list could be endless. Could it be that in the rush of our lives some try to find meaning with food, in this case fast food?
We are not the first to do this kind of thing. In our lesson this morning the Hebrews were instructed to hurriedly eat the first Passover. Unlike our fast food today, Passover was fast food, not because of the speed to get the meal, but the people were to be ready to move. They were to eat it in a hurry. It wasn’t intended to fill them forever, but to give them strength for the journey.
The Israelites were to eat this meal fully clothed and ready to depart Egypt and slavery at a moment’s notice. Even today, the whole point of the Seder or Passover meal is to remind Jews of the trials of slavery past generations experienced. They eat the meal to fuel a spiritual journey and to remember.
In days gone by, when people traveled, they wore special traveling clothes. I am really not sure why. Today we tend to wear whatever is in our closets. There is nothing in my wardrobe I would classify as “traveling clothes.” I have dress clothes, work clothes, casual clothes, bum around clothes, summer clothes and winter clothes. When I am going to travel, it is some selection from one of those categories. I own nothing having the name traveling clothes.
But not so many years ago, people wore traveling clothes. You may remember in the movie The Sound of Music when the Von Trapp family was trying to escape Nazi occupied Austria under the ruse they were entering a singing competition. When the Nazis stop them the commander of the Nazi patrol asks them, “Traveling clothes?” Captain von Trapp replied by simply saying they were costumes. My point is, even as recently as World War II, people wore traveling clothes. Perhaps in other parts of the world they still do.
The Hebrew people were to eat the Passover meal, ready to make a journey. They were to eat the meal dressed in their traveling clothes and with their shoes on their feet, ready to leave Egypt. Such was a really unusual instruction back in the days of Hebrew slavery. For any of us this idea may not sound so strange to us but that is because we are used to wearing shoes almost all the time. Well, most of us wear shoes all the time. When we go to a restaurant we wear shoes. Who among us hasn’t seen the sign, “No shoes, No shirt, No service?” When we go to someone’s home for a meal, even many of us in our own homes, always have shoes on our feet. But, in the Biblical era such was not the case.
Because everyone wore sandals feet and their primary mode of transportation was to walk virtually everywhere they went, people’s feet grew tired. In addition, they were dusty and dirty. When you entered someone’s home the first thing you did was to remove your sandals and your feet were washed. Such was the commonly accepted practice of the day.
The meal itself, now known as the Seder meal, or Passover meal was a sign of the old life of slavery the Israelites had lived and were leaving behind and also of the new life to which God was leading them in the Promised Land. Everything in the meal had deep symbolic meaning.
In the celebration of those meal everything has great meaning. The bitter herbs, the roasted lamb, even the wearing of traveling clothes and sandals on their feet were all of symbolic importance. The Hebrews were to eat the meal prepared to follow on the journey at a moment’s notice.
The Passover meal was a fast food meal. It was a meal that was intended to quickly give the Hebrew people fuel. It was fast food to give them strength for the long, hard journey ahead.
For Christians today Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, as it is sometimes called is also fast food. Like Passover for the Israelites, Holy Communion isn’t designed to fill us forever, but instead to strengthen us on our spiritual journey. We get that fast food, quick fuel as the Lord’s pilgrim people. Holy Communion is fast food for our Christian journey.
In just a few minutes we will be coming to the Lord’s Table to receive our fast food once again. Yet this meal isn’t now, nor has it ever been intended to eat as we might eat our lunch, in a hurry so we can get on with our day. Instead it is spiritual fast food we eat to give us strength to follow God, to the places where God might lead us today and into the future.
Just as the Passover was fast food for the Israelites, this meal is our fast food to prepare us to depart into the world in the strength of God’s spirit, ready to go, to work, to serve, to move at a moment’s notice. It isn’t fast food because of the time it takes to prepare it or to eat it, but instead because of the spiritual significance that gives us strength for the journey and being ready to move when God speaks to us, when God leads us.
As we come together this morning to receive this Holy meal, may we each take this opportunity to begin a new conversation with God over our fast food. In this conversation it may be just the right time to ask, “Father, how can I better serve you and the world around me as I take this meal of fast food you are giving me, food for my spiritual journey.”
If we can pause for a moment and make our table prayer this day a prayer like that one, God will not only use us and use our congregation to make the world a better place, God will also bless each of us through this most holy of meals, a meal that we can truly call fast food.
