Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. 1 Kings 4:22-23
“Next, we may consider the processes of food distribution. When food is grown locally, it will most naturally be delivered locally. Such local distribution makes it possible for consumers to deal directly with local producers. Locally grown food, moreover, is much more likely to be marked by compassionate neighborliness wherein food is more generously shared with neighbors who may lack resources or purchasing power. Such distribution readily becomes a practice of genuine neighborliness. Our primary modes of food distribution wholly lack such a compassionate sensibility.
In the pressured world of industrial production, distribution follows the familiar trajectories of wealth and poverty. As a result, those with great resources are able to enjoy vast accumulations of rich food. Such a capacity for accumulation is evident in the Bible when Pharaoh deprives the peasants in his domain of their means of production. Consequently, food distribution depends upon a food czar (Joseph the Israelite!) to mete out food according to the whim of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh’s practice of keeping surplus food for himself, moreover, is replicated by his King Solomon, who enjoyed a lavish table that featured a vast inventory of meats, the very food denied to the peasants. This extravagant surplus of food depended on the productivity of agrarian peasants who worked the soil for subsistence income. At the same time, this royal practice denied to those same peasants any access to such an extravagant diet.”
Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 33-34.
The events far exceeded expectations in Kathmandu regarding attendance and response. We had the largest attendance for an accountability event in history at 120 accountants, lawyers, pastors, ministry workers, and other professionals.
Additionally, our Stations of Generosity training yesterday we trained 60 pastors, trainers, and other ministry workers from all 7 provinces of Nepal to spread it through their networks. Thanks so much for your prayers. Off to Pokhara today.
Regarding food distribution, I remember while growing up that the flood of California and Mexican tomatoes, which had little flavor, to the markets in the Midwest caused prices to drop and led to the closure of many local greenhouses.
So, while the mega farmers likely had lavish tables like Solomon, the little local growers had to shut down and find other work. Today’s post is not about the plight of the American farmer but about something deeper.
It links to two things. First, the practice of keeping surplus for self runs contrary to the teachings of Christ. Second, the desire for growth and gain with an insensitivity to the impact on others.
If we possess these two traits we look no different from the world. Furthermore, we should not bear the name Christian or say we align with Christ because such actions don’t reflect any reverence for God or love of neighbor.