Apr 17, 2022
I'd bet my life's savings that when Jesus prayed over the meal at the Last Supper, he gave thanks for the farmers who grew the food. He had a tremendous respect for farmers and began many of his parables with, "Once there was a farmer..."
The Last Supper could not have happened without farmers.
On my bucket list is a trip to Italy to see The Last Supper. Leonardo Davinci painted this masterpiece on a wall of a convent in Milan, Italy around 1495 - shortly after Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety two (remember that rhyme?). The painting measures 28 feet wide and 15 feet tall and was nearly obliterated by a bombing in World War II.
Although this marvelous work of art is one of the more iconic images to endure 500+ years, it does not reflect the reality of the real Last Supper when Jesus huddled with his twelve disciples in a small, second story room. Rather than wearing European style robes and being seated in chairs around a table, they were most likely sitting on a floor around a table that was elevated around 1 a foot off the floor. Stinky feet were an issue, ergo, the reason for him washing the feet of his followers. Who does that?
Food is the great connector of the human family. Tailgate parties, elegant banquets, food trucks, and backyard barbecues are ways that we draw people together with one thing in common; we need food to survive and thrive.
I'm going to do something new this year to help my grandkids remember where their food comes from. They will be over and will squeal with delight as they race from tree to bush and planter to flowerbed looking for Easter eggs. But first, I'm going to take them to the chicken coop where The Ladies lay their eggs each day and remind them where those eggs come from.
I'm also going to change the prayer over food we do with our grandkids. One of them taught us this fun little prayer, complete with hand actions:
Tick-tock, tick-tock
This is the way we pray
We thank the Lord Jesus Christ
For giving us food today
Hurray!
I'm changing it to this:
Tick-tock, tick-tock
This is the way we pray
We thank all of the farmers and Jesus Christ
For giving us food today
Hurray!