EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY!

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY!

“Go eat rich foods and sweet drinks

 and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared,

for today is holy to our Lord.

Do not be saddened this day,

 for rejoicing in the Lord is your strength!”  (Neh 8:10)

            Nehemiah tells the people to eat and drink and be merry because it is a Holy day! Imagine having a party to celebrate God!  Is it reasonable to assume that everyone who celebrated stayed sober and devotional?  Of course not, but just because some people overdo it, is no reason to stop celebrating God.  The faithful are encouraged to sing, dance and eat in gratitude to God throughout the Bible.  Somehow though, religion has taken the fun out of that celebration and solemnity has replaced joy.

“Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you…” (Lk 10:7)

           

            When Jesus counsels the disciples that when they go to new places on their journeys of faith, to eat and drink what is offered to them, you notice he doesn’t suggest the food must be kosher.  He knows what they don’t, that someday they will be proclaiming the Gospel in non-Jewish communities and the food they are offered will not be familiar.  A reminder to all that what separates from one another is external.  Internally, we are all the same to God.

            In both cases God is acknowledging who we are and what we do.  God is part of all of it.  There are no places in our lives where God is absent.  Jesus loved parties; wedding receptions, formal dinners and cookouts yet the elders of his time called him a drunkard.  That did not stop him because we needed to see that his humanity was just like ours and that God is part of it. 

            Personally, I have been in the depths of grief this week because I was in Virginia to attend a memorial for my son by the children of St. Ann’s school.  The 8^th grade class, now in High School put a plaque in his honor on the flagpole.  Their stories and love for him were both wonderful and heartbreaking.  It has been a crazy mixed up blend of joy, grief, pride and gratitude and through it all He is there.  As Corrie Tenboom reminded us, “There is no pit so deep, that He is not deeper still.”

            The joy in knowing that God is with us at all times; that His love is boundless and His strength and care will sustain us throughout life ought to make us want to sing and dance!

Rejoice! 

Carol Lemelin OPA