Eat, Drink...

"A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil." (Ecclesiastes 2:24a)

I love good food, and I enjoy preparing good food. I like trying new food, exploring options I hadn't thought of. As I've had the opportunity to travel the world, I've had some really, really good things (pasta all over Italy) and some really, really nasty things (like the lamb we had in Nazareth—sweat socks, anyone?). And while we Americans tend to rush through our meals (fast food should be an oxymoron), folks in other cultures know that a good meal involves more than just the food. Good meals are a part of life, as you share them around a table. We found that dinner in Italy took a minimum of two hours.

I love good food, good conversation, times shared around a table. But I would hate to think that's all there is to life.

Sometimes I hear people quoting the Bible, saying, "Ah, life is about eating, drinking and being merry!" But what folks who say that often fail to realize is that quote comes from a parable of Jesus—and it is not a positive statement. It comes from Luke 12 and the parable of the rich fool. The man has, he thinks, everything he needs. In fact, he has more than he needs, and he builds bigger barns to store it all. When everything is safely stored, that's when he says, "Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." He's telling himself that because he thinks he has enough to sustain him for a long, long time.

And yet, what he doesn't know (but Jesus tells us) is that the rich man's life was going to end that very night. What he had stored up for himself was going to be given to someone else. His life of ease was going to be cut short. At least part of the point of the parable is this: life is short, and you don't have control over it. The goal of life is not "eat, drink and be merry."

The Teacher seems to be sensing this. His world says there is nothing better to do than to eat, drink and be merry—and yet, that, too, seems meaningless to him. He does give us a glimpse, though, of what is ahead, because he acknowledges that if such things (eat, drink, etc.) are not from the hand of God, we can't really enjoy them. Hidden deeply within his cynicism is a glimmer of acknowledgement that everything we have ultimately comes from God.

That's what the rich fool missed. That's what folks all around us often miss. Even we who claim the name of Christian sometimes miss that. We can easily believe the lie of the culture that what we have has come because of "me"—our own work and not God's gracious hand. When we believe that, we grip pretty tightly onto our stuff, our things. But when we remember that what we have is really a gift—life, breath, air, food, water, it's all a gift—then we realize we don't have to hold on quite so tightly.

I love good food, but eating and drinking is not the point of life. God's hand gives us what we need, and only when we realize that can we truly "be merry" in enjoying his gifts.