What contribution can Lenten reflection on Christ’s resilience and our indiscipline and self-indulgence make to our response to the issues of food and consumption raised by the recent scandals? 

This week's news 

There is the ‘Horsemeat Scandal’.

There are stories about the dubious tax-practices of some multi-national companies, including some food giants and there is the urban fox which, instead of confining itself to scavenging the dustbins of a wasteful society, entered a house and attacked a baby in his cot. 

Reflection

Christ was not allowed to turn stones to bread for his convenience alone. Are we forgetting that food, God’s gift, should be there for all? When some of the cheaper ranges turn out not to be what we thought it is too easy to say ‘Well, you get what you pay for!’ What can we say to families whose budgets are so tight that the present choice is only the cheapest or go hungry? Are we concerned enough about inequality and exclusion, the plight of the time-poor and accommodation-squeezed as well as money-poor? 

Christ resisted temptations to use God’s favour to amass power to himself or merely to catch attention. Are we cowards, reluctant to rock the boat with difficult questions about the use of power and influence? Does all the fuss about long and over-complex supply chains serve merely to disguise the fact that the methods of the Kingdoms of the World are still with us. The problem is what it always was: powerful interests secure their profits and other benefits to the detriment of the powerless, be they poorer countries, smaller enterprises or consumers without much purchasing power? 

Lent should be for us as the time in the wilderness was for Christ a time for really searching reflection. There is rather a lot of lazy thinking about. It is easier to blame foreigners in  Romania or Poland, or feckless households, or criminal gangs, or even ‘The Cuts’ than get to grips with what may be deep-seated problems of our society, and it is still more difficult to face up to what may be our part in them. How should we use our measure of ‘consumer-power’? Should we put clear provenance before cheapness, buy local, eat less meat (or just less), or substitute expensive local honey for cheaper foreign-grown sugar? What if it means we, or our families, eat less well or have less time free? And what about the knock-on effects of our choices? Where does fair trade , or ‘trade rather than aid’, fit in all this?  Turn against sugar from a company which isn’t paying its taxes and you risk the livelihoods of a far-away sugar-growing workforce. 

When every choice has a downside, pointless hand-wringing can be the ultimate temptation. Luke tells us (v.13) that even Christ couldn’t banish temptation once and for all. Living up to our calling is a painful on-going business. Perhaps we have to learn to accept and even relish small victories, moments when we feel we really are moving forward on the right path. 

Prayer

Perhaps for a time of reflection before prayers of intercession:

God, the giver of all good things,

give us the grace to identify our own temptations 

and to be aware of the strength of those that face others in hard times:

the consumer who cannot afford to care too much what is in the basket as long as it’s within the family budget;

the  farmer or small-holder tempted to evade stringent  animal welfare regulations;

the agent tempted not to ask all the questions that should be asked when a ‘too good to be true’ deal is on the table;

the owner of horses who realises how easy it is to alter a document and raise the price of an animal at slaughter;

all those government officials and supermarket employees with roles in a hugely complex supply chain tempted just to give up as they do battle with bureaucracy, confusion, obstruction, and fraud.

Keep those of us for whom life is less difficult 

from snobbery, cowardice, indifference and despair. 

May we be angry, but not indulge in indiscriminate anger. 

May we be critical, but only where criticism is deserved. 

May we be prepared to give, 

and be generous with time, trouble and money 

so that Lent may see less greed and more sharing, 

more justice and less suffering, 

less perplexity and more progress.

Amen.

Questions

• Should we be welcoming the convenience foods and other changes that have freed so many women from the kitchen or urging a general return to home-cooking?
• Should cookery be part of the National Curriculum (and not just for girls!)?
• Is it possible both to support local jobs and local people and respond fairly to the claims of poorer nations?

Action

End the hand-wringing and make one change to your cooking and eating habits this Lent that will benefit your health, or contribute to fairer trade, or advance sustainability.

Young People

If you’ve never cooked, learn to cook a simple savoury dish. If you do cook, extend your repertoire with another – and perhaps a more ambitious – recipe.

Brenda Vance is a URC elder and retired university teacher of English.

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