Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:26)

A blessed tradition: Our city’s interfaith Thanksgiving service, hosted by our state’s oldest Jewish congregation, included origin stories from the Miami Nation, teachings by Buddhists, an edifying Baháʼí prayer, several Christian ministers. One homily riffed on New York Times’ cooking connoisseur Sam Sifton’s instructions for a low-conflict Thanksgiving, which includes this advice: “Don’t skip the turkey.” Sifton declares that harmonious Thanksgivings require tradition. Turkey is why we gather, and turkey – and some apple pie – will see us through the post-election holidays.

The sermon invited us to choose compassion and got some chuckles, but it sounded off-key in my ears. Turkey isn’t prohibited by as many religious traditions as is pork, but to say that turkey is unifying is like saying we all like baseball.

An interfaith gathering is the perfect opportunity to question mainstream, dominant culture traditions.

I’m all for the feasting. If you’ve been reading my columns, you know I have a stubborn faith in feasting together to help us be human. But to use the turkey as the tool for binding us together in challenging times is in questionable taste.

As “tips for juicy turkey” and “which holiday dishes can be made ahead” fill our newsfeeds, famine rises in Gaza, Sudan, Haiti, Syria . . . and I could keep listing countries. Or I could tell you that a child dies from malnutrition every ten seconds.

Our ancestors and many species today cycle between feasting and fasting because food is not available every day throughout the year. Virtually all of us reading Anabaptist World have plenty to eat and face a “comfort crisis,” as journalist Michael Easter calls it. We feast for special occasions: holidays, birthdays, Friday nights, Sunday brunches, bad days, good days, anniversaries, break-ups, election joys, election sorrows.

Few of us fast, by choice or by necessity.

Easter’s analysis of feasting focuses mostly on our physical health. But I’m concerned about our spiritual health. We reach for a glass of wine or donut when we’re feeling anxious or sad. We smother conflicts in gravy. We feed each other sugar because we can’t figure out how to say words that really matter.

It’s too much to ask of turkeys, over 99% of whom (in the U.S.) live and die in torturous conditions, to be our unifying factor. These birds aren’t allowed to be living creatures. They’re are treated as machines that turn the cheapest (subsidized) crops and food byproducts into the deals we expect at the grocery this time of year. With bird flu flying throughout the world, large turkey farms get millions of subsidies when they slaughter birds that won’t make it to the grocery.

Benjamin Franklin advocated that our national bird be the turkey. He might not recognize what this nation has done to these fierce, grand creatures. Jesus encouraged his friends to look to the birds of the air (where we won’t see a turkey, I get that). And he said that the Creator loves humans more than birds, so a Christian might justify using and abusing turkeys for holiday feasts and convenient lunches.

I am not saying turkeys are nice. I worked on a neighbor’s farm with about 250 animals of at least 25 species. The scariest was the tom turkey. His need to protect his community was stronger than his fear of a human six times his size. When I needed to turn my back on him, I held a broom in one hand. If he didn’t see the broom, he attacked.

Some holidays I eat a little turkey; some I don’t. I might make a vegan poultry-shaped loaf, but I might not. I’ve never been able to bind my family or bridge a conflict with turkey: if I don’t eat the turkey I’m the picky, elitist, liberal vegetarian. If I eat the turkey (even if it’s a humanely-raised and humanely-killed turkey I spent a bunch of money on), I’m inconsistent and a nuisance.

So I can’t  give the command “Don’t skip the turkey” a chance.  What menu might Jesus recommend this season?

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? I’ve met fierce turkeys and lovesick turkeys, determined swallows who dive-bomb our farm cats, persistent sparrows who shoo each other away from the food, and brave vultures who venture over and over into the highway for roadkill.

I tried to save a fallen nestling this summer until I learned it was a cowbird, laid as an egg in another bird’s nest. Cowbird moms watch a nest, and, when it’s unattended, lay their own egg in it. Sometimes they destroy the nest-builders’ own eggs, so the cowbird egg is the only one to survive. They are “brood parasites.” 

We dominant culture, white-privileged, settler humans are following the wrong bird behavior. Jesus invites us to consider the birds for their dependance on the Creator for their embrace of reality and for their graceful daily feasting or fasting. 

I won’t try to prooftext Jesus’ menu commandments, but I’m confident he would weep for the hens who cannot gather their chicks underneath their breasts, or even walk in the grass or peck for bugs or stand up straight or open their wings.