Lent is such an interesting liturgical season. This season encompasses Lent, Passion and Easter, and has hunger and feast, pain, stress, release, rebirth, and renewed mission. We discuss such big and contrasting ideas, which come with built-in object lessons. We see tree buds itching to spring forth, insects waking up and emerging, and light from longer days, anticipating summer. Lent has many object lessons, but today I want to think about eating and fasting. There are loads of ways feeding and fasting shape our personal meditation during Lent and the passages of the liturgical calendar.

Jesus fasted in the desert. I’m including it on my list because fasting and feeding are intimately connected. For many, Lent is a time to take the example of Jesus’ fast and give up something as a figurative fast, such as social media or television. The same way a fast is intimately about food, a time of figurative fasting is intimately about the thing being given up. In its absence, we can see how it related to other parts of our lives. We can see how much time and energy (sometimes money) had been going to the thing we give up.

Fasting is also an embodied exercise to remember our limitations. It’s a time to remember our mortality and to remember we are dust. Fasting is a time of clarity. This is partially because of how sugar, insulin, ketones and glycogen affect our brains and hormones. It’s also because we have shaken ourselves out of our routines in a way that allows us to see what is, rather than what we expect. Both in figurative and literal fasts, we have shaken up our status quo, and in return we get to see the world differently. We trade food for perspective.

Okay, if you’re expecting a meal here, I’m sorry. This is about a fig Jesus didn’t eat. Every Lent I get sucked into the twin tales of the fruitless fig trees in Luke 13 and Mark 11. In both stories, fruitless fig trees stand condemned. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but these fruit trees are put on trial for not having fruit. And I get it. Figs are amazing. This last year I was able to grow some fig trees, and, I’ll tell you, figs fresh off the tree and warmed by the sun are a divine experience.

But still, condemnation feels like such a big jump. Plants just do what they do. In the Luke story, this is pointed out to the landlord, and the tree was given another year to get itself together and make some fruit. The Mark story ends differently. The text points out that the tree was out of season, but Jesus curses the fruitless tree to wither within the day. The trees have different fates, but both stories agree that fruit trees should bear fruit. We should bear fruit, too.

So those were stories about the food Jesus didn’t eat. Our next example is about food Jesus did eat.  Jesus ate with bad people on the way to the cross. Jesus ate with sinners. I hear many jokes about how a meal with sinners sounds fun! If you fall into that camp, it’s good to remember that he also ate with the Pharisees.

And for the socially conscious, Jesus ate with people who had been given structural power, who then used their power to abuse their neighbors. He ate with them. We don’t get an indication that quickly he choked down some food and left before the politics of their occupation came up. He ate with them and connected with them. He didn’t deprogram, debunk, call out, or call in — maybe Aramaic didn’t words for that. He ate with these people. Jesus ate with people that would end his ministry, and he ate with the people who continue his ministry. If we are ready to follow his example, we should fix ourselves a plate of vulnerability, charity, humility and community.

Passover is a meal with much ritual connected to it. Jesus used Passover as the time to establish a new covenant. He broke bread and passed the wine, but before Jesus even got to the room, he walked past the one who carried the water in Luke 22:7-13. Jesus and the disciples found a man carrying water who brought them to the place of the last supper, and that’s how they found a place to rest and eat. The man carrying water showed them to the place Jesus would give the new covenant. A man carrying water would have been unusual; it would have violated sensibilities. It was a transgression of the boxes around gender. The closest idea we have today is “trans.” The guide to the room, the water bearer, was trans. Preparing for his arrest, Jesus was refreshed by the labor of a trans individual.

These experiences and stories that pave the way to the cross feel more real when I think about the mundane aspects. When Jesus was in the wilderness, he was hungry, and he was probably hangry too. Jesus felt condemnation when something didn’t live up to its purpose; he was mad that something with so much potential was fruitless. Jesus ate with a lot of different people; I think it’s easier to feel gracious after a good meal. Maybe Jesus did, too. When it was time for his arrest, he took direction and refreshment from a transgressive person. These are deep lessons, built on basic human experiences. When we consider what it means to be like Jesus, I think it’s worthwhile to remember how he handled the basic human stuff.

Spiritual exercises to try

1. Trade food for perspective

Take something away: maybe food, maybe something else.

• What changes in your perspective when you shake up your routine?
• What changes in you when you shake up your routine?

2. Bear fruit

When you know something is not producing its potential (like yourself), take a moment to acknowledge that it will do what it does.

• What does it look like to set the fig tree up for success?
• Be the gardener and give the tree another chance in different conditions.

3. Feast with different people

Who could you eat with that would require you to exercise vulnerability, charity, humility, and community?

• Put time and attention into eating with someone who makes you practice vulnerability.
• Put time and attention into eating with someone who makes you practice charity.
• Put time and attention into eating with someone who makes you practice humility.
• Put time and attention into eating with someone who makes you practice community.

4. Refresh yourself in the beauty of outsiders

• Where are outsiders making art, music, food, or community? How can you respectfully appreciate and participate?