Drop a few letters, and it’s right there: God within Gourd. Gourd. 

Gourds refer to the fruit of plants in the Cucurbitaceae family. Cucurbits, as they are also called, include edible gourds such as squash, pumpkins, melons and cucumbers, as well as ornamental gourds. Despite a lifetime of growing, decorating, carving and eating gourds every autumn, I hadn’t made the God-gourd connection until a few years ago at Wild Church during an October communion service. 

World Communion Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, and Harvest Festival (Sukkot) all fall around the same time. We wove them together in our Wild Church service as the children decorated a teepee-shaped sukkot booth with autumn flowers, apples and gourds in the center of the three sisters garden they tended during the growing season. All were invited inside to share communion.

As we broke fry bread, Jesus’ words Remember me included remembering the painful history from which fry bread became a Native American food. As apple cider poured out of the press, the apples offering up their life for our own, we remembered Jesus pouring out his love and life so that we might have life and have it abundantly. We read from an Indigenous Translation of the New Testament: 

This is the sacred tradition that came from our Honored Chief, a tradition that I have received and passed on to you: On the night that Creator Sets Free (Jesus) was betrayed, he took some fry bread. He then gave thanks to the Great Spirit, broke the fry bread into pieces, and said, “This is my body broken for you. Eat it to remember me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23, First Nations Version)

I had always considered the communion elements to be symbolic. It would be a hard teaching to interpret John 6:56 literally: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them” (NIV). And yet, as I looked around the garden at the harvest, I had a new sense of the sacredness of all. A new wondering emerged as I gazed at a gourd. What if eating the flesh of this gourd and all this food surrounding me is to remind me of Jesus’ flesh, because there is a direct connection, that Jesus is in all things? Is God incarnate in the gourd?! In John 1:14 we read, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (NIV). The incarnate, the divine embodying flesh, is connected to everything, which makes everything I eat and drink holy. 

Whoa! That would mean there is the potential for every meal to be communion, if I pause to remember Jesus’s words and presence of the incarnate Christ in the flesh of the food I consume. This revelation had been hidden in plain sight, there all along. I just needed to slow down in order to notice the invitation that is always available: an invitation to taste and see that God is good and can be found in a gourd.

RECIPE  

Harvest Fest Salad

This salad celebrates the harvest season with many foods that are being gathered in this time of year.

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole grain (such as wheat berries, Farro, oat groats, hulled barley)
• Fall veggies for roasting (such as cherry tomatoes, brussel sprouts, beets, winter squash)
• 2 cups packed chopped kale, about 3-4 stems
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup or honey
• ⅛ teaspoon each salt and pepper, or to taste
• Optional add-ins: sunflower or pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries or apples

Instructions 

1. Cook the whole grain of your choosing based on cooking times for that grain. For salads, I Iike to cook my grains al dente, still a little firm so they don’t get overcooked and mushy. Drain and set aside.
2. While the  grain is cooking, roast veggies of your choosing. I like to cut a variety of veggies into similar sizes so they cook evenly and toss with a little oil, salt and pepper. I spread out the veggies in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast at 450 F for 30-40 minutes until tender and starting to caramelize. Feel free to cook plenty of veggies while the oven is on. You can add as many as you’d like into the salad and enjoy any extra in other ways.
3. Wash kale. Remove stems and chop kale.
4. Whisk together a simple dressing of oil, vinegar, mustard, sweetener, salt and pepper.
5. Combine everything together in a large bowl, including any optional add-ins. Enjoy!