Pause In Advent #3 - Food For Thought

If you'd ever been in one of my lessons about the Tudors, especially in the Autumn Term, you'd have heard my two penn'orth on the subject of mincemeat. How in those days, the little Christmas pies contained the dried fruits, but also a piece of meat - and the pies were shaped like a manger, with the meat representing baby Jesus.
Here is an amazing little Tudor Pie mould. [Cromwell didn't ban them - he just disliked the effigy and considered it idolatrous - so after the Restoration, mincepies missed out the meat and became circular in shape]
So if our forebears had pies like this, what right have I got to get steamed up about an advert like this?

I don't recall Jesus getting annoyed about sausage rolls [or whatever the first century Jewish equivalent was]
But he did get very concerned about poor people going hungry.

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

Then they will say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’

The Lord will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

Please support your local foodbank this Christmas...