Liturgy with Ruth

Abstract

How the church thinks about food has everything to do with her politics of immigration. Ruth’s story is one of gratefully receiving the other over a table of food. This is put in the context of what Patrick Deneen calls late modern liberalism’s ‘liberal anti-culture’. Foreigners in American contexts are mere items of consumption like the food we eat. We do not receive food with gratitude, so we do not receive the foreigner with gratitude. Ruth’s story is presented as a eucharistic liturgy that the church can perform, speaking blessings over foreigners as they are invited to eat a morsel of bread, take a sip of wine, and participate in community potlucks. A response follows which engages issues of multiculturalism, double-distancing of immigrants, Ruth’s contribution to the meal at the table, and the eucharist as a space-making event.