On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
Isaiah 25:6
If you bite and devour one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another.
Galatians 5:15
Dear Friends in Christ,
There are dozens of stories of great meals in our Bible. Indeed, if you want to find one recurring guide in the Gospel of John, notice how Jesus goes from feast to feast to feast — even after the resurrection, with the grilled fish on the beach. Psalm 107 says that God satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry are filled with good things. Not to mention Jesus feeding thousands, and then feeds his close friends at the Last Supper. Anyway, there is respect for food and for the sharing of food and the mission to “feed my sheep” at the heart of our faith.
And then there are kleptoparasites. In scripture and in nature and in our own day. They were the sermon starter on the last Sunday of June, based on some recent scientific publications. (If you are not reading the British Ornithologist’s Union, it could be a summer beach friend. Just in case.)
Kleptoparasitism is the practice of taking food from another, by purposeful and aggressive action. Hyenas do it, as do cuckoo bees, but you may see it most often this summer practiced by seagulls. They take food from each other, from smaller beings, and of course if you have an unguarded sandwich or chips at the beach, they take from you. Often right out of your hand. Especially if you are smaller or not watching or don’t believe that they will take what is yours. While scratching you with their feet.
Paul wrote to Galatia and warned against any biting consumption. Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, with the implication that the rich man was taking from the poor man. And where I grew up in Maine they call seagulls flying rats. (Sorry about that. Rats aren’t all bad, to be fair. Nor are seagulls. But their scratching theft is.) Frankly, most kleptoparasites have little to commend them. And sadly, they aren’t just in the animal world.
There are structures in our world where the powerful take food right out of the hands of the less powerful. And now we know the name for it.
Happily, there is a new piece of research about seagull kleptos, in Biology Letters by the Royal Society. The research is empowering and faithful. It observes that 75% of the gulls will not take your food if you look them in the eye. If you stare at them. If you demonstrate that you see them. They stop taking your food. They go away. This is in England where people have the right to stare at an offender, the right to observe them and affirm that they are observing them. Free expression, so to speak, even to take videos or still photos of these kleptos.
I enjoy watching the seabirds as summer arrives. Where I stay in Maine there are four types of gulls. There are terns, loons, cormorants, pipers, bald eagles, ospreys, blue herons, and here and there a black crested night heron. Not to mention eider ducks. And they coexist and make the shore beautiful, musical, and joyful. Yet I have little love for the kleptoparasitism I observe. So now that I have read the Royal Society article, I will stare them in the eye. As the 250th birthday of our nation arrives, I celebrate the free right to stare down these birds, and maybe stop some of their consumption. So that people like Lazarus are not bitten or devoured, and get to eat what God longs for them to eat, like scripture’s rich food and good things. Frankly, I pray this for all of us.
May we all have a healthy, liberating, sharing summer. And peace to you,
