Eating with Jesus

51. Reaching In, Reaching Out: Meals, Food, and Church

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

I have taken a long hiatus from the blog to relax, rewind, refresh, and rest in Scripture this winter.  Thanks for sticking with me!  Here is the beginning of the final chapter of this e-book about shared meals as a Christian practice.  This, and the following weekly posts can help nudge you to think about the food ministry at your own church.

There are multiple approaches to food and hunger through food ministries in the North American Church. All do good things. Some give out food from a pantry or a cash gift card to a grocery store. Others prepare or organize a meal to feed new parents, the ill, the grieving, or the aged. Still others use a meal for evangelical purposes, always letting participants hear that God loves them. And some intentionally create a formal atmosphere more similar to the original practice of marrying the meal with worship and teaching. Some churches work alone, others together, often in partnership with local secular organizations.

I interviewed stakeholders from multiple and different ministries in an attempt to describe the scope of mission and vision where meal ministry is concerned, and to get a sense of how that is working out in practice.[1] Certainly, feeding the hungry is an action believers are called to do, no strings attached. But my visits were predicated on the desire to know if feeding someone a meal rather than sharing one around the table together were practices with different motives, possibilities, and results.

Going in, my intuition said that feeding people can become a community’s collaborative way of loving neighbor without necessarily bringing Jesus and the kingdom of heaven into the shared conversation. And this phrase shared conversation is critical. If the shared meal as a distinctive Christian practice was and is always about being around the table together in God’s presence, and giving voice and assent to that presence, then programs in which one can stop in to pick up some food (no shared meal), or come in and be seated and served by church members (a meal served but not shared between visitors and believers) is fundamentally different from the shared meals of the first century church.   The people providing the meal go away feeling good about themselves, about having met the physical needs of their neighbors, but with little to no acknowledgment that we are all hungry and in need of God’s grace-filled presence and provision, no different than my experience in Seattle with the unnamed and hungry homeless woman. (see post #18)

In essence, it is a fulfillment of the second commandment that may give little or no regard to the first, and as a practice it is not distinctively Christian because it misses this point: we should know the names of the hungry and share with them a meal and Jesus’ favorite mealtime teaching that the Kingdom of God is at hand. We must remember that a Christian practice is only a practice when it is done together, regularly, and with a focus on the presence of God and his kingdom. The meal, then, is meant to be an intimate shared practice, one which most of us must admit is an uncomfortable proposition because adding strangers into the mix intrudes on our personal space and plays on our insecurities.

It might be easy to become defensive at this point and insist that the shared meal of the first century church was shared among believers. But scholars contend that although the early church did meet for worship and teaching and the breaking of bread together, all were welcome to eat and hear and see God’s goodness, believers and unbelievers, Jews and Gentiles alike. These meals did feed the hungry, but they were not focused first and foremost on that goal. The emphasis was (and still should be today) on Christ and the kingdom.

Moreover, the distinctive Christian practice of hospitality is at play in the shared meal. The four components of hospitality outlined by Amy Oden elegantly describe how these meals should proceed. First, the greeting and welcome. Second, nourishment and dwelling together (food and Word). Third, a challenge to know God and live a life which pleases him (this is a most important component of the practice that is usually missing when a meal is not shared). Fourth, the sending back into the world fortified with Word and prayer as well as a full stomach. And so I set out to do this research because I wanted to find out what people and programs are doing and why.

Over the course of two years, I met with stakeholders, visionaries, pastors, and lay members of various churches-inner city, rural ones with membership challenges, and suburban ones with lots of resources. Several overlapping program characteristics emerged from these interviews, including the type of program and individuals carrying out the programming, as well as the ownership, faith basis, and sustainability of each program. My main goal was to try and identify the commonalities and substantive differences across programs, and see if the shared meal-as a Christian practice- was an ingredient in the recipe of various church food ministries.

In Post 52, we will begin to survey the themes that arose from these interviews. Stay tuned!  As always, your comments are helpful as I continue editing the book.  Use the LEAVE A REPLY box below!

~Julie A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

[1] As part of the formal research process, interviewees were required to give written consent to be interviewed in exchange for guaranteed confidentiality.

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42. The Dining Table: Food for Hungry Souls

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

The last post tried to demonstrate how a shared family meal is powerfully generative, with the power to produce, or generate a way of thinking, acting, and responding to circumstances. In particular, children learn from the adults at the table not only civilized table manners and social customs, but about life and death, good and evil, right and wrong. In short, the table is a place for a child to observe what it means to be an adult. For believers, this becomes even more significant, because this is our shared practice for learning what it means to be a man, woman, child, and family of God.

It is also deep mystery how shared table time as a routine practice helps children develop a healthy attitude toward ritual and tradition. It has a potent and lifelong carryover effect on their sense of family and belief, acting as a liturgy of sorts for creating that daily rhythm of how a flourishing family life should flow. And, in this day and age, when culture kidnaps our children at younger and younger ages, this table time protects them. The physical food they eat with us is a symbol of God’s ever-present provision, help and sustenance. This family table is the place we can teach our children what we know of God, and where they can watch us live that love out.

Over many years as a professor at a Christian college, I had students regularly tell me of their struggles to know God. They are so fraught with an urgency to seem grown up without really wanting just yet to actually grow up, that they tend to leave looking for God by the wayside as they try to find themselves. This is quite natural for that age, but they almost universally and wistfully wish they could balance school, work, friends, and faith better than they do. In nearly every situation, my best counsel to them was to become more familiar with who God is, and to study his attributes, his Word, his actions throughout the generations, his dying and undying love for them, and his unchangeable nature. For my students, so focused on mission, I point them toward God because they need a better-developed sense of co-mission as they train (this, too is practice) for a lifelong vocation.

What does that have to do with the family table? The table, with its rich undertones of grace, acceptance, sustenance and togetherness is where parents can use, no matter how brief, the stories of the day just ending to teach their children about God. Mary wasn’t much older than a child when Gabriel announced God’s favor upon her. In her song of response, Mary demonstrates a deep knowledge of and trust in God, exclaiming, “His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.” (Luke 1:50-55)

Mary knows, fears, and reveres her God. It is nearly impossible to revere or fear a God you do not know well. When our knowledge and understanding of God is unformed, we are vulnerable to the human tendency to revere and fear the wrong things. When we revere money, we find ourselves fearing a fickle economy. If we revere health and youth, then illness, aging, even dying frighten us. Our reverence for providing for our own safety and security is born out of a fear of tragedy or calamity. But, at the table, we learn about a God who says throughout history, “Trust me, let peace rule in your heart. I care for you. I give you bread not stones. I love you so much and so completely that I died for you. I am here for you, present among you, and I will never leave you.”

The table truly does provide a powerful opportunity for testimony to our children. In our families, sharing our lives, our family history, our joys and our tears around the table, we also share in the love and knowledge of God. Our children not only learn the stories of our faith, they learn the stories of the family’s encounters with God through its history. We model for children what it means to trust God, to love him with a sincere and devoted heart out of fear and reverence for his holiness, his incarnation, his substitutionary death, and his promise to return. “Food is a direct route to the intimacies of life.”[1] This is food for hungry souls.

Think about planning some family meals this week-for everyone’s sake!

~Julie A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

[1] Weinstein, The Surprising Power of Family Meals, p. 69.

Featured image by J.Holberg, 2016

32. Jesus Lives-to Eat Again!

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

Post #31 finished up this book’s chapter about the meals of Jesus during his earthly life.  In this next chapter, we shift our focus to the meals  (and food fights!) of the first Christians.

Luke ends his gospel with two fascinating scenes. First, two of Jesus’ followers, having walked with a unrecognizable Jesus along the road to Emmaus, invite him to stop and share a meal. Again, Jesus steps in to act as host by taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it to the other two, who immediately recognize this “stranger” as the risen Jesus. This act, of taking, thanking, breaking and giving bread is the same thing Jesus did when he fed the 5,000, and again at his Last Supper. It’s a repeated practice at meals designed to sear into our minds that Jesus is always with us as host, provider, and savior. In other words, regularly breaking and eating bread together is a practice meant to make us think of Jesus, to recognize his presence at our meal fellowship, and to remember his incomprehensibly great love for us.

The Emmaus scene ends with the two followers running back to Jerusalem to report to the eleven disciples that Jesus lives, and that they didn’t recognize him until he broke the bread. And, as the thirteen of them excitedly replay the story amongst themselves, Jesus suddenly appears right in their midst. The disciples, already on an emotional roller coaster are terrified (after all, it is still Sunday, less than twenty four hours since the empty tomb was discovered). So Jesus shows them his pierced hands and feet to try and calm their fears, and then asks, “Do you have anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:36-41).

Here stands the risen Christ alive, in the flesh, asking for something to eat, because the first thing he wants is to celebrate with them in table fellowship! This is Jesus’ way of convincing them he’s not a ghost, and this turns their fear into joy. In accepting and eating a piece of broiled fish, Jesus, who until now had always assumed the role of host at meals, accepts the hospitality of the disciples. First bread at Emmaus, then fish in Jerusalem- this is an echo of Jesus’ shared meal on a remote hillside when he commanded the disciples, “You give them something to eat.” (Luke 9:13)

Jesus leaves us with a model for our own meal ministry; Jesus will always be present at our meals, asking if we have anything to eat, and expecting us to be host to the itinerant, hungry, fearful, and doubting people in our world. By sharing a simple meal at our table, we break bread with others so that they too might recognize Jesus.

Next time, in Post 33, we will begin to scour Acts for clues about the meals of the early Church.

~Julie A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

(Featured image: emmaus-art-3.jpg from http://heartofgaemmaus.org)