Shared meals; food; eating together

33. Glad Hearts Eat Together!

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

In the first chapters of the book of Acts, Luke picks up exactly where he left off in his gospel, reviewing Jesus’ last moments on earth eating with and teaching the disciples before ascending to heaven. The disciples, now referred to as apostles by Luke, return to Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension to wait for the promised baptism by the Spirit. They spend the next fifty days praying with believers (in Acts 1:15 Luke says there were about one hundred and twenty gathered), until the day of Pentecost. From this point onward, the fellowship of baptized believers grows under the preaching of Peter and the apostles.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:42-47).

This passage in Acts 2 contains several important clues about how “church” may have operated in those earliest days. Obviously, there were no church buildings or church staff, no pews, fellowship hall, or Sunday school rooms for the first Christians, and no trained clergy, except possibly for converted Pharisees and scribes with a schooled understanding of the law. There was no set liturgy, no New Testament gospels or letters yet written, nor any prayer books or hymnals to use. In other words, the early church had no formal infrastructure, and no real recognizable identity through a set, much less standardized set of Christian practices across the Roman Empire.

From a sociologic and historic perspective, nascent social undertakings often rely heavily on the infrastructure already present in society at large. For example, when we plant a new church today, it is common to meet in an existing school or office building otherwise empty on Sundays. Likewise, when a new belief system is born, it will often be imbued with elements of the culture out of which it emerges, and Christianity, born in Jerusalem during Roman occupation in the Hellenistic era is no different.

We know from Scripture that these earliest Christians met together on a consistent basis. In Jesus’ day there were two main ways people regularly met together, at the temples (Jewish or pagan), and at meals. In other words, worshipping together and sharing meals were common social practices of that era. Peter and the apostles prayed at the temple and taught in the temple courts where Jewish religious teaching in Jerusalem had always been done, until this became increasingly difficult because of the opposition of Jewish leaders. This leaves the shared meal as the one standing social practice by which early Christians could meet together in small groups.

We should ask ourselves why we don’t do the same.

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

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)

31. Jesus at Your Table!

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

We have seen throughout this entire chapter that Jesus came eating and drinking, so we should not be surprised that this is also how he spent his last evening on earth. In the face of what he knew was coming on the morrow, he remained faithful to the practice of a shared meal with those he loved. Jesus intends for this Last Supper to be repeated, put into practice on a regular basis if you will. By appropriating the custom of the Passover Feast “continually celebrated [by the faith community] as a perpetual institution,”[1] Jesus frames the context of what will become the practice of both the shared and the sacred meal in the church.

When we sit down to share a meal with others, we don’t typically pass the bread and sip the wine in remembrance of Jesus, particularly if there are people at the table we don’t know very well, or people who don’t know Jesus. Even so, a meal shared by believers in the company of unbelievers is filled with Jesus’ presence.

Such a meal can be effectively used by believers together to remember him, and in a non-threatening way to introduce Jesus to others. Perhaps we remember and share one of his parables. Maybe we wonder aloud what he would do in a certain situation, or intentionally express our gratitude for the food God has provided. Like Jesus, we may confront wayward behavior or thinking, or entreat others to listen to what Jesus has to say.   In remembering, we give testimony to others about our own life experiences when the blood of this Jesus saved us from the folly of our own sin-induced slavery, when he opened our hearts to hear his Word even as death passed us by, when we finally understood what Jesus undertook to save us by becoming the sacrificial lamb for the salvation of those who believe, by dying in our place to pay for our wickedness. If, like the Jewish leadership, Jesus had maintained separation as a way to preserve his purity in the face of our sin-fed uncleanness, he would not condescend to eat with us, and we would have no hope. Instead, he shares a meal with us, and means for us to share it with others.

It’s true. When we share food around a table, we can always share Jesus too, especially as we remember all the times and many ways he has been present in our lives. At your daily table, Jesus is there, eager to share a meal with you, your family, and your guests. It is this common experience of eating in Jesus’ presence and remembering him that

  • gives us sanctuary from life’s storms
  • gently reminds us to be mindful of our thoughts, motives, and deeds
  • prompts us to carry out his co-mission to make disciples and be actively at work in the kingdom
  • and looks forward with fervent anticipation to the day of his return and the great feast we will share with him in heaven.

Next time we move on to the next chapter to address meals in the first century church.  Keep reading!

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

[1] John Paul Heil, The Meal Scenes in Luke Acts: An Audience-Oriented Approach, p.175.

#30. Remembering Jesus at the Table

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

As we get to the end of this chapter on the meals of Jesus, we find him celebrating Passover with his disciples.  This final meal of Jesus is perhaps the meal with which we are most familiar (Luke 22:7-38). Here we have Jewish pilgrims streaming into Jerusalem for Passover, a feast calling them to remember their salvation from their slavery in Egypt, and how God’s curse on the firstborn of the land passed them over when they sprinkled the blood of the sacrificed Passover lamb on their doorposts. In this regard, it is a memorial meal.

For Jesus, who repeatedly told his disciples the hour was not yet come during their three-year ministry, the hour has, finally, arrived. And Jesus explains to them how eagerly he has looked forward to this meal. He wants to celebrate together with his disciples one last time before he must suffer the pain, humiliation, and abandonment of the cross.

And so, they prepare and eat a Passover meal[1], in which Jesus instructs the disciples to remember him when they eat the bread and drink the wine at their meals. What will they remember?

  • They will remember the times Jesus healed people suffering from leprosy, bleeding, demonic possession, and paralysis.
  • They will remember his teachings to become servants working tirelessly on behalf of the hungry, poor, and vulnerable.
  • They will remember their own terror the night of a storm at sea, and the authority with which Jesus swiftly stilled the waters.
  • They will recall the many meals they shared with him, and the way he confronted sin and self-righteousness with repeated calls to repentance and humility.
  • They will remember that he told them about how these things (most specifically his life, death and resurrection) had to happen to fulfill Scripture.
  • They will remember this last meal with him, and that Jesus, as Lamb of God, was sacrificed to atone for their sin and reconcile them to the Father.
  • They will remember the pain of their denial and unbelief, and the wonder-filled joy that came when, just before returning to God, Jesus “opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).
  • And, they will do this remembering together over a shared meal. “Jesus wanted his disciples and everyone who came after him to remember what they had together… what it meant to be together. How the things he wanted them to do could not be done alone.”[2]

When is the last time you sat at a meal with loved ones and guests and spent some intentional time remembering the Person and work of Jesus Christ?

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

Note: It is my prayer that you are able to savor these meal stories, and that, in time, you will begin to feel the Holy Spirit nudging you to make your meals count.  Praying over the “remember” bullet points above is a good starting point.  And, as always, if you like what you read, please go to the LIKE and SHARE buttons inside the blog and CLICK!!

[1] Because of differences between the Gospel narratives, it is not certain that this meal took place on the Thursday night of Passover week, as is often assumed. I prefer to treat the Last Supper as a formal Passover meal.

[2] Nora Gallagher, The Sacred Meal (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009), p. 24.

29. Meals for Prodigals

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

Luke records several parables in chapter 15 about the lost condition of sinners and the redemption available following repentance. These culminate in the parable of the prodigal son, where Jesus describes a famously wayward son who returns home hungry after squandering his inheritance. By rights, his father need not take him back. But, this father has been watching for his son’s return, and sets in motion a grand feast to celebrate the son’s reinstatement in the family.

Here is a feast to note. When a lost loved one returns home with a changed heart, when s/he seeks forgiveness, our natural response should be one of joyful celebration through feasting. It’s a recurring theme throughout the meal stories in the Gospel of Luke; repentance, reconciliation, and redemption are available to all. Our place at God’s table is waiting for our change of heart, which is the catalyst leading to a reformed and responsive life, reenergized by eating the spiritual food Jesus provides.

Not long after preaching the “lost” parables, and getting closer to his last days in Jerusalem, Jesus finds himself in Jericho, peering up into a sycamore tree at Zacchaeus, the town’s chief tax collector. Looking him in the eyes, Jesus doesn’t bother asking Zacchaeus what he wants. Instead, Jesus tells Zacchaeus that he plans on staying at his house. One minute Zacchaeus is “lost” among the tree’s leaves, and the next he is jumping down with rejoicing. Immediately, another meal with “sinners” is in the works. It must have been a very happy meal indeed, marked by a festive welcome unlike any Jesus had experienced in the homes of the Pharisees.

Just imagine:  Jesus coming up to you and asking you to set a place at your dining room table for him!  What’s the menu?  Who else would you invite?  What would the table conversation be like?  Believe it or not, the day is coming when you WILL be seated at the wedding feast table with Jesus the bridegroom. Jesus the lamb of God.  The bread of life.  The Lord of your life.  Wow!  Jesus welcomes you, the prodigal, you, the sinner, with open arms, and the first order of business is a shared meal!

18. The Day Jesus Needed Tampons

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

Allow me to share a true story, one that dramatically changed how I think about the shared meal. I was at a conference in Seattle in June, about a year after starting to research the Christian practice of the shared meal. On this particular night a colleague and I headed down to the wharf to get some fish and fries. While getting on line at the outdoor fish stand, we were approached by a homeless woman for money for feminine products. A colleague replied,

“No.”

But, I was intrigued by the woman’s request because it had never once occurred to me how a homeless woman would manage such a monthly (and expensive) need. This woman was relatively young, maybe in her early thirties. One of her front teeth was chipped, and her skin showed obvious signs of vitamin deficiency, likely related to alcohol abuse. Not wanting to give her money for alcohol, I instead said,

“Well, let’s go to the drugstore and I will buy you what you need.”

The woman immediately argued that it was thirteen blocks to the nearest drugstore, and she’d just take the money. So I looked her right in the eyes and said,

“No, I am sorry. I can’t give you any money.”

She swore at me and walked away, and I found myself asking to her back,

“Wait a minute! Are you hungry?”

The woman stopped in her tracks, turned back toward me with a question on her face (my colleague did too), and I said,

“I am getting some fish and fries for supper. Do you want some supper?”

She eyed me with a suspicious hope and I managed to hold her gaze. Wrinkling up her forehead she said,

“Well, can I have a Coke too?”

I replied, “Sure. You can have fish and fries and a Coke, same as I am having.”

She came toward me then, and touched my arm with her filthy, scaly hands, and I all but recoiled from this physical contact that violated my “personal space”.[1] She quizzed me again,

“Can I have the biggest Coke they got?”

“Sure, the biggest Coke you can get”, I said.

By now we were next in line. I told her to go ahead and order, while informing the vendor that her order was on me. With great flourish and glee the woman ordered fish and fries and “the biggest Coke you got,” while ferociously tearing at the napkin dispenser to stuff napkins in her pocket. As I stepped up to make my order and pay, she turned to me, put her reeking arm around my shoulder and said,

“Lady, you made my day. You made my whole month. Thank you.”

And she skipped down the line to fill her Coke cup. Her order came up, and she snatched at the sack of food wondering aloud if she could get some ketchup. I motioned to the tables overlooking the harbor where ketchup bottles stood ready for the diners, but she said,

“No, no, no. I need them little packets of ketchup. Lots of ‘em.”

So the vendor gave her a fistful of ketchup packs while I filled my drink, looking around for my colleague amongst the tables, and, I admit, consciously hoping this woman would be on her way. And that’s what happened- she bounded off with her food and drink and napkins and ketchup. My colleague commented that I was an easy target while I sat down congratulating myself that the situation had turned out so well. I went to bed that night content that God had placed a need in front of me and I had responded with kindness and generosity- I had loved my “neighbor” in an uncomfortable situation.

I was awakened by a voice around 2:00 a.m. I remember sitting up in the bed, frightened that someone had broken into the room. I confirmed that I was awake, not dreaming and then felt a shadow at the end of the bed. There was Someone in my room; Jesus was here, and I had nowhere to hide. But very gently, he repeated the question with which he’d awakened me,

“What was her name?”

“What? Whose name?”

And the Lord distinctly and forthrightly said,

“What was the name of the woman at the fish stand?”

Then he was gone. And my heart welled up with an overwhelming wretchedness. I had bought a hungry woman some food. But, even after more than a year of study on the Christian practice of the shared meal, I had failed to dignify the woman’s existence by asking her name, and inviting her to sit with me for supper. I had not once thought to pray with her or for her, to introduce her to the Jesus I know and love. I had helped a hungry person by sharing some money. But I had not shared a meal or had any serious conversation about God and his love with this distressed woman whose hunger was deep. That night I learned that while hunger comes in all shapes and sizes, and that non-judgmental love for the stranger is itself a hard and strange calling, we are called nonetheless to attend to the needs of those Jesus places in our path, even when it means sharing an evening meal at close quarters around a table with someone who suffers from addiction and needs a bath almost as badly as she needs Christ. I gave her a meal, but I neglected to tell her about the coming Feast.

I tell you this story because we all need to think about why our participation in Christian practices like the shared meal may take much practice. It is precisely through these shared practices Christians can “more fully…understand their shared life of response to God’s active presence in Christ and to embody God’s grace and love to others amid the complexities of contemporary life”[2] and how they can help us think “about how a way of life that is deeply responsive to God’s grace takes actual shape among human beings.”[3] What is even more important, the Seattle story unveils a truth about who is welcome at God’s Table. “Jesus intentionally ate with those at the margins…as an act of compassion but also of empowerment.”[4]

Shared meals afford us all these things: helping us understand our shared lives together, responding to God’s presence, embodying his grace, and recognizing and empowering the marginalized. Thus, the shared meal constitutes a critically important practice we should not ignore, because they provide a regular opportunity for becoming “deeply responsive” to God’s provision, nourishment, and grace. If you have been hungering for a change in the way you live your life, start at the table. Invite. Prepare. Provide. Sit. Eat. Relax. Converse. Listen. Invest in the other lives at the table. Pray together. Read Scripture. Forgive. Reconcile. Be forgiven. Laugh. Cry. Share. Live. And, God himself will be amongst you to confirm its rightness. It is time to clear your table of mail and projects and get started. And, the best place to start is with Jesus himself, and the meals he shared.

[1] I say “personal space” because it is a cultural norm in North America to be physically “distant” from strangers, giving us the “power” to decide who is invited into that space. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day weren’t any different-they kept the “unclean” away and criticized Jesus for doing the opposite. I admit to being a little germ-conscious, so hugs, and touching, and handshaking have always made me uncomfortable. You can ask my friend Joy, the hugger. After five years I can now hug her back with enthusiasm. These things take practice!

[2] Dorothy C. Bass, “Introduction,” in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), p. 7.

[3] Craig Dykstra and Dorothy C. Bass, “A Theological Understanding of Christian Practices,” in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), p. 15.

[4]Smith, G.T., A Holy Meal: The Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church, p. 77.

 

15. Evening: the New Day Starts Now

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

The truth is, we find getting together at the table (even just getting the food into the house) a practical challenge in a today’s world. In Eden, God invited Adam and Eve to eat all sorts of plant life.  God fed them well.  There was, of course, that one forbidden food.  Now, forbidden foods have a way of not being good for us.  A diabetic must avoid sweets.  Walnuts or shrimp are life threatening for people with a nut or seafood allergy.  But, Adam and Eve, driven by what Griffiths calls the vice of curiosity, made a fatal mistake for all of Creation.[1]  The intimacy we had with God was broken, and not until Jesus came- eating and drinking, suffering, dying, rising, forgiving our sins, and inviting us to the feast of the Lamb-did we have any hope for restored relationship with God.

The table, then, at home and at church (table and Table) is the place of invitation, nourishment, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, learning, growing, and going.  It is as much about relationship building and disciple-making as it is about food.  In both instances, we come hungry for food and companionship with one another and with God.  In both instances, we are invited and fed by something or Someone who had to die for us to live.  God’s Word fills us.  In both instances, we leave with a co-mission to go and do likewise for our neighbor.  And, in both instances, we can stand with Jesus and proclaim “that we live by ‘every word that comes from the mouth of God,’ because that word has everything to do good things, with real nourishment for body and soul.  With the eyes of faith, Christ comes to be known as that word, incarnate, embodied, the Word of God, present then and now.  Christ is then the invitation, the way we have of re-creating that living relationship of intimacy with God that the original humans knew in the garden.”[2]

 Rethinking the Practice of a Shared Evening Meal

I believe we need to be at the table each night, fully present and alive to the invitation, provision, and gratitude a meal together involves, with a keen insight that compels us to keep families knit together and to regularly weave strangers into our midst. In our homes and churches, the time spent at the table, especially in the evening, is never wasted.  It slows time down, it reconnects us with those we love as well as with the guest, it provides a shared training ground for life’s challenges, and it generatively introduces the next generation to the saving ways and nourishment of a life in Christ.  Perhaps most importantly, I suggest that it affords us the time for opening a new day together because the rhythms and predictability and rightness of the Christian practices transform the way we view the world and time.

Dorothy Bass considers how attending to the practices shapes a day in her book Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time.[3]  This book unlocked for me an entirely new perspective on how a regular “day” could flow.  Our modern notion is that each day starts at sunrise and continues until bedtime. However, a careful study of the creation story in Genesis 1 literally flips a day on its head; God created, there was night, then day.  In practice, then, a new day actually begins in the evening.  Can you believe it?

After Adam and Eve sinned, God was strolling in the garden in the cool of the day looking for them.  Evening was a time for walking with God.   Imagine the implications of making it a regular faith practice to restructure your “day” so that a new day begins as you get home from work or school.  Then you can consider the place of the evening meal as a shared practice from the ancient Jewish custom of beginning the new day in the evening.

Gathering family, friends, and strangers around the table for supper might actually be considered a corporate event for greeting the new day.  In other words, the evening meal is a threshold we cross together, a natural transition from the work and school day that is behind us to the new day ahead, filled with all of God’s creative possibilities.  At the evening meal, we gather together to be nourished, but not just with food.  We prepare to spend the evening walking and resting with God as Adam and Eve did, putting aside a day in which we may have done or said something we should not have, or failed to do or say something we should have.   God intends for the day to be done.  And at the table, together, we transition to a new day in Christ that is immediately ahead of us.

I don’t know about you, but this was a revolutionary idea for me, that nighttime be less a time of recovery and more about active preparation.  For me, getting home from work was always about wrapping myself in the comforting insulation of house and family.  It was a way to hibernate and shield myself from the outside world, to recover from this day, and to literally shed this day’s responsibilities.  In doing so, getting a nightly meal on the table always seemed just one more obligation in a long day’s to-do list that included work, laundry, packing lunches, helping with homework, paying bills, and church committee meetings. Next time we will dig into this idea of new day like hungry teens into a pizza!

Julie A.P. Walton, Ph.D.

LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT ALL THIS!  IT HELPS AS I W RITE AND REVISE 🙂

Featured Image credit:  K.Richardson, 2016

[1] Paul J. Griffiths, The Vice of Curiosity: An Essay on Intellectual Appetite (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 2006). In this short treatise, Griffiths discusses the darker nature of curiosity as a means to owning and controlling knowledge for power, the same kind of appetite Adam and Eve gave into.

[2] Cathy C. Campbell, Stations of the Banquet (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2003), p. 13.

[3] Dorothy C. Bass, Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000).

14. A Significant Motif

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

So, we can see that as a custom, the regular, planned, healthy shared meal at home is difficult to accomplish on a consistent basis without someone being intentional about it; the family supper and the church family supper are less common events in these days of compressed and multi-layered schedules.  But, if we consider the shared meal (especially the evening meal) as a practice, in particular a Christian practice, it then has the potential for both common and sacred relationships in the daily lives of believers.  So even though it may often seem like a lost practice, we should at least consider if it is an important practice in need of attention, intention, and restoration; it is time to explore why eating together matters.

People must eat, and every single thing we eat was once a living entity as plant or animal.  So there is always this built-in truth that for us to eat and live, something else must be sacrificed.  It is interesting that Jesus started his ministry not with fortifying food, but a fast.  In Matthew 4 Jesus fasts forty days in the wilderness.  Now, a forty-day fast will leave most humans at death’s door, famished, literally starving.  How fitting that Satan’s first tempting volley is to entice Jesus to eat bread.  While it feels both farcical and predictable that Satan would dare tempt the Bread of Life with earthly bread, we must remember that Satan knew that Jesus was both man and God, and appealed here to Jesus’ human need to eat. But, Jesus responds, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)[1]

There is a significant motif here that must not be missed.  Where do Christians come together, on a regular basis to be nourished, satisfied, and sustained?  It is at the Table.[2]  At this Table, we eat the bread that is Christ’s body, and drink the cup that is his blood.  Someone has died so we might live.  It is a central Christian practice for believers to share this meal, as it confirms and affirms our identity as God’s people living out our faith in a family of believers. In the early Church, Paul puts it this way: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16 NRSV).  Paul emphasizes the shared nature of Communion.  In a way, it is the family meal for the people of God.

In our sacred meals at church, we live out, again through shared practice, the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  Side by side around this sacred Table we are invited in our hunger to partake, in our wounded-ness to be healed, and in our loneliness to be a welcome part of the Body.  As one Body we look inward to Christ the Word, remember who he is, the sacrifice he became, and the grace with which he’s invited us, and we eat together. As we leave this Table, still side-by-side, we are forgiven, fed, and fortified to look outward beyond the Table, our eyes opened to see Christ in one another, and to take his gospel to a hungry, wounded, and lonely world.  Our shared meal at the Table “is specifically an act by which we are enabled to discern the world, to see and respond in a manner that is consistent with the reign of God.  Our vision for the world is renewed and we are oriented with the will and purposes of God…[it is this] Supper [that should] foster a capacity to see and act with courage, integrity, love, and justice in the world…”[3]

In a curious way, this suggests what should also happen at home. We meet around the common family table to be fed, a shared meal for our physical body, as well as sustenance for our social and familial needs to connect, and also, because for Christian families, to share God’s Word, that is, Christ the Bread of Life, is to grow together as a family in intimacy with God.  This is the true ‘tie that binds’ and strengthens us two and three times a day to do God’s work in a hurting world.  So, in daily meals at home and common meals at church we practice all that it means to consume both our daily bread and God’s Word in one another’s company.  In return, we benefit from all the shared meal has to offer-a safe place to BE- to belong, be heard, be nourished, be affirmed, be forgiven, and be taught.

In short, the table and the Table both share the common elements of a Christian practice: we are invited to partake of what only God can provide.  In gratitude we are nourished and formed into more godly people for work in God’s kingdom.  It is beautifully simple.  At least, it should be.

Let’s Eat!  Together!

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

[1] Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, where Moses reminds Israel of the manna God provided to quell their hunger in the desert that they might know that life depends on every word, in particular the Ten Commandments, that comes from God’s mouth.

[2] For the purposes of this book, Table refers to the sacred meal of the Lord’s Supper, while table connotes the place where any common meal is shared.

[3] Smith, G.T., A Holy Meal: The Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church, p. 74.

13. Cooking: a Lost Practice

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

I am old enough to have had a middle school home economics course in which we (girls only that is) learned some cooking basics, long before the arrival of “baby” carrots.I remember learning how to make cooked carrots. Within two years, girls were taking shop class and boys were learning to cook, and I was being encouraged in the high school arena to set my sights high, because women were now truly free of the “bondage” of homemaking to be and do anything they wanted.  Today, life skills classes are rare.   Children are more apt to take technology classes than they are home economics.  Ironically, it’s  much easier today to find a recipe on the Internet than it is to follow its directions.

Despite my schooling, however, I was still in for some truly big surprises when I married because I had learned little at home about food preparation.  With almost no money my husband and I had much to learn about how to plan menus and meals on a budget, how to shop specials and maximize coupon values, how to read labels and stretch meals by making soups or casseroles that also served as work lunches later in the week.  Neither of us knew how to use a slow cooker, or make a healthy sack lunch, or can or freeze foods, or how to make traditional foods in healthier ways.  We didn’t even know how much milk to buy for two people, or what kind of milk to get, and had to phone home for directions when making our first pot roast (we promptly received a Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook the next Christmas which is still in use to this day).  We only knew how to make macaroni and cheese from a box, and had no clue how to grow our own garden or process its abundance for year-round consumption.

However, just out of graduate school, starting my first job, and embracing all it meant for a woman to be highly educated and employed, my biggest adjustment came with the realization that I had no sense of what it meant to serve with any shred of self-sacrifice.  After six years of university food service, I had never once considered that getting food on the table for my own family might take time, planning, sacrifice, and a less me-centered attitude. It took me by surprise (shock might be a better term) to discover that having a somewhat food-averse spouse meant that, unless I was willing to live on Cocoa Puffs and frozen pepperoni pizza, the responsibility for getting food from store to pantry, and from pantry to table was going to lie squarely and solely on my shoulders for the next fifty years or more.[1]  I was overwhelmed and far, far under-prepared for this role.  What’s more, income from our entry-level jobs in Washington, D.C. did not bring in enough money for entertaining others at our table once our tithe and living expenses were covered.[2]  Not that it mattered; I did not know how to cook for a crowd anyway.

Not long after, as a new mother, I had no idea what to feed this little girl after she was weaned, nor how much.  Is it true she shouldn’t have cow’s milk until after her first birthday?  What should we do when she refuses a food?  Is there a way to prevent her father’s food aversions from rubbing off on her? How should we teach her acceptable behavior at the dinner table?  What foods are dangerous for toddlers? How in heaven’s name is this supposed to work?  There we were with a baby, living far from our own families.  I thank God for my dietitian friend Eileen at church, whom I kept on speed dial.  She helped set me on a path of understanding about food, foodways, service to my family, and the importance of the shared meal.[3]

Today, our daughter lives in Paris. As a matter of fact, I am writing this piece from Paris. Just last weekend, the two of us took a Market Cooking class from Chef Lise at La Cuisine Paris.   lacuisine-paris    We toured the local market, selecting duck legs, 3 fine cheeses, beet root, white asparagus, blood oranges, strawberries, turnip, and several fresh herbs to take back to the kitchen-classroom and learn how to make a French feast, including duck a l’orange (see the featured image). It was a wonderful day of sharing the kitchen and table with each other and 6 strangers.

I encourage you to start cooking more often.  Be on the lookout for easy and affordable recipes that you can use when you invite someone to a simple meal.  If you have children at home, involve them in the planning, shopping, and preparation of the meal- it is an important way of teaching them about hospitality and sharing.

In the next post, we will consider how the shared meal (especially the evening meal) as a practice, in particular a Christian practice, has the potential for both common and sacred relationships in the daily lives of believers.

Until then, bon appetit!

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

[1] Lest you think poorly of my husband, let me defend him here.  Although he cannot cook and his tastes and texture issues create significant limits, he is the world’s best dishwasher.  We have always shared kitchen responsibilities with unspoken devotion; we share shopping, I prep and cook, he cleans.  It is a beautiful arrangement.  Chapter six will explore these duties in the context of family and food.

[2] I should note here that our apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland was directly across the street from my husband’s office.  As I was not yet working full time, my husband would frequently call around 11:45 a.m. to say he was bringing a coworker home for lunch.  I quickly learned to put out a simple meal that didn’t break the bank, and have always been grateful to him for helping me learn (to unbend really) to trust God to make the “bread and fish” multiply so that there was always more than enough to go around.

[3] As an example, Eileen invited me to drive out to a farm to pick broccoli one day.  I had never known that the “U-Pick” concept extended beyond apples, strawberries, and Christmas trees.  When I got home with about eight pounds of broccoli I had to undertake a crash course in prepping it all for the freezer.  We were graced with months of fresh farm-to-table and highly nutritious broccoli that winter.  It is still a family favorite to this day.

 

12. Is There Food on Your Table?

~ This Side of the River ~ Leave a comment

In Acts 2:42, we are told about the first believers:  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… All the believers were together and had everything in common (v. 44)… They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people.” (v. 46-47)

A study of the communal meal practice of the first century church reveals a radically different model from our present-day attitudes toward shared meals.[1]  Why did their shared meal practices disappear over time, and why, today, do our foodways and mealways look so different?  A foodway is an accepted term that describes the habits and practices of food consumption and production in a cultural, social, or economic context, and shows us “how societies construct notions of self and community.” [2],[3]

The North American approach to food has shifted most dramatically in the past forty years, and seems absurdly paradoxical even for Christians because our foodways swing between two poles, one of apathy and ignorance, the other of obsessive and compulsive control. We now have 24-7 cooking shows on television, yet very few of us actually cook anymore.  We say we have no time to eat, but most of us are overweight, a symptom of eating too much too often.  Time is scarce, while cheap (and unhealthy) food is overabundant.  We spend millions of dollars each year on dieting (i.e. we spend more in an attempt to eat less).  Some of us overdo, while others do nothing; some of us are indifferent to our health and healthcare, while others’ anxiety about their health creates fanatical control issues.  Most people shun regular exercise while others spend far too many self-absorbed hours in the gym. We either become overly fastidious about the quality of our food sources, or we consume vast amounts of processed foods we know are not good for us.  (As one example, boxed cereal, a highly processed food, once promoted as just one part of a healthy breakfast, has become the default nighttime ‘meal’ when we are short on time, energy, or creativity.)  Our dining and kitchen tables are repositories for mail and school papers rather than places for a shared meal.

Since the dawn of time, people have been hunters, gatherers, farmers and shepherds.  Today we are much more disconnected from understanding how food reaches our tables.  At home and at church, we take pride in our manicured lawns and landscaping, but rarely consider using the church property to grow food for others with no land.  It seems that we are hungry, but not for food, and that Christians in particular need to think and pray about their own selected foodways and mealways.

Thoughtfulness can go a long way to help us find a healthy middle ground where food and meals are concerned.

“To grow food and eat in a way that is mindful of God is to collaborate with God’s own primordial sharing of life in the sharing of food with each other.  It is to participate in forms of life and frameworks of meaning that have their root and orientation in God’s caring ways with creation… Food is about the relationships that join us to the earth, fellow creatures, loved ones and guests, and ultimately God.  How we eat testifies to whether we value the creatures we live with and depend upon… When our eating is mindful, we celebrate the goodness of  [all creation has to offer], and…acknowledge and honor God as the giver of every good and perfect gift.”[4]   In other words, we must relearn what it means to care about, and care for all creation, including ourselves.

Perhaps even more importantly, our inattention to meals and cooking means we have stopped teaching our children about foodways and meal practices (mealways).[5]  In my experiential nutrition class a few years ago, I handed a bunch of fresh carrots from the farmers’ market to a student to peel.  I can still see him standing at the sink, carrots in hand, exclaiming with confusion that these could not possibly be carrots, because in his world all carrots were the size of one’s pinky finger and had no peel or green leafy tops.

Fortunately, young people are beginning to show a resurgent interest in healthy (and just) ways to grow, prepare, and share food!

[1] A subsequent chapter discusses the meal practices of the early Church in detail.

[2] Angel F. Mendez-Montoya, The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), p.6.

[3] I have coined the term “mealway” to describe the general habits and practices surrounding how a society or culture consumes meals.

[4] Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating (New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. xiii, 4

[5] This is a critically important point, as we will see.  Much is learned in the kitchen and around the table that actually has little to nothing to do with food.