The question that I can’t dismiss is this, “If sharing meals was so central and characteristic to the mission of Jesus and the first century Church, then why don’t we eat together anymore?”
I mean, I hardly catch more than four meals a week at the dinner table with my OWN family, and WE ARE INTENTIONAL about eating together. Potlucks are periodic (usually annual) events at many churches, but they aren’t daily events, for sure. I’ve heard people shrug off “social” meals beause they aren’t “deep enough”, but I still think that there is something important about eating regularly with your community. Even when it’s only “social”, it continues to provide the appropriate social space for people to practice sharing bits of stories about who they are. Those stories become scripts and those scripts become identities. So, just plain ol’, common, “social” meals generate identities grounded in a community. The meal sharing community affirms or challenges these pictures of identity. Experienced members of the community have the opportunity to edit and revise the unhealthy scripts and identity pictures of younger members while they nurture the life-giving, healthy scripts. Life is renewed and revisioned at the table.
I think there are so many experiences that we can unearth and share in the common meal. I’m excited to begin exploring the possibilities that the shared-table presents us as God’s people. I’m eager to exegete my own life and practice and to discover the previously overlooked (by me) meal practices of Jesus and his followers.
Why do you think people don’t eat together anymore?