I spent part of yesterday afternoon at West Edmonton Mall, having driven a couple of teenagers in from Leduc to ride the rides at Galaxyland. It didn’t make sense for me to come back to Leduc and go and pick them up later, so, I brought my computer and a couple of books and camp out in one of The Mall’s food courts.
Wow, what a busy place! People coming and going, families, friends, a microcosm of society – all ages, races, etc. And it’s not like there was a rush time, it was busy the whole afternoon that I sat there.
Over it all was … the noise of connection. There was actually more sound in the air from the countless conversations than the music, bells and whistles of the amusement park.
In the food court, this all happens around … (you guessed it) … food [not necessarily the healthiest of food, but food none the less].
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Our bodies are complex machines which need a regular replenishment of nutrients to continue to operate, so we can live and move and have our being. Since at least the dawn of humanity, I suspect that we have understood the value of community when it comes to our meals. It may have started as basic pack instinct where there is safety in numbers, but it would have evolved into an enjoyment of the meal experience that is more than simply consuming the meal itself.
Those who have any spent time in the world of dating and courtship know that a meal – or even a cup of coffee - is often the vehicle (or excuse) for a social setting. That is also most certainly true in less hormonal based environments. Even at church, we often put the coffee on as a background to inviting people to visit with each other after a worship service. It is a common lament of the modern age that families don’t sit down for meals as regularly as they used to.
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We can learn a lot about Jesus and the kind of approach to life he had by looking at his choice of dinner guests. Ignoring the concept of a head table at a banquet, there is a real equality that comes into play when people share a common meal. The bread and cup have a uniting effect.
We see that in the gospels, times when Jesus was chastised for eating with so-called outcasts and sinners. Jesus choice to have a meal with Zaccheaus, the despised local roman tax official; Jesus complimented the outcast woman who crashed the dinner party and anointed his head with scented oil; Jesus told a story about a banquet so inviting that every highway and byway was searched to be sure that the tables would be filled.
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And even on Jesus final night of freedom, at what would turn out to be his Last Supper, he broke bread with both loyalist and betrayer alike. In a room of friends and disciples who were a coming together of men and women from various walks of life to follow Jesus in whom they found a common longing fulfilled.
Judas and Mary, Thomas and Peter – united around a common meal.
The oldest account of the impact of that last supper, doesn’t come from the gospels which tell us in narrative form what was happening, but from one of the letters of the Apostle Paul. The gospels didn’t take written form until at least the year 71 or so. Paul was travelling and writing in the 50s. Now that is still a couple of decades after the first, last supper, but the letter of First Corinthians is our oldest source. By the 50s, it must have become a common practice within the early church to come together for worship and food. Paul was concerned that in some circles the spiritual meaning of what they were doing was being lost, so he wrote a reminder of what the common meal was all about and why it was important for the church to remember it as part of their origin and their common story:
1st CORINTHIANS 11:17-26
17 Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. 19Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. 20When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. 21For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. 22What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
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