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Eating Together
Please refer to the conversation cards sheet above.
Dwelling Together
Luke 14:7-24
7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. 17 At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ 19 Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ 20 Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ 22 And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ 23 Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”
Are there any details that stick out to you?
Do they highlight anything to you that you haven’t noticed before?
Learning Together
A Free Banquet
Jesus taught in parables such as this, parables that make little or no sense to the practical justice of humans. If you are into worthiness, competition and rewards, the gospel won’t make much sense.
Richard Rohr, 1995, Radical Grace, Cincinnati, St Anthony Messenger Press, 42
What makes it hard (for me or others) to accept the unearned invitation to the banquet feast of God’s love?
Hospitality
Shared life is a way of being present to another person so that another person can be present to you. It is a quality of being, of living. A sharing attitude makes room inside of you so that others can crawl in and you can crawl out into them. You become touched and touchable, supporting and supportable.
Richard Rohr, 1995, Radical Grace, Cincinnati, St Anthony Messenger Press, 235-236.
Rohr talks about a sharing attitude that makes room for others to crawl in and that makes me ‘touched and touchable, supporting and supportable’. Is this a comfortable idea, or one that challenges me?
Are there people in your churches who you have seen this transformation in? What about those in the wider community with the potential for this change?
The Ferocious Power of Hospitality
So, like the exile Paul, we should eat communally with both fellow believers and with unbelieving friends as a missional practice to “prove” the power of the gospel. And like the exile Daniel, we should eat responsibly and healthily to demonstrate the inherent goodness of life in God. In addition, like the exile Joseph, we should work at ensuring that the poor, the marginalized, the dispossessed, and victims of an unjust global economy have enough to eat. Those facing loneliness, poverty, or alienation must not be strangers to us. The God of love and compassion is calling followers to break down the walls of isolation and alienation that entrap so many people.
…One Christmas we took our children to an inner-city church that provides a free Christmas dinner for the homeless.
The next day, a teenage friend of my daughter Kendall asked how our Christmas was. We told her about serving the poor at St John’s. She thought about this for a while and then asked, “So you served homeless people their dinner? Was there, like, protective glass between you and them?”
Michael Frost, 2006, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, Peabody, Hendrickson, 171-172.
What protective glass have I erected? Who do I welcome to my table? Who do I exclude?
Do I feel like an exile? What do I feel excluded from? How could this help me approach others?
Gossiping the Gospel
Michael Green uses the phrase “gossiping the gospel” to explain how the early Christians witnessed to their faith. Green tells us:
This must often have been not formal preaching, but the informal chattering to friends and chance acquaintances, in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls. They were everywhere gossiping the gospel; they did it naturally, enthusiastically, and with the conviction of those who are not paid to say that sort of thing. Consequently, they were taken seriously, and the movement spread, notably among the lower classes.
Michael Green, 1970, Evangelism in the Early Church, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 173.
What opportunities do I have to ‘gossip the gospel’
Where am I already known?
Reflecting Together
Reflecting together on the importance of hospitality.
Gathering wisdom from the group:
- What are your ‘food stories’?
Outline what the responsibilities of each role are.
- Which role is more comfortable for me?
- In which role do I encounter Christ?
- How might each role be used in evangelism?
| Host | Guest |
Group Activities
Group Activity
- Imagine you’re putting on a meal for a group of people.
- Begin by deciding who this group of people are (based on your own experience and context). For example, it might be an Alpha group, a group of homeless men and women, an established community group (e.g. of older people, single people, bereaved people, young parents, ex-prisoners, recovering alcoholics, etc…)
- What will you do to ensure these people feel welcomed and included?
- How will you put them at ease?
- What do you need to consider, and what practical steps do you need to take, to ensure that you are a good host?
- How will Christ be encountered in this meal?
Feedback and Discussion
If time allows, and if the group desires it, spend some time discussing the group activity:
- What wisdom and insights did it inspire?
- What was helpful / difficult?
- Did the goup think of themselves only as hosts in the scenario, or also as guests?
Reflecting together on table fellowship and hospitality in the Bible
Suggested content from Christine Pohl’s Making Room (1999):
- In Luke 14:15-24, four groups – ‘the poor, maimed, blind and lame – are drawn into the celebration… Jesus challenges narrow definitions and dimensions of hospitality and presses them outward to include those with whom one least desires to have connections’ (Pohl, 1999: 21).
Suggested content from Bevans & Schroeder, Prophetic Dialogue (2011):
- Jesus witnessed to the reign of God ‘through the boundary-breaking practice of table fellowship with sinners, tax collectors, and other people marginal to his society… The primary image Jesus used for the kingdom was table fellowship, the subject of many of his parables and the object of many meals he shared with outcasts and sinners. Through this image Jesus announced that God was inviting everyone – everyone without exception – to communion with him’ (Bevans & Schroeder, 2011: 103).
- ‘Jesus breaks taboos by eating with the tax collector Levi (Luke 5:29-30), having his feet washed by the woman during a meal (Luke 7:36-38), and going into the home of a tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 15:5-6)’ (Bevans & Schroeder, 2011: 104).
Suggested content from Paul Bayes, The Table (2019):
- So there’s this table. It’s a simple table but it’s well made, because it was made by Carpenter. The guy who made it is a poor man, but he’s generous. He offers a place at the table to anyone who wants to sit and eat. This is a table that started in one place but now it can stretch down every street, and it can go to every home, if people want to sit there. It’s a table for meeting. It’s a table for talking around. It’s a table for laughing.
Most of the table for eating. - But it’s not a high table you don’t have to qualify to sit there. It’s for anyone. The poor man sits there, and wherever people sit, he sits beside them. You can sit there too, with the poor man, and look across the table, at people you like and people you don’t like, at people who agree with you, and at people who disagree with you.
- Now is a good time for this. The Church of England used to be in a spiritually dangerous place: we were cushioned by privilege, we were in the middle of our society and at the top. Now, in this England, we’re on at the edge and underneath – marginalised, not always taken seriously, sometimes mocked. That’s good news for us. Because on the edge and underneath is where people are.
- Pope Francis says ‘An evangelising community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives: it bridges distances, it is willing to base itself if necessary, and embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.’ The Bishop of Rome’s vision is my vision for the church among the churches for all the churches as we gather again on the edge. (The Table, knowing Jesus: Prayer, friendship, Justice. Paul
Bayes, pages 2, 4).
If time allows, the group could consider:
- Who are the poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame in my context?
- What could a new way of ‘eating together’ look like in my context?
- What boundaries could I break through?
Prayer Activity
As we prepare to leave this place, we pause to reflect on:
- The table
- The food
- The guest
- The host
Select one verse that speaks to you and sit with it using the Lectio Divina method described on the handout. Eat some food slowly as you feed on the Word. A time of open prayer and sharing will follow this quiet time.
The table
Psalm 23:5
‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows’.
Luke 24:30
‘When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them’.
The food
John 6:35
‘Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”’.
Isaiah 25:6
‘On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear’.
The guest
Luke 19:7
‘All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner”’.
Mark 10:45
“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
The host
Matthew 22:9
‘Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’
Luke 14:13
‘When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind’.