the meal
Welcome to the conversation. It’s good to be back in Voxtropolis after the problems with slowness.
I love food but I don’t love it nearly as much if I have to eat it on my own. eating then simply becomes something I have to do to sustain myself, but when I eat with others, food and conversation are a delightful fruit and occupation of a shared meal.
My end-of-the-day reading at the moment is Playing for Pizza by John Grisham, a story set in Italy and overflowing with food. Having just been to Italy on holiday this Summer, I very much appreciate the scenes being drawn by the author. Rather than laying out in the sun as human barbecues, my wife and I loved to sit in the local cafes, looking out on a lake, with some torte and a drink … and a book to read.
One of the things I decided to weave through the holiday was to read through Luke’s Gospel; I had read a comment in N T Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus suggesting there are eight meals in this Gospel and so I thought to check out which these were: ‘the week of the first creation is over, and Easter is the beginning of the new creation. God’s new world order has arrived,’ (Wright). I won’t include them here but Luke did make a wonderful read at a long sitting, and whilst there are the meals, there are lots of other references to food and eating running through the verses.
The reason I’m sharing these things though, is because I am beginning to prepare a message for Sunday. The worship service is the beginning of something new - a shorter service followed by a communal meal. I have more than an inkling that this is going to be something important for the congregation, to the extent of possibly defining who and what it is meant to be.
I have been very much affected by an icon alternatively called The Hospitality of Abraham and The Trinity Icon by Andrei Rublev (see below). The icon represents the three travellers received as guests by Abram and Sarai in Genesis 18, traditionally thought of as being God visiting the elderly couple.
I have loved this icon ever since being introduced to it some seven or eight years ago, for in it I find God welcoming me to the table - note the space at the front of the icon - to spend some time with him, to be. Recently, it has become my breakfast table, the first place I sit at the beginning of my day. The welcomed stranger becomes the host!
This thought has been reinforced by N T Wright’s claim that Jesus replaced the temple with a meal, his ‘own alternative symbol, the kingdom-feast, the new exodus feast,’ and that ‘Those who shared the meal with him were the people of the renewed covenant, […] Grouped around him, they constituted the true eschatological Israel.’
The meal, for the people coming together on Sunday, comes as a promise for who they might be, welcomers of guests with whom they will share good things at the table of God, welcomers of the strangers who becomes the hosts (think of what that might mean).
More than simply eating food together, it is a living picture of the kingdom of God, an icon, or window into the greater reality of God present with us.
This is simply a first attempt to put some thoughts down that I will hope to be adding to as the week continues. What do you think?
